Toronto jazz standouts, Badbadnotgood, transformed Cleveland’s newest venue, Globe Iron (side note: it’s awesome), into a fully immersive, visual, and sonic Art with a capital “A” experience this past Wednesday night.
Their style is collaborative in spirit and practice, so it’s no surprise that they chose to share the bill with up-and-coming Fayetteville singer/songwriter, Baby Rose, who joined BBNG mid-set to perform songs off her 2024 EP, “Slow Burn,” among others. Additionally, they employed the services of artist Sylvain Chaussée, who uses custom 16mm film projectors to display video and images that synchronize to the music in real time. The result is, as mentioned, Art of the hypnotic sort.
Chester Hansen (bass), Alexander Sowinski (drums), and Leland Whitty (sax, flute, guitar) make up the core trio of Badbadnotgood, but in recent years they’ve been joined in the studio and on stage by Juan Carlos Medrano Magallanes (percussion), Felix Fox (keyboards), and Kae Murphy (trumpet). Between them all, talent is truly staggering. Their set leaned heavily on 2024’s Mid Spiral, but also gave love to earlier albums. One particular moment of “wow” was Whitty’s stunning 10-minute sax solo during “Unfolding (Momentum 73).”
I don’t know if it was the incense burning or Sowinski leading all of us through some meditation breaths or the cover of Roy Ayers’ “Everybody Loves the Sunshine,” but the vibes were most definitely high all night. (I almost said goodgoodnotbad but I refrained…until now.) To see BBNG coming up, you simply have to live in Europe, as that’s where they’ll be for most of the summer.
