'By adding vocalist Wendy Lewis, an associate of the group and fixture of the Minneapolis alt rock scene, TBP is able to concentrate on providing powerful backing and not worry about putting forth the song’s melody and overall structure...'

.On their latest release, For All I Care, The Bad Plus has finally become what they have always seemed on the verge of being: a rock band. That’s not a dismissal, it’s actually an affirmation. For a decade or so, TBP has functioned as a progressive jazz trio whose calling card has been its ability to deconstruct rock music into powerful instrumental performances that blurred the line between modern jazz and rock and often counfounded critics and delighted listeners. But the question remained—who is the audience that the group aims at?

By adding vocalist Wendy Lewis, an associate of the group and fixture of the Minneapolis alt rock scene, TBP is able to concentrate on providing powerful backing and not worry about putting forth the song’s melody and overall structure. The effect is that maybe for the first time, one feels that the group is honestly delving into music that resonates deeply with them rather than performing them as some kind of gimmick. True, one still wonders who is going to listen to this album and at times why listeners will care to hear new versions of some of these songs, but in many cases the overall beauty of the performances renders these questions pointless. The bottom line is that For All I Care is a good album, full of interesting performances that, more than anything else, actually work.

Opening with the familiar lilt of Kurt Cobain’s “Lithium” the group takes the song to heart by using oddly elastic time meters that allow the song to shift under the listener’s feet in a very surreal, dreamlike way that emphasizes the song’s lyrics. For her part, Lewis simply sings the melody, not performing any vocal histrionics, an approach that she utilizes throughout the album. This allows the band more leeway in playing the backing and instrumental musical passages, because they do not have to retain the song’s melody to keep the performance recognizable.

As Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb” begins to assert itself following a very quiet drum and bass intro, the question starts to creep into mind ‘why would I want to listen to this version rather than the original recording?” But as the chorus comes into view, emphasized by the vocal harmonies of Lewis and bassist Reid Anderson and the soaring piano arpeggios of Ethan Iverson, one realizes that, stripped of its mystique and presented in straightforward musical version, the song’s eerie beauty is more apparent than ever before. The same can be said for the version of Yes’ “Long Distance Runaround.” It begins with Iverson playing the famous opening riff on piano while drummer David King plays a Latin beat behind it. It’s a nice change up on a familiar piece, but when Wendy Lewis comes in with the vocal, it suddenly becomes a lush, introspective ballad. Lewis seems to have deliberately stuck to the simple melodies of the original songs, providing little in the way of embellishment. This approach frees the musicians up to experiment and explore the tunes they are playing.

Besides the pop music covers (which, besides those already mentioned include Wilco’s “Radio Cure,” The BeeGees “How Deep Is Your Love?”, Heart’s “Barracuda” and Roger Miller’s “Lock, Stock and Teardrops”, Flaming Lips’ “Feeling Yourself Disintegrate”) there are instrumental arrangements of some twentieth century classical works by Ligeti, Babbitt, and Stravinsky. These are high energy arrangements and they do a lot to break up the vocal numbers, keeping the album fresh from track to track.

Not everything here is a complete success. For example, although “How Deep Is Your Love” emphasizes the great beauty and yearning of the song’s melody, it is somewhat at odds with the band’s building cloud of dissonance in the background. But overall, For All I Care is a recording that is enjoyable to listen to , and which offers new perspective on some rock tunes that are very familiar to most listeners. The Bad Plus suggests here that there is no difference in between classical music, pop and rock, or jazz as long as it is the best music that each genre has to offer. In the world of TBP there is no high art or low art, only music, pure and simple. That unsettles some listeners and alienates others, but as the title of this CD suggests, it’s not something that this group is concerned about