so, for the second time in a couple of months, I heard mention of The Bad Plus on WFPL, one (1) of our (3) local public radio stations. The Bad Plus is billed as “jazz with a rock soul”, and are credited with “single handedly making jazz relevant again”. I can’t really support the latter claim, being no jazz aficionado. I do know that they are drums, bass and piano.

Their most apparent claim-to-fame is their cover of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana, but that one serves to rubberneck folks into paying attention to The Bad Plus. Having listened to the samples of These are the Vistas, I can say that that track stands by itself as an interesting deconstruction, but the samples I heard for “1972 Bronze Medalist” and “Flim” tell me that they are deeper than that. I need to get that disc. In the meantime, listen to NPR‘s All Songs Considered In-Studio with The Bad Plus.