The first time TBP played together, we were just teenagers trying to play jazz standards. Reid and David had been best friends since the age of 13. I was younger by two years and had met Reid when he went to college in Wisconsin. When Reid put us together in his mother’s house that day in 1990, let’s just say the results were less than magical.
After taking a decade to develop as players, the three of us came back together and played a gig in Minneapolis. It immediately felt special, so Dave came up with the name “The Bad Plus” (which really doesn’t mean anything) and we booked some more gigs. At Christmas in 2000, we went into a studio in Minneapolis for our first recording session. We set up, got sounds, and tracked the whole thing in about six hours. When we left the, we discovered there had been a blizzard. So, in true Midwestern style, we celebrated the recording of our first CD by digging our cars out from under two feet of snow.
Labels
The Bad Plus was recorded for a small Spanish label called Fresh Sound/New Talent. Next we pressed 1,000 copies of a live show in New York and called it Authorized Bootleg. These two small records had some impact, and led indirectly to the band’s being signed to Sony/Columbia by Yves Beauvais.
For These Are the Vistas, we went to Real World Studios in England (owned by Peter Gabriel) and worked with producer and engineer Tchad Blake, and we were incredibly fortunate to have him on board for our major label debut. He’s one of the great indie engineers, whose signature sound has been a crucial element on important records by Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, Los Lobos, Paul Simon, American Music Club, and many more. These Are the Vistas got noticed everywhere, not just in the jazz press, and Tchad’s fearsome, funky tones had a lot to do with that. It was natural to record our next two records, Give and Suspicious Activity? with Tchad as well.
Unfortunately, Sony released Suspicious Activity? with a XCP root kit that was potentially hazardous to PCs. Grimly, we put on our website, “Please do not buy Suspicious Activity? until there is a resolution to this problem by Sony.” Eventually, the old discs were recalled and replaced by clean ones, but nevertheless the damage was done: What had been a sweet, unfussy roll on a major label had become a corporate nightmare. We asked to be off the label, and they quickly agreed.
Progressive Evolution
We believe in paying attention to the universe when it sends something our way. While on tour in England, we played a great club in London called the Jazz Café. A mutual friend introduced us to the soft-spoken Tony Platt, who had produced and engineered some of the greatest-sounding records in history, including taping what some consider the definitive “overdriven rock guitar sonority” on AC/DC’s Back In Black; Tony’s impressive resume also includes work with Bob Marley, Iron Maiden, Foreigner, Buddy Guy, Soweto Kinch, and Cheap Trick. Tony said he had enjoyed the TBP gig and dug our records with Tchad, too. We immediately began scheming to pull him aboard for the next recording.
The clock was ticking. The music business is still geared to the somewhat antiquated concept of “record cycle” — we needed a new album to tour on, and soon. In the end, we decided to finance the process ourselves with the plan to license it to a distributor.
Dave had just recorded an album with Mason Jennings at a Minnesota studio called Pachyderm. He thought it was a very fine studio with a good pedigree, too: Nirvana had recorded In Utero there, and P. J. Harvey tracked Rid Of Me as well. Also, since Pachyderm was located an hour south of the Twin Cities in a small town called Cannon Falls, Dave could just commute from his Minneapolis home. Not only that, but all of our homeboy Twin Cities hookups for gear could be accessed; see “Ethan’s Gear” below for more on this.
Recording
So far, TBP has made all if its records the same way: Figure out the music on the bandstand, then go into a studio and tape it. We don’t learn, rearrange, or shape the songs we record at all; we just play the tunes down like we do live. Since we’re improvising, we try to get the music in just a take or two. If you have to keep playing an improvised solo on the same song over and over again, you can begin to feel as though you’re trapped in a cage. Rarely has TBP gone on to do four or five takes of a song, since we realize the law of diminishing returns kicks in after three for us. For some reason, almost everything on Prog is a second take. We would put one down, go in and listen, and realize we could do a little better.
TBP enjoys playing covers and, for Prog, we recorded “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” by Tears For Fears, “Tom Sawyer” by Rush, “This Guy’s In Love With You” by Burt Baccarach, and “Life on Mars?” by David Bowie. The iTunes exclusive, “NARC” is by a newish band, Interpol.
Playing covers helped us get some press in the early days. It also caused consternation in certain dusty corners of the jazz community that have little regard for rock. In other dusty corners, people think we are naughty jazz nerds who enjoy poking fun at Blondie (we played “Heart of Glass” on These are the Vistas), Black Sabbath (“Iron Man” is on Give) or Rush (on the current album). The simple truth about TBP’s covers is this: We like playing these songs! We would play them even if they got no press at all, and we aren’t sending them up. After all, improvisers since the beginning of time have enjoyed taking apart famous music to see what new complex emotions can be found. Some celebrated examples of jazz musicians re-imagining the pop music of its day include Louis Armstrong’s “Saint James’ Infirmary,” Duke Ellington’s “Flamingo,” Thelonious Monk’s “Just a Gigolo,” and John Coltrane’s “My Favorite Things.” Some of the freest and strangest playing on Prog occurs during “Life on Mars?” The first take was kind of straight, almost banal. After listening and being somewhat disappointed, we made the second try wild and surreal. As soon as we finished playing, we knew we didn’t need any more takes.
While we love covers, the three of us regard our original music as the real heart of the band. There are very few lead sheets or other paper in TBP. Reid or Dave will show me a song at the piano, or I will play them one of mine, and we learn the music by rote. Once in while, I hand out a scrawl or Reid gives me a notebook to look at for a minute. But we are careful to never play live with any sheet music, and there wasn’t any at the recording session either.
Prog Tracks
On of the standout tracks on Prog is Reid’s song “Physical Cities.” We take the word “prog” to just mean progressive, but it really comes from prog rock. “Physical Cities” is in three different meters and two different tempos. We all get to improvise on it a little bit, but it is really just fast, organized mayhem à la classic prog-rock like King Crimson or Yes. At the end, there is a long unison single-note riff that is Reid’s interpretation of death metal.
Live, “Physical Cities” is always very exciting and has a lot of tension, but we were not sure how to create that tension for a record. Different ideas were discussed — cutting a bit of it, recording the squeaking of our benches and stools, or overdubbing overdriven guitar — but we settled on having Reid overdub some arco bass noise not unlike some of the denser movements of György Ligeti’s work. Even though it is just one note over and over, the spooky noise made the vamp riveting, if not downright chilling.
The majority of the songs, however, didn’t use any overdubs or tweaks at all. The great thing about working with a master engineer like Tony is witnessing just how much he can pull out of a performance using mix magic alone. For example, Dave’s snare side-stick sounds so good on “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” that it helped us decide to lead off the album with that track. The blend between bass and drums on “Giant” is quite different then that on “Tom Sawyer,” but that’s how we like it — some jazz purists may feel that a trio should avoid using different set-ups for different songs, but it feels just right for TBP.
We tracked for three days and mixed for four. A month later, Reid flew to London to master the album with Tony and Ray Staff at Alchemy Studios. Like on previous TBP releases, we art-directed the CD ourselves (mostly Dave’s work) and then were able to offer the complete package to Heads Up (for America) and Universal (for the rest of the world). They both accepted, and the latest installment of TBP’s development is now on shelves and online all over the globe. I hadn’t listened to it for a couple months, and just put it on while proofing this piece. I admit I’m biased, but I still think it sounds damn good.
Ethan’s Gear
The piano I used for Prog was a nine-foot Steinway on loan from Schmitt Music in Minneapolis — Ryan Walch at Schmitt was an important “homeboy gear hookup” indeed. Schmitt offered me a couple of wonderful pianos, and I picked the one that had the longest sustain. If I was playing live, I would have picked the loudest and brightest, but for a recording, I’m just looking for the most resonance. Producer and engineer Tony Platt knew just what to do with that resonance, too. Our arrangement of “This Guy’s In Love With You” features some low Cs; on Prog, they truly sound like a nine-foot, leonine Steinway’s-worth of low Cs. Overall, the piano recording on Prog is more like a high-end classical music production than any other recording I’ve ever done. The whole instrument sings from top to bottom.