Song Review – Smells Like Teen Spirit by The Bad Plus

One of the many ways jazz is freer than pop music is in covers. In pop music, certain songs are ‘owned’ by certain artists who get nervous and insecure about them being played by others. And we as listeners closely identify songs with the artists who first performed them, even if later versions are better. But jazz is different. Almost 150 artists have recorded versions of Cry Me a River. Over 200 have recorded versions of As Time Goes By. Other standards like All of Me or Sway have been made popular by, not one, but dozens of artists. While the song is the same, the artists expresses their own sentiments and styles in their own personal version. The key and rhythm may change and sometimes even part of the lyrics. Jazz becomes the anti-karaoke. Instead of simply singing along to another artists’ work, the jazz musician makes every song become a personal statement.

Jazz Trio The Bad Plus (bass, piano, drums) recorded an instrumental version of Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit. (The trio has also done covers of Queen, David Bowie, Neil young, Radiohead, and Interpol).

Startling and incredible. The song choice wasn’t for shock value or kitsch. Listening to it, you would think Cobain originally wrote it as an avant-garde jazz exercise. First, let’s look at the arrangement. Nirvana was lead guitar, bass guitar, and drums. Removing Cobain’s mournful murmur and making it instrumental places the focus on the driving succession of rhythms and the plaintive tone of the melody.

The piano plays the role of lead guitar and vocal, adding flats and sharps where Cobain added vocal angst. And the song switches from depression to anxiety to angry excitement, the piano and drums begin furious solo expeditions of their own. Four minutes into the song the trio returns to the melody before launching into a second and heavier set of improvisations ending with the clash of feelings the song expresses.