The Bad Plus

Album review

Can a rhythm section lead a band? And what happens when a piano trio becomes a quartet without a piano? For the second time in four years, The Bad Plus, a stalwart jazz presence since 2000, has made a change. In 2018 original pianist Ethan Iverson departed and was replaced by Orrin Evans, who three years later decided to go solo, and has now been replaced by tenor saxophonist Chris Speed and guitarist Ben Monder (a member of the Maria Schneider Orchestra who was part of David Bowie's final album, Blackstar). Speed has played with drummer/co-founder David King in different contexts including the group Broken Shadows. 

Other than the profound difference in the band's sound, these changes have also signaled that the quartet is unquestionably led by bassist Reid Anderson and drummer David King, longtime friends who met in junior high school in Minnesota who believe that they've always been the band. "From our perspective, it's never been about having a piano or not having a piano, really. It's about relationships," Anderson said recently, with King adding, "It's band thinking. It's a way of improvising together that doesn't have a hierarchy in the instrument." 

For fans of the trio format, the new lineup will still feel familiar, not only due to Anderson's genuinely inventive bass playing and King's assured drumming but also because the material is still penned entirely by the pair.  This collection is a promising start, with the mix of players and sounds still coming into being. The new instruments add fresh flavors and not surprisingly, provide more avenues for expression. The slow, thoughtful "You Won't See Me Before I Come Back" shows off what Monder—his chords bathed in reverb—and Speed in a mournful mode can bring as soloists as they play together and apart. Tunes like the aptly named "In the Bright Future" feel like rehearsals where everyone is jamming and feeling out their happy place amongst the foursome. Finally, led by phrases by Speed, and shimmering guitar from Monder, King's rhythm heavy "Not Even Close to Far Off," is the quartet's upbeat anthem from an album, which given all the changes, was rightly titled like a debut. This is a bright new beginning and well-timed change of direction for that rare rhythm section that can and will lead.   © Robert Baird/Qobuz