Review: Bad Plus/Binker & Moses

Lantern, Monday November 7

Had I missed the small print? I wasn’t expecting a support act, let alone something of the calibre of MOBO-bothering duo Binker & Moses but I wasn’t about to complain when the duo ambled into place and immediately began to construct a riveting dialogue between tenor sax and drums that roiled with self-assured technique. 

The opening number – unannounced, as would be all of their set – launched into gusting Coltrane-evoking saxophone assaults that broke like waves on robust counter blasts of drumming, throwing the musical idea back and forth until they had done with it. The second began with a straightforward hip-hop beat which thickened into something darker as the theme elaborated. It wasn’t all bombast, however, with an Afro-Latin number clattered from intricate rimshots and a simple lilting refrain in the Sonny Rollins style that was almost lift music smooth.  Overall their sound was bright and clear and the music a thoroughly entertaining (if unexpected) bonus.

The Bad Plus ambled on, too, and got straight down to business with an elegantly restrained piano that could almost have been Play Bach, a model of classical elaboration supported with economically precise bass and drums. The tune, composed by pianist Ethan Iverson, was Prehensile Dream, and was one of the few originals played in a set showcasing It’s Hard, their latest album which is entirely cover versions of pop stuff. The selection is nothing if not whimsical – we got songs from Crowded House, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Peter Gabriel as well as uberschmaltz classic Mandy – and reflected the playful side of the band’s identity. The treatment the songs received was far from dismissive, though, and even Manilow’s anthem was mined for its structural possibilities as if to prove that there is musical intelligence at the root of even the most exploitative of popular music. Not for nothing did Rolling Stone once dub this band ‘badass highbrow’.

Most stark was Games Without Frontiers, Peter Gabriel’s hit perhaps given an extra edge on the eve of the US presidential election. The theme built in disjointed piano pushed by Reid Anderson’s bass, the drums held back until the piece developed and the three players neatly locked together. It was a perfect example of why the Bad Plus is so ‘badass’ – no grandstanding, no solos that needed an individual round of applause, just a breathtaking group process that took a well-known tune and made it their own without betraying it. There were at least twenty false endings, too, keeping the audience tense and maybe reflecting that impending political horror show.

There are many paradoxes within the Bad Plus, possibly exemplified by Iverson’s slightly distant dignity in comparison to the casual scallywaggery of Anderson and drummer Dave King. It’s a yin-yang thing rather than a tension, like Laurel and Hardy, perhaps, and it makes sense of their often unlikely repertoire as well as the astonishingly close musical collaboration that binds everything they play. The Lantern was at capacity and the audience clearly strained to catch every note and nuance. They were never disappointed, either, merely reassured that one of the new century’s tightest and smartest musical outfits remains on form. Badass, indeed.