Here is a welcome holiday treat: a new Bad Plus. Again.
The Twin Cities-launched, internationally revered jazz group returns to the Dakota Dec. 25-28 for its traditional Christmastime engagement with a new lineup, reformulated for the second time in four years.
Gone is pianist Orrin Evans, himself a replacement in 2017 for co-founder Ethan Iverson. Gone is the notion that, after 21 years, the Bad Plus is a piano trio.
The group is now a quartet, adding guitarist Ben Monder and tenor saxophonist Chris Speed, while Evans has resumed his longstanding solo career and leadership of his Grammy-nominated Captain Black Big Band.