"Jazz It Up" with Ethan Iverson of the Bad Plus

Intro

Ethan Iverson, pianist for acoustic jazz trio the Bad Plus, admits that the band “rocks out” on stage. They also play rock clubs and do their own versions of songs by Nirvana, Radiohead and the Bee Gees, among others. All of these things make them one of the most hip and popular jazz acts in the world.

Whenever they cover a song, they put their own spin on it. It sounds totally new. They really jazz it up, not just by making it a jazz song, but by adding a flair the original version doesn’t have.

Now based in New York, the band is originally from Wisconsin, farm country in the middle of the US. These days, they pack up their stand up bass and play their complex compositions as well as improvised music all over the world. This week, they are touring Brazil before a show in Germany (click here for tour dates). Listen to Ethan talk with Jason about the band’s new album, For All I Care, on which they jazz up songs by 11 different artists.

Dialog

Jason

Ethan

Jason:  You guys are about to go to Brazil. It’s a place with a lot of jazz culture. Is it different than playing other places?

Ethan:  We’ve played Brazil a few times and always really enjoyed it. South America in general is a very warm audience.

Jason:  Do you guys work in any bossa novas or anything into the set?

Ethan:  No, we don’t play any Brazilian music, in part because we have too much respect. We don’t want to intrude on their territory.

Jason:  Very cool. Almost all of your new album is rock songs. But there’s a couple classical songs thrown on there too. What do you think ties it together?

Ethan:  What’s important there is that it’s 20th century classical music, in other words, the avant-garde. And there’s the sound of the avant-garde in our music anyway.

Jason:  I was thinking about what you guys do with sort of how you take these tunes and you jazz them up. And so I thought maybe that would be a good idiom for you to teach.

Ethan:  The idea of reinterpretation or cover has, you know, been around a long time. Classical musicians actually, like…Beethoven, would write a variation on a famous opera tune of the day. And then, in the first part of the 20th century, jazz musicians would take the popular songs and improvise off them. You take the melody and the chord changes and you sort of work out your own version of it. So when the Bad Plus plays rock covers, it’s not a straight cover, but it’s something that sounds like the Bad Plus.

Jason:  The phrase to jazz something up isn’t always used with jazz or with music. How would you use it just in regular daily life?

Ethan:  Well, I think you make it sparkly or give it some excitement to jazz something up.

Jason:  Right on.

Grammar Point

Modal Verbs: Would

Ethan says that Beethoven would write variations of opera tunes, and jazz musicians would take popular songs and improvise off them. He is using the modal verb would here to describe repeated or habitual actions performed in the past.

Would is one of the most common modal verbs, and it can be used in more than one way. You can use it as Ethan does, to discuss a repeated past action. Or you can use it to describe a hypothetical situation, like when Jason asks Ethan how he would use the idiom “jazz it up.” Finally, would is also the past tense of will. Jason uses it in this way when he says to Ethan, “I thought that would be a good idiom for you to teach.”

How would you say that you regularly listened to jazz in the past?

Discussion

Discussion - Join the discussion to learn more and make friends.

Listen to Discussion

Ethan explains that the phrase “jazz it up” comes from when the first jazz musicians would play their own versions of popular songs of the time. But you don’t have to play jazz, or even play an instrument, to jazz something up.

Any time you make something better, you jazz it up. If you hang some new pictures in your office, one of your co-workers might say, “Thanks for jazzing the place up a little!” If you help your friend make her essay for school more fun to read, you helped her jazz it up. A similar phrase is spruce it up, only it usually means to make something nicer, while if you jazz something up, you give it more excitement.

When the Bad Plus plays Brazil this week, they won’t be doing any bossa novas. They don’t think Brazilian music needs any jazzing up. What needs jazzing up in your life?

Visit the Bad Plus’ official website and see if they’re coming to your town soon!

Comprehension Quiz