Jazz troupe The Bad Plus’s unexpected final year together coincides with UK concert

Some bands make a big thing out of saying goodbye. Their farewells are invariably long, come with a sentimental eye for making a few extra bucks before bowing out and, ultimately, fade to a preface for an inevitable reunion.

The Bad Plus, the Minneapolis-rooted jazz troupe whose music was born from an age where classical, contemporary rock and progressive pop sat beside a host of post-bop inspirations, is making its final year one of its busiest and most industrious. But that wasn’t exactly the plan.

Brewing for some time was a special project where Bad Plus founders Reid Anderson (on bass) and Dave King (on drums) would embark on a tribute project tour dedicated to the 1970s music famed pianist Keith Jarrett created with an all-star team known as his American Quartet. For help, Anderson and King recruited two present day celebrities — Grammy winning saxophonist Chris Potter and pianist/recently awarded MacArthur Fellow Craig Taborn.

The two-month Jarrett tribute was in place with a tour that opens Tuesday at the Singletary Center for the Arts. Then came the curve ball: The decision to end what will be the entire 27-year history of The Bad Plus later in 2026 following extensive touring by the band’s usual lineup, which pairs Anderson and King with guitarist Ben Monder and saxophonist Chris Speed.

One band name. Two band lineups. Roughly 10 months to wrap business up. What a way to go out.

“Working with Chris Potter and Craig Taborn, that’s a special project that’s going to be on tour in March and April,” Anderson said. “After that, we’re going to tour out the rest of the year with Chris Speed and Ben Monder. Also, this special project with Craig and Chris where we’re playing the music of the Keith Jarrett American Quartet was actually set before we decided this would be our final year. There wasn’t any kind of grand strategy or ambition behind it. It’s just kind of the way things worked out — the way the cookie crumbled, so to speak.”

Designing a Jarrett tribute honors one of Anderson’s deep-seeded artistic inspirations. Jarrett is known internationally for his improvisatory solo piano concerts, as well as his Standards Trio recordings celebrating exactly that — jazz standards. But in the ’70s, in addition to his blooming solo piano music, Jarrett worked with two quartet ensembles, one based in Europe, the other in the United States. What was dubbed the American Quartet teamed Jarrett with three world-class improvisers — saxophonist Dewey Redman, bassist Charlie Haden and drummer Paul Motian.

“Nothing against the European Quartet,” Anderson said. “Those guys were great musicians that made some great records, but the American Quartet was such a ragtag bunch. They were four real iconoclasts. And for me, as a bass player, Charlie Haden was a very powerful influence. The American Quartet had this kind of freedom but with a sense of always playing around all the harmonic logic. Those are the kinds of things that interested us.

“The tribute was generated by the idea of doing something special that was outside of the general purview of The Bad Plus. It was an opportunity to play with some other musicians and explore some different material. Also, the American Quartet’s music really had a strong influence on us — I would say all of us, especially people of our generation. In a way, The Bad Plus is pretty much in debt to that group.”

The formal goodbye begins once the Jarrett tribute runs its course from the Lexington opening to its final date in Cully, Switzerland. Following a 10-day break, the regular Bad Plus lineup begins what will be its final concert run in a lifespan that seen Anderson and Reid apply a highly distinctive jazz accent to their own compositions, as well as to works penned by artists ranging from alt-rock torchbearers Nirvana to post-punk pop stylists Blondie to ambient/techno pioneer Aphex Twin. The latter served as one of the many distinguished inspirations that surfaced on The Bad Plus’ 2003 major label debut album, “These are the Vistas.”

A trio with pianist Ethan Iverson at the time of “Vistas,” the group took the lullaby-like melody from Aphex Twin’s “Flim” and enhanced its lyrical beauty in a strictly acoustic setting. Instead of the bath of electronica beats from the original version, drummer King developed percussive skirmishes that engaged the piano melody in a musical boxing match of sorts.

But song sources such as grunge and post-punk pop made up only part of the playground The Bad Plus operated in. In 2014, the group devoted all of its ninth album to a trio reworking of Igor Stravinsky’s volcanic ballet “The Rite of Spring.”

“We didn’t have a hierarchy where jazz was on top and rock music and everything else was below that. We just felt like, ‘Let’s honestly put ourselves in this music.’ Ourselves, as individuals, have had a wide range of interests. At the time we recorded ‘Flim,’ and still with the band as it exists today, those interests were all embraced and honored. We all had a place where we met in the middle, a place where all that filtered through and came out as the sound of the band.”

Tuesday’s concert with Potter and Taborn will mark The Bad Plus’s fourth concert appearance in Lexington over a 20-year period. Each visit sported a different lineup. The original Iverson/Anderson/King trio played at the University of Kentucky’s Memorial Hall in February 2006. A revised lineup with pianist Orrin Evans performed at the Lexington Children’s Theatre in December 2018. The current quartet with Monder and Speed was at the Kentucky Theatre in February 2024.

Anderson’s compadre through all of these shows, and through the entire lifespan of The Bad Plus, has been drummer King.

“Dave and I have been friends since we were 15 years old,” Anderson said. “He happens to be one of the great drummers of our time and of any time, really — a truly creative, visionary type of person. It’s great to be able share this experience with someone you can relate to conceptually. There is a lot of trust there. We both know, we both hear, what each other is doing all the time. We know how to respond.”

Finally, the inevitable question: Why now? Why, after nearly three decades, is The Bad Plus closing out a remarkable artistic run?

“At the end of 2026, it will have been 27 years,” Anderson said. “And in that 27 years, I really feel we have done what we have set out to do. We’ve managed to do it on our own terms and have kept our integrity throughout. And we’re probably, dare I say, at the top of our game, which seems like a great time to say, ‘We did this, and we’re going to move on.’

“We could keep going, sure. We could keep going for another 15 years if we were able to health-wise, but it just feels like now is kind of the time. We’re very proud of what we’ve done and the body of work we created. Now it’s time to pursue other things and push other rocks up other hills.”

The Bad Plus Chris Potter and Craig Taborn

When: 7:30 p.m. March 3

Where: Singletary Center for the Arts Recital Hall, 405 Rose St.

Tickets: $22 students, $45 public, free to UK students

Online: finearts.uky.edu/singletary-center/events

This story was originally published March 2, 2026 at 8:50 AM.