The Bad Plus

Sunday, April 26
at Murry's

Shows at 3 p.m. & 6:45 p.m.
(Doors at 2:30 p.m. & 6 p.m.)

Ethan Iverson, Piano
Reid Anderson, Bass
David King, Drums

The 2008/2009 “We Always Swing” Jazz Series concludes on a spectacular note as we present The Bad Plus for the first time.  The intriguing and powerful and not-your-tame jazz trio is a collective comprised of pianist Ethan Iverson, bassist Reid Anderson and drummer David King. All three are from the Midwest and they have known each other since their teens. Nonetheless, with the exception of one meeting in 1990, it was only after spending their formative 20s apart – Iverson as the musical director for the prestigious Mark Morris Dance Group, Anderson as a prominent up-and-coming player on the New York jazz scene and King as a session player in Los Angeles – that the threesome reunited in late 2000 to play a weekend club date in Minneapolis. The chemistry was immediate and obvious. They planned a second gig and a one-day recording session for the independent jazz label Fresh Sound and The Bad Plus was born.

On this same first gig, the nascent group played their first rock cover, Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Thus began The Bad Plus trademark of complementing original repertoire with their takes on mainstream pop “standards” including ABBA, Black Sabbath, the Bee Gees, Queen, Blondie, Aphex Twin, Neil Young and Bjork.

While the covers helped to spread their reputation and broaden the audience they continued to comprise less than 20 percent of the band’s live repertoire. Iverson, Anderson and King are all composers
in their own right, each boasting a distinctive style. Iverson’s music is the more intellectual and complex, Anderson’s the more melodic and romantic and King’s the more rhythmic and surreal.
In 2003 The Bad Plus released These Are The Vistas on Columbia. With a sound more akin to a rock and roll assault than to the politeness of a jazz piano trio, with influences ranging from Stravinsky to Ornette Coleman, and a repertoire blending diverse original material and provocative covers of Nirvana and Aphex Twin, The Bad Plus earned a reputation as one of the most forward-thinking groups in music.

The group has followed with a number of releases, each a mix of originals and covers atypical for a jazz trio. Each recording as well as their live performances tend to favor group improvisation
over individual solos in an attempt to eschew the jazz cliché. The critically acclaimed group tends to attack music that’s been described as a combination of Swiss-watch precision, the spectrum of dynamics and reckless abandon.

• Artist's Website

"The Bad Plus are the Coen brothers of jazz: Midwesterners, both ironic and dead earnest, technically brilliant, beyond versatile, a little chilly sometimes, but funny, surprising, and pretty hard to pin down."
—The New Yorker