Q&A: (The Bad Plus)

The members of The Bad Plus: They are not playing entirely jazz when they're covering Nirvana and Pixies songs, but then again, they are not entirely rock since they are playing music within the context of a piano trio. The Bad Plus is just a band that likes to play good music.

Featuring Reid Anderson on bass, Ethan Iverson on piano and David King on drums, The Bad Plus recently finished recording its sophomore work, "Give," following the acclaimed debut work on Columbia Records entitled "These are the Vistas."

"Give" is a series of 12 songs, mostly original pieces, with covers of tunes by The Pixies, jazz saxman Ornette Coleman and Black Sabbath.

The trio, known for its expansive musical tastes that range from indie rock bands and bebop groups to obscure Russian composers and hip-hop pioneers, play off the emotionalism within the art of improvisation like a small jazz group. On the other hand, the group's sound encompasses more than just the sound of jazz and its original compositions have become recorded documentation to its many influences.

The Bad Plus makes note that the recording is free from any overdubs, which is a rarity these days. It also admits to two edits, the first in the coda of "Neptune (The Planet)" where Iverson played the wrong note and the second being King's intro into his original song "Layin' a Strip for the Higher-Self State Line," which was lifted from another take.

Members of The Bad Plus are all originally from the Midwest - Anderson and King from Minnesota and Iverson from Wisconsin. King heard Anderson sing at a junior high school rock band concert, and by 1989 the two high school kids were playing free jazz in various restaurants around the state. In 1990, King and Anderson met Iverson and officially formed the group in 2000 after years of work on separate musical projects. In 2001, a gig at the Village Vanguard in New York City led to the group's deal with Columbia.

The Beach Reporter recently sat down with King and talked about the new album, his song-writing process and his top-five albums.

The Beach Reporter: You wrote the opening track with its heavy thick groove. As a drummer, do you usually start off with a basic drum pattern or do you work off a piano?

David King: I write on piano and I think most people when they compose are thinking of the general feel or picture of the piece of music so I have a groove or a concept in mind for sure but it most certainly starts as a melody. That song is very field-specific so I most certainly had that idea in mind.

Since The Bad Plus is so musical, do you write out your compositions in detail or does the group come up with the songs together in an improvisational setting?

We all really do write separately and very composed pieces. We all put our two cents in. Usually the composer gets the right of way at all times. We are somehow able to balance three kinds of different personalities and at the end of the day we make sure the composer is pleased with what's going on. Fundamentally, we like what each other does so much that for me, I tend to leave a lot of room in my tunes so that I can tell Reid, "Do the stuff I like here." It's something that's literally nonspecific. Literally nonspecific, I like that, I'm literally nonspecific. Can you put that as the title of this piece? In fact, we were looking at USA Today today. USA Today today - another title and there was another great title of an article and I have to read this to you. "Violence in Iraq Slows U.S. Work." What do you think about that?

Wow.
They really gotta calm down over there; we gotta build some stuff. Wooo! OK, sorry. So, yeah, we write the songs, hell, we write them, nobody can stop us.

No, no one can. You guys are mad. So something like 'Frog and Toad' where the bass line seems to be intertwined with a bass line on the piano was your idea?

Yes, that's very written. That was again a concept. I have a 3-year-old daughter and I read her the "Frog and Toad" books which l love, and it was based on the idea of a cinematic vision of the two characters relating to each other. I like to leave room for people to improvise in not the most forecasted places. We are always looking for unorthodox ways and forms of improvising to keep us on our toes.

When you are listening to music, is it a challenge to turn off the musicians' ears and listen to music from the listener's perspective?

I think that we balance each other in that way. I think the three of us listen to music in different ways but the common ground we find is whether or not there is a good balance between a strong visceral energy and some musical concepts. There is nothing we like less than people who are showboating chops and not really pulling you along a journey of some sort, emotionally, but at times we are really unsatisfied with just the pure, raw visceral thing, too. Our favorite jazz is from the most emotionally powerful eras where it was really guys just throwing down.

How would you describe your relationship with the drums?

Well, I'm very interested in the infinite nature of it. The sonority of drum sets, it's a wide-open thing. The dynamic capability is infinite and there's so much melodic capability obviously in a more abstract form. I'm really interested in the idea of contributing melody not just being in the traditional supportive role even though I really love doing that, too, for one measure or two measures during a 10-minute song.

What?

That's a joke, not a funny one. No, but I feel that my place is one of equal value in the melodic interaction, too, and Reid and Ethan are very open to that. I'm not a drum jock; I really want to hear the music in their playing. I don't get excited about just chops. To me, that's about a 30-percent piece of the pie, when someone has the chops and also just a really great sense of drama, risk and musicality and also a really centered groove time. That's a place I love to inhabit or I really try to, so it's a combination of a John Bonham with an Elvin Jones.

What are your top five desert-island records?

OK, Oh, man, I'm gonna do it, here we go.

"American Music Club," Mercury

"Science Fiction," Ornette Coleman

"A Love Supreme," John Coltrane

"Fort Yawuh," Keith Jarrett

"It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold us Back," Public Enemy