As Ethan Iverson puts it, the Bad Plus, the forward-thinking jazz trio in which he is the pianist, likes to go for the obvious. In addition to its muscular original compositions, the band has become known for covering songs by Nirvana, Rush, and Black Sabbath, among others. They don’t go for obscure cuts; it’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” “Tom Sawyer,” “Iron Man.”

So when the trio — Iverson, bassist Reid Anderson, and drummer David King — was commissioned by the performing arts series of Duke University to create an evening-length work, they started by “kicking around a bunch of bad ideas,” Iverson said recently from his New York studio. “And then we settled on the obvious.”