Search - Happy Apple :: Youth Oriented

David King's Other Band

Jan P. Dennis | Monument, CO USA | 03/01/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"And quite a band it is. David King, he of the monster drum chops, mainstay of that mega-deconstructionist jazz outfit, The Bad Plus, shows he's by no means a one trick pony. Happy Apple strikes me as no less innovative and irreverent than The Bad Plus, which, alas, seems to be getting most of the attention.There's perhaps more of a rock vibe happening here, but it's not one you're likely to hear even on college or alternative radio. There's too much of a true jazz sensibility running through this disc to land it in that territory. The instrumentation--sax, bass (albeit electric), drums--is a kind of classic jazz trio with roots in such venerable innovators as Sonny Rollins, Ornette Coleman, and, more recently, Joe Lovano. But what they do with it is something else again.Featuring all originals--and the lads are no slouches as composers--Happy Apple seems to be more in line with, say Josh Roseman, Ez Pour Spout (though both these do a lot of covers), and Tronzo, Granelli, Epstein (check out their fine record, Crunch), than the traditional pianoless jazz trio. There also seems to be some kind of referent to unclassifyable, free-floating, just-plain-intransigence a la Captain Beefheart.They succeed because they've created a genuinely new sound that combines elements of free jazz, alt-rock, compositional ingenuity, and true improv. A note about the packaging. As this is a Nato-generated disc--these are the purveyors of such avant weirdness as the Lonely Bears and the Sam Rivers/Tony Hymas collaboration Eight Day Journal--you get some recurring visual motifs. Oddly, it shares with the latter a faux illustrated story-booklet, supposedly a visual commentary on the music, but really more like an iconic red herring, which, nevertheless, provides intriguing eye-candy, entirely consonant with the music proceedings.Probably not for everybody (indeed, who is it designed to please?), but certainly worth plunking down a few dollars if you're an adventurous musical hound like this listener."