College can be a time of enlightenment, partying, or a springboard to a future career. For progressive-jam rockers Umphrey’s McGee, the college experience did a little bit of everything.

“It got us free beer at the local place we were playing,” keyboardist Joel Cummins said of the effect of college on the band’s early days. “That was a bonus, you know? You didn’t have to go out and pay for it.”

The band, which plays at the 9:30 Club in Washington Saturday, formed at the University of Notre Dame in 1998.

The members of Umphrey’s McGee have built a reputation as stellar live performers, blending a vast range of influences and using improvisation and set list rotation as key elements of their live show. The band writes improvised yet structured sections into the set every night, labeled “Jimmy Stewart” or Legos. Recently the band experimented with song lists, a list of songs to play during a show in no particular order, instead of ordered set lists. This switch opened the band up to more organic jamming, Cummins said.

“We try to use both [the Lego and organic] ideas,” Cummins said. “Here’s the thing, a lot of the times we’ll maybe develop something more organically and then use the Lego concept, going between sections and stuff.”

In April 2006, the band released the conceptual album Safety in Numbers. It’s darker mood was a slight departure for the band. While originally intended as a double album, Numbers was cut to 11 songs. Earlier this month, UM released the leftover recordings from those sessions on The Bottom Half, a two-disc B-side and outtakes album. Cummins said the band decided to release the album for the enjoyment of the fans.

“I think the last few releases we’ve really tried to be concise and put out what needs to be out there and nothing more,” he said. “It was a little bit for the fans, too, so they can see the process, how we write songs. We just wanted to share a little with the fans.”

While UM has used the Internet as a marketing tool to help spread its music for free -the band encourages audiences to tape and trade audio recordings of its shows and also offers free, hour-long mp3 format podcasts of soundboard recordings twice a month on its website – an early leak of Numbers caused the band to leave a song off The Bottom Half. The leaked copy had an instrumental version of the progressive-leaning “Bridgeless” tacked onto the end of the album, and Cummins said the band left it on the cutting-room floor because of the leak.

“Everyone had already heard it,” he said. “We didn’t really think that would be the definitive version of it. It was one of those kind of unfortunate events. There’s something to be said when you have a song that’s that important. We wanted it to be done the right way.”

Despite just releasing The Bottom Half, UM is already planning multiple follow-ups, including a new studio album and a live album culled from the band’s shows in Indianapolis April 6 and 7. Cummins said the band will either release the album in the summer or in later months and decided to record a live album because “we’re ready to capture a time-piece.”

Along with the live album, UM is working on its next studio album, which Cummins said the band plans to finish in January and may release in the spring. The new album will most likely feature songs the band hasn’t played live, highlighting the band’s current musical direction, he added.

“It’s a little bit hard to talk about [where we are musically] because sometimes words are hard to use to describe how music feels,” Cummins said. “Its definitely more edgier and more prog[gressive].The new songs on the newest thing are definitely more longer forms. We’re taking more chances with that.”

Umphrey’s McGee performs at the 9:30 Club in Washington tomorrow. Doors are at 5:30 p.m., with UM hitting the stage at 8 p.m. Tickets are $20. A recording of the show will be available for sale on umlive.net a few days after the show.

Contact reporter Rudi Greenberg at greenbergdbk@gmail.com.