The Bad Plus

Much has changed in the five years since The Bad Plus last came to Durham. Founding pianist Ethan Iverson left the band in 2017 to follow his own muse. For a band defined by its consistency—Iverson, bassist Reid Anderson, and drummer Dave King had been playing together for seventeen years—the departure seemed sudden and unexpected. But Anderson and King immediately drafted Orrin Evans and forged ahead, recording Never Stop II within a few weeks of their first rehearsal. Like 2010’s Never Stop (and unlike the oblique covers of Nirvana, the Bee Gees, and Milton Babbitt that helped to make them famous), this album features only original compositions. What’s remarkable is that it still feels very much like a Bad Plus record, just with a slightly different accent; their songs still are built around energetic rhythms, lustrous melodies, and dynamic group improvisations. Evans’s instincts are different than Iverson’s, pushing everyone in exciting new directions.