Bad Plus Ends in 2026 After 26 Years of Leaderless Jazz

By Elena Vasquez

The Bad Plus will disband at the end of 2026, the jazz group announced in January after 26 years together.

Why is the Bad Plus ending in 2026?

Hank Shteamer, writing for The New York Times, described the band as “one of the defining ensembles in 21st-century jazz.” His report traces more than two decades of experiments with how a jazz group without a leader could sound and what rooms it could play.

The band formed in 2000, when bassist Reid Anderson and drummer Dave King co-founded it with pianist Ethan Iverson. No member held the leader’s role. The group has now set a fixed end: the conclusion of 2026.

What will the farewell tour show in New York?

A farewell world tour will return to New York for a final show at Le Poisson Rouge on Thursday. At a June performance at Sony Hall in Midtown Manhattan, Anderson spoke near the close: “Thank you for caring about our music.” A standing ovation lasting several minutes followed.

A fan called “Never stop!” toward the stage, riffing on the title of the band’s 2010 album, “Throwing Down,” or possibly requesting its upbeat title track. Anderson answered, “Until you stop,” referencing the farewell world tour and the coming New York date.

Thursday’s performance at Le Poisson Rouge will be the group’s final show in New York.

What made the group work without a leader?

Over dinner at a nearby Indian restaurant before the Sony Hall show, Anderson and King, both 56, confirmed that writing and collective identity had shaped the band since 2000. King first met Anderson in junior high school in Minneapolis. His tattooed, flannel-clad style and emphatic manner contrast with Anderson’s reserved demeanor.

King said it had always been a priority for the group to move beyond “obvious conclusions.” Anderson offered a more direct definition of the method: “That’s the whole point of the Bad Plus. It’s the writing. It’s the concept. It’s our voices and the way we bring them together.”

Anderson’s account is plain: writing and the players’ combined voices mattered more than a formal leader.

What defined the June performance?

The June set closed with a version of the slow-burning “You Won’t See Me Before I Come Back.” Saxophonist Chris Speed contributed impassioned improvisation. King spearheaded a shuddering climax on drums. Shteamer wrote that the piece’s pensive, spectral melody was what lingered in the mind, even after that climax.

Shteamer found that the song itself remained paramount across the set and the band’s career. The performance put the melody at its center and used the band’s force to frame it.

What will the farewell tour test?

The Bad Plus built a 26-year career on a working premise: a jazz group can create an identity without a designated leader. That premise shaped its writing, its conversations and its choice of rooms, and the final shows now put that collective identity under a deadline.

The next test comes on the farewell tour: whether a leaderless ensemble can hold its collective identity through its final performances.