Activate Infinity

When the Bad Plus released Never Stop II in 2018, new pianist Orrin Evans had been in the group for less than a year. Hes since logged thousands of miles with them, playing concert halls and bandstands across the globe. That makes Activate Infinity, their second album together, a much more integrated affair. Evans decades of experience as a bandleader and inventive hard bop-inspired pianist lend immeasurably to the quirk and instinct of this trio. Of the sets eight tunes, Anderson penned four, while Evans and King composed two apiece. Opener Avail, by the bassist, is introduced with jungle-esque snares and gently processional chords from the pianist. Anderson walks a tightrope between them, articulating a pair of melodies offering both an assonant dimension to Kings rhythms and a contrapuntal one to Evans. The pianists wonderful, brief solo moves nearly off the rails with sharp arpeggios and ostinatos, greeting the flourish of cascading bass notes and continually rolling snares and cymbals with contrast and dimension. That break excepted, this tune would have been at home on Anderson, King, and Craig Taborns offering The Golden Valley Is Now. Kings Thrift Store Jewelry is knotty post-bop, with edgy cadences and shifting rhythmic signatures amid fleet skeins of mid-register piano ostinati that touch alternately on both Horace Silver and Kenny Barron. Evans Red Door is one of the sets highlights. His open acknowledgment of Ahmad Jamals swinging, funky, lyrical influence creates a lightness even in the tunes most complex moments of melodic abstraction. His other selection, Looking Into Your Eyes, is a sparse, impressionistic ballad that provides more mystery via Andersons empathically articulate bassline. Kings Dovetail Nicely, with its interlocking piano and bass rhythms, does exactly that. Lyricism and groove entwine with the drummers kinetic, double-time pace accented by elegant breaks. The closer, Andersons Love Is the Answer, is a haunted ballad during its first half, with Kings staccato floor-tom rim and ride cymbal ticking in tandem. Evans investigates the melody sparsely while Anderson articulates its mirror image. It drops out for hushed individual expressions after every chorus; when the improvisation begins, the tempo increases and the tune shifts into a fluid post-bop articulation that releases none of the drama or tension. Andersons fluid soloing adds heft and imagination that Evans and King follow down an intricately constructed rabbit hole. Activate Infinity is a canny, wildly creative expression of the Bad Plus collective persona; its inspired, sophisticated, fresh, and a joy to encounter, time and again. ~ Thom Jurek