A Concert Review Essay On The Bad Plus

On the evening of December 28th, on the snowy downtown streets of Minneapolis, Minnesota, I went through the doors of the Dakota Jazz Club and entered into a dimly lit restaurant. My first thought was that I was probably underdressed. As the waiter led us to a table on the balcony overlooking the stage, we ordered and settled in to watch the performance. Since we were the second row of tables on the balcony, we did not have a great view of the stage, but considering the night was about hearing the music, I was not too concerned. After the crowd was served and given a chance to eat, a hush came over us, as The Bad Plus took the stage to provide the music entertainment for the night. The Bad Plus is a trio of performers based out of New York, although the group originated in Minneapolis. The three members, Ethan Iverson, Reid Handerson, and David King play piano, bass, and drums respectively. I personally found the layout of this group intriguing because it is entirely made up of instruments that are typically contained within the rhythm section. I found the combination of just piano, bass, and drums provided a …show more content…
The entire night, their music continuously switched between major and minor modes, and in some situations I am pretty confident some whole tone scales were used. Many of their pieces also had the qualities of the organized chaos, or collective improvisation, that was a characteristic of early New Orleans jazz. That style of playing was really clear in pieces like Physical Cities and Do It Again. They also played a lot with dissonance in notes, exemplified in Wolf Out, and with playing with chromatic scales and chords, as in I Hear