The Bad Plus

Philadelphia Weekly
May 5, 2004

Live Music

JAZZ

The Bad Plus
Fri., May 7, 8pm. $21-$63. With Medeski Martin and Wood. Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, Verizon Hall, Broad and Spruce sts. 215.893.1999. www.kimmelcenter.org

Just like that kid who showed up at the senior prom sporting hot-pink Chuck Taylors, the Bad Plus exists along the fringes of the jazz world but isn't shy when it comes to thumbing a nose at jazz's sometimes-stilted traditions.

Following closely along the trail blazed by headliner Medeski Martin and Wood, the Bad Plus is a jazz trio only by loose definition. David King's ferocious kit work lends a bombastic percussive foundation not often heard in today's all-too-soft world of jazz, and bassist Reid Anderson's style is as much Mike Watt as Mingus.

Ethan Iverson's fingers caress the ivories in nuanced delicacy one moment, but before you can say porkpie hat, he's assaulting the keys like Liberace on crank. It all congeals into one deliciously sticky gooball of tension-and-release-based sonic bombardment.

Though the show is billed as an acoustic evening, this one's not for the faint of heart. Almost as if commemorating the last Oldsmobile to roll off the line, the Bad Plus and MMW are here to remind you that this is not your father's jazz. (Joshua Valocchi)