This Jazz trio from Minnesota have been around for 16+ years (no pun intended). They are probably best known for their interesting version of “Tom Sawyer” by Rush.  In many ways you could call them the inverse Rush.  Instead of having a Rock drummer with Jazz sensibilities, they have a Jazz drummer with Rock sensibilities.  They have only come to my attention in the last 7 or 8 months.  During that time this album has continually been in and out of my heavy rotation at home and in my car (and in my head).

The Bad Plus are an adventurous group comprised of piano, stand-up bass and drums.  For a trio, they cover a lot of ground musically and stylistically.  They even do their take on Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring in its entirety.  No matter what they do they always throw in some avant-garde element.  They do this very tastefully without losing the sense of what they were doing originally.  It adds rather than distracts.

Inevitable Western could possibly be considered their most conventional album but it isn’t all that conventional.  The album starts with a very soothing Jazz piece called “I Hear You.”  This is a wonderful introduction which could easily fit into the late 50’s/early 60’s Jazz mainstream.  “Lounge Music,” “Cool Jazz”, whatever you want to call it, it is a tune that sticks in your head and makes you feel all right with the world without being sugary.  “Smooth Jazz” bugs me.  It rings of insincerity but this does not.

Then comes my favourite track of the album, “Gold Prisms Incorporated.”  It let’s you know that the album is not going to stay in the same realm throughout.  It starts out with a piano riff that could easily fit in a Pop or Rock song with a rock beat.  Ah, but it doesn’t stay that way for long!  The song maintains the musical theme throughout but morphs into all sorts of incarnations.  The drums become more aggressive and complex, the piano leads everything in a trajectory through the stratosphere.  Conventional Jazz, Pop, Rock, Avant-Garde Jazz, Progressive Rock all in one six and a half minute song.  They do this without losing sight of their original theme which I find amazing.

“Self Serve” drifts between R’n’B and the avant-garde.  It even contains what I perceive as musical humour (but then again, that’s just me).   As in everything they do they find a way pushing things to the precipice of disaster before pulling it back in.

“You Will Lose All Fear” takes you out almost as far as you can go.  They have their own avant-garde moment with a Tchaikovsky-like bit.  They definitely have lost all fear.  The entire piece is like watching a high wire act the almost falls to its death but always recovers, never truly falling.  By the end you are safely on the other side: peaceful, safe and without fear.

“Do It Again” is almost reminiscent of the type thing Joe Jackson does.   It’s a traveling piece, a piece full of movement.  It could be moving down a highway or it could be looking on a bustling city street.  It cold be a rushing stream diverting into two paths.

“Epistolary Echoes” move from an almost Keith Emersonesque avant-garde fit interspersed with a kind of R’n’B rhythm (complete with handclaps).  It’s interesting to note how the bass and the piano interact.  Clearly this is a band knows each other well.  There are not enough bands that hang together like this.

“Adopted Highway” is kind like the epic of the album.  It moves from raucous to calm to introspective and then into other realms.  The track itself is like a journey from sea to meadow to sea again to forest to mysterious underground caverns.  if it were a painting I would say it was that exact middle ground of Cubism and Surrealism with Impressionism thrown in.

Then . . . Bang! into the next track.  “Mr. Now” is definitely the most like Prog Rock on the album.  I really like the drum solo in the middle.  It’s not showy but appropriate and enthusiastic.  Which, in turn, leads to the final track, “Inevitable Western.”

“Inevitable Western” (the title track) could be retitled “Inevitable Jazzy Blues.”  It is the only track that ventures into that area (they’ve covered just about every other).  A good conclusion.

Inevitable Western is like a journey through a landscape of music.  You feel like you’ve virtually traversed through an entire country.  I always wondered about how appropriate the title is.  It doesn’t seem to jive with the album in its entirety except that they explore almost every form of western music (with a few exceptions, of course).  Each song flows into the other.  The album runs as a whole.  You can listen to it from beginning to end and feel its completeness.  Few albums today in Jazz are this adventurous without being showy.   This band is bigger than just the sum of its parts.  They are a unit, an entity on its own.  This even when they did an album with Joshua Redmond.  They are a highly recommended experience, indeed.  Especially this particular album.