The Bad Plus, whom I saw a little while back at the Village Vanguard, are a hard-to-categorize, easy-to-love jazz trio consisting of Reid Anderson, bass; Ethan Iverson, piano; and David King, drums. They play a rich, ricocheting, multi-textured music that includes a fair amount of "new music" in the mix: rhythms bounce against each other, meters change, figures collide and fuse and split apart. The artists are known to sing along to Björk and to carry Thomas Adès scores in their knapsacks, which gives an idea of their range. Their new release Suspicious Activity? is strongly recommended, at least by this jazz novice, although the live thing is the real thing. I'm happy to learn that they've started a blog called Do The Math. I'm also happy that Lord Douglas is back in action. Run for cover...
