It used to be that piano trio The Bad Plus were the only game in town as far as making a career out of turning popular songs into jazz standards.
Sure there was that Herbie album that made such a botch job of Nirvana’s Come As You Are, but redeemed itself with a great take on Norwegian Wood… and there was Brad Meldhau’s fling with Radiohead, but the Bad Plus have made this the centre of a five-album career to date.
These days, every man and his dog have jazz albums that treat the fare of Classic Hits radio stations as fertile ground for material — and some do it way better than others. But while some of the life has been sucked out of that ‘jazzification of pop’ trick (even for the group themselves) The Bad Plus have done two clever things:
1) They’ve picked songs that stand up because of the strength songwriting — often in quite surprising ways; and
2) They’ve started recording originals that are easily the equal of these cover versions.
The reason I’m playing you a Tears For Fears song is that I always thought they were much better crafters of pop than they were ever given credit for — and I really love this version. It’s on the new Bad Plus album, ‘Prog’ — which will be released in shops next week.
It seems the mp3 for this track that you’re hosting isn’t there anymore – any chance you could put it back up? I’d love to hear it!
Thanks, Alex