THE BAD PLUS *live

The Bad Plus: reborn as a quartet

The Bad Plus is an American jazz band from Minneapolis that was founded in 2000 as a piano trio by Ethan Iverson (piano), Reid Anderson (bass) and Dave King (drums). Genre boundaries never existed for The Bad Plus, and when they did, they had to overcome them. With a finely tuned mixture of jazz avant-garde, prog rock, pop and classical music, they have always been more than just a conventional piano trio. The piano is now history, but the two founding members Reid Anderson and Dave King are joined by saxophonist Chris Speed and guitarist Ben Monder in the newly formed band. The quartet spent the summer of 2021 studying the compositions of the founding duo and developing a group sound that is both familiar and capable of evolution.

Musical reinvention was part of the band's DNA from the very beginning, and the new line-up presented a kind of second debut at the end of 2022. The album is called "The Bad Plus." in short and unmistakably, is self-titled like the band's first album, but with the additional punctuation mark it sends a subtle signal for a new era. "The Bad Plus." sounds rougher, edgier, more experimental and clearly more equal than its predecessors. Anderson and King's compositional styles remain intact, each delivering four new compositions that give modern jazz the same Bad Plus edge that has captivated listeners from the beginning. The new line-up has significantly expanded its sonic vocabulary and is persistent in its search for bridges between different genres and techniques.

At peak times, The Bad Plus play up to 170 concerts a year, because communication on stage and with the audience is the essence of their ultra-modern jazz, which focuses not on purist purity but on sonic diversity and agility. The four are on their way to further reforming jazz. Every concert is an evolution.