The Bad Plus' David King Interviewed at AAJ

If you had the remotest interest in contemporary jazz music in 2003, the chances were very, very high that you had heard of The Bad Plus. The odds were just as good that you had an opinion, positive or negative, about the merits of the collective trio of bassist Reid Anderson, drummer David King and pianist Ethan Iverson.

2005's Suspicious Activity? was The Bad Plus' third and last CD for Columbia. The disc was, without the group's knowledge, one of the Sony CDs that was encoded with computer-endangering spyware--a corporate affront especially at odds with The Bad Plus' grass-roots reputation. The band's reaction to the spyware was a very public horror and shock, and the CD was not promoted by the label.

So Prog is the first on the band's own imprint, Do the Math Records. It's a fantastic record with a more dynamic, natural sound than the Tchad Blake-produced Columbia records, and contains both some of the group's most brilliantly executed covers (Rush's progressive-rock anthem “Tom Sawyer," David Bowie's glam-rock classic “Life on Mars") and some of their best-yet compositions.

AAJ Contributing Editor Paul Olson spoke with Bad Plus drummer David King about the group's new label, the new record, the fact that this is not an ironic band, and much more.

Check out The Bad Plus: Drama, Joy, Humor, But Not Irony at AAJ today!