The Bad Plus Return with It’s Hard
It’s Hard
The Bad Plus
Sony Music Entertainment/OKeh Records, 2016
There are countless piano trios, and then there’s The Bad Plus. Formed in Minnesota, The Bad Plus, have been at 
their unique form of artistry since 2000. They dove into covers, but not ones typically favored by jazz artists. No, their deconstructions of radio friendly rock and pop made people take notice. While steering “Iron Man” or “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” through previously uncharted waters, the bands playing was always top shelf and imaginative.
This latest collection, It’s Hard, is all covers, running the gamut from Peter Gabriel to Prince to Barry Manilow. There are jazz purists who still see this as an unpardonable sin, forgetting John Coltrane’s seminal reading of “My Favorite Things,” became an expansive exploration of possibilities.
Throughout the disc the band is subversive, then whimsical, and occasionally appreciative; realizing if they remove too much, or invert too far, it would undermine the spirit of the song. “Games Without Frontiers” works beautifully here. Angular and wonky, it skitters forward with determination. Prince’s “The Beautiful Ones” is smart and catches the ear as noodling suddenly gives way, and abruptly slams into the chorus. “Alfombra Magica” sounds like Vince Garabaldi fronting an incorrigible rhythm section.
While listening, this can feel like an audio version of William S. Burrough’s famous “cut ups,” where typed passages were cut up and rearranged to create something new. Here these songs are transformed and are suddenly new again.
