Music Arcades: The Bad Plus: Prog

I first heard of The Bad Plus via Jazz on 3 probably about three years ago, when it was their mad covers of Blondie's Heart of Glass and an Abba song (was it Knowing Me, Knowing You? they've done that on record, but I think it was a live recording that I heard first), which managed to avoid being just novelty gimmicks, that drew me in.

It was a cover version, too, that led me to buy this CD a year ago. Rush's Tom Sawyer: how could I resist? I considered downloading that track, but at first I don't think it was available on iTunes, and anyway I'm interested in hearing more jazz piano trios, so I plumped for the old-fashioned CD.

Of course, Tom Sawyer is arguably one of Rush's most funky and least proggy songs, but this power trio make up for that with some of their originals: Physical Cities, for example, has loads of those stop-start weird-time-signature bits that were Rush's stock-in-trade on Fly by Night and 2112. A few too many, actually. Lucy recognised the Tears for Fears cover, and Life on Mars of course, but refrained from passing comment — I could tell from this that she was unconvinced.

I like it, though, especially when they give themselves leave to be a little more lyrical to balance out the math rock elements.