Institute of Contemporary Arts

DAY SEVENTEEN: The Bad Plus and Rebecca Bakken

Date: 17 July 2007

David - The Bad Plus

Two completely different kinds of music occupied the day seventeen slot at the ICA iTunes Festival. First up, we had the fantastically clear voice of Norwegian singer Rebecca Bakken, enchanting the audience with her dulcet tones. People were standing as if hypnotized by the tall beautiful woman before them, her voice demanded your attention and the only movement in the theatre was from hesitant travellers tip toeing to the bar occasionally. She sang an eclectic range of songs to show off her vocal range and we were lucky to witness her perform some very new material. Ghosts In This House was being performed for the very first time and her heroic accompanist on the piano had only been given the music for Tonight The Sun that afternoon. Rebecca is used to playing with a complete band so the music and the way in which it was being performed were new to the night, increasing the tension in the theatre. She had her words on a music stand just in case she tripped on any new lyrics (a slight shame I felt – immediately you lose a sense of performance when this happens), but with this support she managed the whole repertoire with gifted grace. Rebecca’s voice is akin to Leanne Rhymes or Celine Dion. It is piercing and pure and suited beautifully her emotionally charged ballads and melodically focused songs that included You’re Crying, May I Borrow Your Pillow (sickly title I know) Say Goodbye (a real weepy) and Mitt Hjerte, the only song written in her Norwegian mother tongue. She did include more lively numbers including Had To Be a Loser, a bluesy rock and roll number, but undoubtedly she should be remembered for her soul-stirring ballads. Rebecca doesn’t need to make a song and dance about anything, her voice alone has the power to pierce through to your heart and raise the hairs on the back of your neck. Aaw.

The Bad Plus offered something completely different. All sweet temperaments and general girliness were left behind for a whoop bang brilliant set of fantastic jazz . They played a wonderfully varied set that included numbers from their earlier albums and plenty from their latest release Prog. Their well-loved version of the Nirvana/Cobain associated Smells Like Teen Spirit went down a treat, probably because even die hard jazz fans might not expect such a cover to sound any good. Jazz pumping through heroin-fuelled grunge rock veins? Not sure. But actually, it really worked. The strength of the Plus crew is their ability to seemingly loose the original melody for stretches of free-styling magic before returning to the original story with subtlety and musical sophistication. In this case it stopped their version from hammering home the original theme, and gave their rendition a personality all of its own. And when they did return to the famous ‘Here we are now’ reprieve, the trio thrashed it out as good as any electric guitar playing youths and it was fabulous to watch. The same thing can be said for their first song of the night, their version of Bowie’s Life On Mars from Prog. ‘Available to buy on iTunes’ added pianist Ethan Iverson with a raised eyebrow. Ethan was being a bit cheeky about iTunes for the whole concert. After playing their rendition of Coleman’s Song X, he offered in a marked tone, ‘hmm. So I heard Ornette Coleman’s very popular on Itunes.’ Just a hint of sarcasm there Ethan?

This song was a joy to watch; all three artists entertained and wowed the crowds with their individual talents and their ‘team spirit’ (ha ha).  In one section, Ethan stopped and stood dead still for a moment looking hilarious, (I can’t quite describe why, he’s just funny) while David could be seen using a child’s space toy on top of drums for a percussive effect (the very same drum it looked like he broke moments before) and generally went nuts as is obviously the norm for this master of touch. David is illuminating to watch at all times but catching him practically purring like a cat on the snare drum in the unannounced piece after Mint, well this was so incongruous with his big biker physique, he had me in awe, and stitches.

Other favourites during the night were Reid Anderson’s Physical Cities ‘which isn’t about London but could be’, joked Ethan and Giant, also by Reid. Physical Cities is a wonderfully eclectic Jazz work out with impeccable timing shown from all of them and Giants is just beautiful. A track you might be tempted to leave on repeat, on your iPod of course.

I finished my night with a little schmooze around the ICA bar to check out the nice variety of people that had come along for the night… If I snapped you, you might just be in the gallery alongside various special guests who dropped by including Rocco from Rex Radio.

A wonderful night. And it’s all starting again in 4 hours with the Pigeon Detectives and The Rakes. 
 

Torie Speyer