Reid Anderson
One of the most soulful and subtle figures in 21st-century jazz, bassist and composer Reid Anderson is inextricably connected to the Bad Plus, the trio he formed with pianist Ethan Iverson and drummer Dave King in 2000. Anderson continues to be a driving force in that combo—now a quartet that’s also performing at this year’s Big Ears—but he does indeed have a separate musical life outside of it. In the late 90s the Minnesota native released an impressive series of albums where his writing and playing laid some of the foundations of the Bad Plus, injecting a rock-oriented melodic presence. His astonishing 2000 album The Vastness of Space now seems like a virtual blueprint for much of the jazz created over the last two decades in terms of its melodic warmth, rhythmic clarity, and harmonic space.
While Anderson has focused his compositional practice on the Bad Plus, he has occasionally stepped outside of the group, playing with drummer Jeff Ballard on the latter’s 2019 album Fairgrounds and exploring the music of Ornette Coleman and Julius Hemphill in the quartet Broken Shadows (with King, Tim Berne, and Chris Speed), even delving into a more electronic fusion sound in a collective trio with King and keyboardist Craig Taborn on the 2019 album Golden Valley is Now.
Anderson will perform with a new electronic trio featuring guitarist Gregg Belisle-Chi, a rising figure in New York working closely with Tim Berne, and violinist Tina Priceman, a Chicagoan well versed in pop, classical, and jazz.
