The Bad Plus

Gig: Jazz provocateurs

Personnel: David King, Ethan Iverson, and Reid Anderson

Lives: Golden Valley (King), New York City (Iverson and Anderson)

The First Time They Played Together (in Anderson's parent's living room): “We played one session. If you had told us after that session that we would have become a working group, I would have been shocked. It wasn’t even a good session.” (Iverson)

Covering Rock Tunes: “A lot of other [jazz] musicians have covered rock and filtered it through a jazz lens. When we play rock music, we play it with a rock intent.” (Anderson)

Midwestern Sensibilities: “We’re Midwestern dudes to the core. When we’re on the road, we get Slushies at SuperAmerica and we watch The Rockford Files on DVD. We’re not like these wannabe New York sophisticates. We are like some dudes who feel quite comfortable in that Midwestern, kind of indie-artist without-pretension mentality.” (King)

Next Album: The band is recording Prog (as in progressive rock) with Tony Platt, who mixed and engineered AC/DC’s Back in Black. “We’re going to try and be as grand as we’ve been . . . . To us, it’s like, celebrate avant-garde music. Don’t hide with it in the shadow and try to be cool.” (King)

Catch Their Act: Oct. 4. Tedd Mann Concert Hall, Mpls.,  612-624-2345, thebadplus.com