Evolving rock legends King Crimson head to Hub Sept. 10

King Crimson probably isn’t a jazz band. The word probably needs to be in there because concretely defining King Crimson doesn’t work: Guitarist Robert Fripp’s evolving outfit has spent half a century traveling through progressive rock, art rock, experimental rock, new wave and (probably) jazz.

“The vision of King Crimson that Robert has is about opening one’s mind, opening one’s playing to be ready to do things differently than you did before,” bassist Tony Levin said. “Certainly now that there’s three drummers in the band everything sounds different. And they don’t just bang out the drum part that was done 20 or 30 years ago, they reinvent it, have really elaborate strategies on how three drummers can break up a part.”

Yes, modern King Crimson has three drummers, with Fripp, Levin, woodwind player Mel Collins and singer and multi-instrumentalist Jakko Jakszyk rounding out the line up performing at the Leader Bank Pavilion on Friday.

If you want a guy who will happily do things differently, Levin fits the bill.

He grew up in Brookline, considered the New England Conservatory, but ended up at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester in the ’60s. While he played in the Rochester Philharmonic, he also fell in with legendary drummer Steve Gadd — who was a fellow student.

“The short story is that Steve had nobody to gig with in this classical music school except me,” Levin said. “So I pretty quickly became one of those people going to school in the day and gigging every night.”

His exceptional skill set led to work with a series of icons. That’s Levin on Paul Simon’s “Late in the Evening.” That’s him on John Lennon’s “Woman.” He has played on almost every Peter Gabriel album and tour. He has usually been an integral part of King Crimson since Fripp reformed the band in 1981.

“Luckily for me, on that first album of Peter’s and in the touring band was Robert Fripp,” Levin said. “Thinking back to that day in 1976 when I met Peter Gabriel and Robert Fripp, and now after all these years to be still musically collaborating with those two, it’s pretty amazing.”

While the pandemic has put so much music on hold, Levin has found ways to relive his past and push forward artistically. He’s obsessively taken photos through hundreds of concert dates around the world and the shutdown finally gave him a chance to collect his favorites for a coffeetable book, “Images from a Life on the Road.” He also found a safe way to get in the studio with progressive metal supergroup Liquid Tension Experiment, which includes Dream Theater’s John Petrucci, Mike Portnoy and Jordan Rudess.

“The reason Liquid Tension Experiment hadn’t recorded in 20 years is because we’ve all been busy with our other bands, but we weren’t busy this past year,” Levin said. “It’s a little radical, but they said let’s get together and make an album like we used to do, and write it and record it in the studio.”

The logistics were tricky, but the results are blistering fast and ferocious songs that seem to live outside of genre — not completely unlike King Crimson.

With rumors of King Crimson ending its life on the road, what’s next? Another Gabriel tour? He’s ready. Liquid Tension Experiment dates? Also ready. Whatever Levin does, whatever style he embraces or defies, he just hopes to keep on doing it.

For details and tickets, go to dgmlive.com.