The Bad Plus at The Hamilton Live

The Bad Plus
The Hamilton Live
Washington, DC
November 9, 2025

The ancient paradox known as the Ship of Theseus poses a philosophical riddle: if every piece of a ship is gradually replaced until no original components remain, is it still the same ship, or has it transformed into something else entirely? Is a thing defined by its collective parts, or by some deeper essence?

This is the question raised by The Bad Plus, which today finds itself in its third iteration. Originally composed of bassist Reid Anderson, drummer Dave King, and pianist Ethan Iverson, it later subbed in Orrin Evans on piano, but these days, as they appeared at The Hamilton Live in Washington, DC, the band has dropped the piano entirely and swapped in guitarist Ben Monder and saxophonist Chris Speed. What, then, makes it still The Bad Plus? What are the musical constants amid change?

Their opening originals, "Casa Ben" and "French Horns," suggested a few answers, among them a commitment to strong yet recondite melodies supported by driving rhythms and powerful harmonic bases. As both tunes showed, The Bad Plus knows how to give the listener a musical life jacket to grab on to, the better to trouble the waters around. Unison clarinet-guitar or saxophone-guitar lines offered a source of stability uniting beginning and end, but there was no guessing where the band would take the audience in between. Monder's solos on both tunes were not about any one note— indeed, with his heavy distortion and echo, it was rarely possible to pick out particular notes—but about hitting the listener with a wave of noise, channeling John Coltrane's famous "sheets of sound" by way of '90s-era shoegaze.

Amid the points of long-term continuity, however, the band's new instrumentation also demands rupture. In a typical piano-bass-drums ensemble, each musician is generally in balanced conversations with the other two the whole time. In contrast, "Carrier" saw the group split into two partnerships: drums and bass devoted to a forceful supporting groove, and guitar and saxophone offering offer another unison melody that could easily accommodate lyrics.

"Deep Water Sharks" displayed the profound partnership Anderson and King have formed over the decades, with an ominous pulse emerging from a collective muddle of noise—perhaps the leviathans coming out of their lair? In his first major solo of the night, Speed delivered a wailing flurry of notes suggesting a frightened school of fish, until the tune fell apart in a crash as the sharks caught their prey.

In a moment of relative calm after the storm, the band, which is known more for taking on classic rock songs than for celebrating the traditional jazz canon, offered a rendition of Coltrane's "Your Lady," a modal waltz in the same family as his famous arrangement of "My Favorite Things." Then it was on to "Pound for Pound," the first tune of the night hearkening back to the band's pre-Speed/Monder days. In a nice division of labor, Speed largely handled the melody, but passed it off to Monder for one moment, previously assigned to the piano, in which the rest of the band withdraws into silence and leaves the melody naked and unadorned. In a concert highlight, the band rose to a ferocious climax that in an instant dissolved into the same serenity the tune opened with, as though to tell the audience: never be fooled into thinking we've lost control. There may be chaos, but it is entirely planned.

The controlled mayhem continued through "Sun Wall," "Tyrone's Flamingo," and another oldie, "Anthem for the Earnest." Together, the trio of compositions allowed each player to excel in his own way: Anderson laying the foundation for the others to build on, King frenetically pushing the band into the wild, Speed faithfully executing staccato melodies, and Monder letting loose an occasional scream amid the haze.

The set's end clearly highlighted one more way that the new membership has changed what it means to be The Bad Plus. In the days of their youth, The Bad Plus had an element of humor, aided by Iverson's studied whimsy. Whatever else they were, the original trio's covers of Black Sabbath and Nirvana were funny, made only more so by the musicians' ironic seriousness about the source material. With Speed and Monder, The Bad Plus has entered a more somber phase of life, perhaps more appropriate to their status as hardened jazz veterans. Anderson delivered some deadpan commentary about the setlist, but the music itself left room for nary a chuckle.

Closing number "Li Po," by Monder, could have been the soundtrack to a sci-fi horror film, starting with an eerie melody and ending with a guitar solo that left the audience stranded in a distant galaxy. King, after perhaps his heaviest playing of the night, even opted for a creepy cymbal scrape straight out of Alien, while Anderson simply put down his bass and stared off into the Great Beyond. A propulsive encore had a hint of the old goofiness in its title—"Cupcakes One"—but the music itself was deadly serious.

The Ship called The Bad Plus has maintained strong elements of continuity but is surely a new vehicle, whatever its name. Whether the change is for better or worse will vary with each listener's taste, but the night suggested a starting question for discernment: is jazz better delivered with a laugh, or a grimace?

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