Abolish Bad Architecture

Reid Anderson | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 16, 1999)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Fresh Sound New Talent
• ASIN: B00002R2VB
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #441,838 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars After listening to this some more . . ., March 21, 2004

By 

Jan P. Dennis "Longboard jazzer" (Monument, CO USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Abolish Bad Architecture (Audio CD)

. . . I've decided to raise my rating from 4 and 1/2 stars to a full 5 stars. These guys are all such wonderful players, and they're all at the top of their game; so what if they split up into two even better groups? It's just really intriguing to hear them beginning to work out stuff that later came to full fruition on The Bad Plus and Fly. Eminently worth hearing.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hard to imagine . . ., March 23, 2004

By 

Jan P. Dennis "Longboard jazzer" (Monument, CO USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Abolish Bad Architecture (Audio CD)

. . . this competent but unexceptional quartet spawning two of jazz's most distinguished new units, The Bad Plus and Fly, but this disc features two-thirds of the members of each: Ethan Iverson (piano) and Reid Anderson (bass) (Bad Plus); Mark Turner (tenor sax) and Jeff Ballard (drums) (Fly).

And there are adumbrations of future moves by both groups: a certain edgy, eclectic irreverence in Iverson's piano playing and glimpses of a developing unique double-bass voice from Anderson that come fully to the fore on the Bad Plus's Vistas and Give; huge tonal weight and presence from Mark Turner's tenor sax and the jittery, polyrhythmic exoticism of Jeff Ballard's drums that characterize Fly. But a careful listen shows what a major contribution both Tchad Blake and David King brought to The Bad Plus, vaulting that band out of the typical conception of a jazz piano trio and into entirely new punk-pop-jazz-metal territory.

The transformation of Turner and Ballard (with the addition of bassist Drew Gress, an essential component) into Fly, though probably not as sheerly dramatic, is nonetheless just as complete. They morph not in the direction of an out sonic assault, but toward edgy, rhythmically complex world jazz, a musical journey every bit as remarkable, if not so startling.

If you want to hear where these four players were five years ago and get an idea of how they got to where they are today, as well as encounter some quite interesting and slightly out quartet jazz, you can't go wrong with Abolish Bad Architecture. 4 and 1/2 stars.