The Bad Plus Biography
The Bad Plus is a midwestern jazz-rock trio raised on the influences of both avant-garde jazz and contemporary indie-rock, and they deploy those influences with a sensibility that’s both experimental and accessible. Bassist Reid Anderson and drummer David King, both from Minnesota, and Wisconsin-bred pianist Ethan Iverson first performed together in 1989, but spent most of the next decade working separately on various jazz and rock projects. The Bad Plus finally released their eponymous debut album on an indie label in 2001, after playing only three gigs together, and met with an enthusiastic response from both jazz and rock listeners.
A successful performance at New York’s Village Vanguard helped to win the Bad Plus a deal with Columbia Records, and in 2003 the trio released their major-label debut These Are the Vistas. The album combined the band members’ original compositions with reworkings of such non-jazz tunes as Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” Blondie’s “Heart of Glass” and the Aphex Twin’s “Film.” It was followed by 2004’s Give, on which the band delivered unconventional interpretations of the Pixies’ “Velouria” and Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man” and tackled Ornette Coleman’s free jazz classic “Street Woman”; and 2005’s Suspicious Activity?, which concentrated on the musicians’ own compositions but also included a cover of the theme from Chariots of Fire.
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