The Bad Plus Farewell Tour

The Bad Plus bring their farewell tour to the Perelman Theater on Saturday, November 14, at 7 PM. It's part of a run that marks the end of the road for the group: founding bassist Reid Anderson and drummer Dave King have decided to bring the band's career to a close, and 2026 is their final year.

If you've followed them for a while, the first thing you'll notice is that the piano is gone. This is a new, piano-less incarnation of the group, rounded out by guitarist Ben Monder and saxophonist Chris Speed. Together they're a quartet, and they just put out their 15th studio recording—a self-titled debut for this specific lineup—through Edition Records on September 30. That's the record they're touring, so you'll hear the new material live.

It's a big shift for a band that's spent over two decades building a reputation for a sound that's hard to pin down. NPR once described them as an acoustic piano trio with the combustion properties of a post-punk band; The Washington Post called them gorgeously idiosyncratic; Rolling Stone listed them as jazz standouts. Now, twenty-six years in, they're operating as a quartet without the piano. King and Anderson put it this way: "Evolution is necessary for life and creativity. We've evolved, but we're still The Bad Plus."

The show is at the Perelman Theater in the Kimmel Center, 300 South Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA 19102. It starts at 7 PM on Saturday, November 14.