Jam band

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The term jam band describes bands whose concerts feature extended musical improvisation over rhythmic grooves and chord patterns.^[1] Jam bands may exist within a variety of genres, including rock, psychedelic rock, progressive rock, funk, progressive bluegrass, blues, country music, folk music, world music, and jazz.^[1]

Psychedelic rock influenced many early jam bands during the 1960s and 1970s. Seminal groups include the Grateful Dead,^[2] Cream, Frank Zappa,^[3] and The Allman Brothers Band.^[4]

[edit] History

[edit] Origin

The label jam band most likely originates from the word jam session, wherein a group of musicians perform a "short, free improvised passage". ^[5] Modern jam bands, however, will often improvise large sections, producing songs of unpredictable length. Jam bands improvise around the chord progressions of songs, or on repeated ostinato riffs or basslines. Jam bands' lengthy onstage improvisations may be related to the guitar solos performed in traditional rock music. Some jam bands only perform this type of jamming, while other bands engage in free improvisation, spontaneously composing music onstage with all members contributing an equal role in the progression of the jam.

[edit] Mid-1960s to early 1980s

The first generation of jam bands, which developed in the mid-1960s and early 1970s, sprang from the lengthy improvisational sessions of the seminal groups like the Grateful Dead and Cream.

Other first-generation jam bands include: The Allman Brothers Band, Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention, Hot Tuna, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, New Riders of the Purple Sage, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Santana and others.

And although few of these bands went to the improvisatory lengths frequently sought out by the Grateful Dead and early Pink Floyd. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Grateful Dead dominated the jam band concert market due to intense support from the extremely devoted Deadheads.

[edit] Mid-1980s to early 1990s

In the mid-1980s and early 1990s, another generation of jam bands developed. One of the most well-known of these jam bands is the widely-touring group Phish. Other jam bands included England's Ozric Tentacles, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, Aquarium Rescue Unit, JAMBAY, moe. (who in recent years has opened for the Allman's and The Who), Frozen Concentrate, Solar Circus, Beanland, Little Women, God Street Wine, and From Good Homes. Most of these bands formed in the 1980s, but found their biggest success in the early 1990s.

Bands such as Blues Traveler, Dave Matthews Band, Ben Harper & The Innocent Criminals, Primus, and the Spin Doctors also began their careers in the same jam band scene, playing jam-friendly venues and often still play the large summer jam festivals. These bands are some of the few newer generation jam bands around that keep this legendary music alive. Although, in some cases, their improvisations have taken a backseat to more polished material, thus removing them from the jam band scene completely in many jam fans' minds. In some ways this is more of a reaction to their crossover commercial successes, MTV videos, and mainstream radio airplay; as their concert playing tends to still be as "jammy" as any of the third and (especially) fourth generation jam bands^{[dubious — see talk page]}.

In the early 1990s. a new generation of jam bands was spurred on by the Grateful Dead's touring and the increased exposure of Phish, Widespread Panic, moe., and Aquarium Rescue Unit. Many new bands were formed in the blooming jam band scene, including Rusted Root, Dispatch, Gov't Mule, Leftover Salmon, moe., and String Cheese Incident. During the summer of 1995, the venerable Grateful Dead guitarist, frontman, and genre spokesman Jerry Garcia died. During the same period, Phish rose to prominence, and bands such as Dave Matthews Band and Blues Traveler became hugely successful.

Phish's rise in popularity in the mid 1990's may be attributed to the death of Jerry Garcia and subsequent terminus of the Grateful Dead in 1995. However, a rapidly expanding concert-going market in the early 1990's saw Phish playing mid-sized amphitheaters already in 1993 and 1994. The void left by the sudden departure of the Grateful Dead may have helped to give impetus to the fertile jam scene that came after. The surviving members created a band called The Other Ones, and then officially became The Dead.

[edit] Mid-1990s to mid-2000s

From the mid-1990's to the mid-2000's, jam bands tended to be more influenced by Phish than by the Grateful Dead. Bands such as Phish got their start playing Grateful Dead covers^[6], mid-1990s bands such as The Disco Biscuits started out playing covers of Phish songs^[7].

Notable bands from this period include: Animal Liberation Orchestra, Assembly of Dust, Benevento/Russo Duo, The Breakfast, The Casual Fiasco, The Disco Biscuits, Ekoostik Hookah, Galactic, John Butler Trio, Keller Williams, Lotus, New Monsoon, Particle, Perpetual Groove, RAQ, Sound Tribe Sector 9, Tea Leaf Green, Umphrey's McGee, & Yonder Mountain String Band

[edit] Mid-2000s-present

The current state (2007) of the Jam band scene is multi-genre. Genre mixing has always been welcome in the jam band community (see Grateful dead's bluegrass influence), but is now much more prevalent. In the past, It was common for a band like Phish or the Grateful Dead to experiment with disco, jazz, bluegrass, etc., but overall, they would still be thought of more as a rock band. Today's Yonder Mountain String Band and String Cheese Incident, for example, are more like bluegrass bands than they are rock bands. Dirty Dozen Brass Band and The Primate Fiasco are traditional Jazz bands who "Jam".

The Disco Biscuits mend the gap between rave music and rockjam by grooving like Umphrey's McGee and have a light show similar to PGroove (Perpetual Groove). The sounds of techno and visuals of lights reflect band Sound Tribe Sector 9 (STS9) that boasts jams with no lyrics. A "Best Kept Secret", moe., "Straps you in, ties you down, and rolls you a bone" and has three of their own festivals each year and a cruise.

Gov't Mule, Widespread Panic, and The Dead have all refocused and captivated audiences after sudden deaths or departing members. Bands are forming Allstar jams. The Grateful Dead's Bob Weir once noted, in response to a Jim Ladd question in a 1980's "Interview" where he described the Dead's music, it is simply "intuitive improvisational music".^{[citation needed]}

Bands like Moe. and One-Eyed jack bring together a classic rock sound mixed with a psychadelic groove and extended jamming sessions. Spin-offs from the Grateful Dead, such as Ratdog, are still touring internationally and have thousands of dedicated fans. Global rhythm bands such as Antibalas, while not considered a jam band, have become a welcome addition to the jam band scene.

[edit] Jam scene

The contemporary jam scene is built on the bands fundamentally described as "Fourth Generation Jam Bands." In the US it has grown to encompass bands from a great diversity of musical genres. A new genre of jam-band music uses live improvisation that mimics the sounds of DJs and electronica musicians and has been dubbed "trancefusion" (a fusion between Trance music and Rock n' Roll), although most electronica enthusiasts would point out that the trancefusion style is strictly based on House music rhythms. The Disco Biscuits helped to promote this shift in the jam-band aesthetic, as they were one of the early Phish-influenced jam bands to incorporate electronic music sounds and experiment with trancefusion.

Bands who have a similar style to The Disco Biscuits, such as Lotus, Sound Tribe Sector 9, Signal Path, Brothers Past, Particle, and The New Deal are rapidly joining the "jamtronica" style in the music world. Jam band fans also listen to progressive rock such as Umphrey's McGee as well as jazz, fusion, and funk bands such as Garaj Mahal, Medeski, Martin, and Wood, and Galactic. Even progressive bluegrass bands such as Yonder Mountain String Band and Railroad Earth are popular. Dixieland and traditional New Orleans jazz have also fused with the jam band scene with bands like Dirty Dozen Brass Band and the early pioneer Dr. John. A reincarnation of the seminal New Orleans funk outfit The Meters often plays jam festivals and venues now under the name The Funky Meters.

A picture of the String Cheese Incident.

For many jam fans, particularly those in their late 20's located in urban pockets around the country, the demise of Phish and rise of indie rock led to a general backlash against the jam band stigma in 2004. As cited in both the December/January 2006 issue of Relix magazine and a contemporaneous issue of the Village Voice, the term post-jam has come to define a group of more song-oriented live bands with roots in the jam scene. Perhaps more unified by their fans than their sound, post-jam acts like the Slip, the Benevento/Russo Duo, Apollo Sunshine, Sam Champion, Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey and RANA appeal to a contingent of concert-goers who grew up on jam bands but who shifted their interests to groups like Wilco and Radiohead largely through the festivalization of the music industry. Like Neil Young to grunge, My Morning Jacket can be seen as the “godfather” of the post-jam scene, a song-oriented country-rock band with a knack for improvisation. Important proto-typical post-jam albums include the Slip’s Eisenhower, the Duo’s Play Pause Stop, and Apollo Sunshine’s Katonah.

There are well over 20 large-scale jam band music festivals each year, but the largest and most famous of these is Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival. This concert brings together not only jam bands, but also artists from a wide range of music, such as jazz and bluegrass and also various stand-up comics. It is held annually in Tennessee in mid-June since its 2002 conception and receives from 60-100 thousand fans each year.

The diverse genres and styles of the jam band scene are held together by a common musical approach: an emphasis on creative improvisation and live performance as opposed to structured, arranged live performances and planned studio recordings. Additionally, another common thread uniting all of the jam bands today is a common fan base of festival-goers and touring fans.

[edit] Taping

Jam bands usually encourage their fans to make tapes or recordings of their live shows, a practice which many other musical genres call "illegal bootlegging". The Grateful Dead encouraged this practice, which helped to create a thriving scene around the collecting and trading of recordings of Grateful Dead live performances. Most of the live shows on the Grateful Dead's 30 years of touring were recorded.

The album cover of Live/Dead (1969) by the Grateful Dead. Critic Robert Christgau remarked that it contained the "finest rock improvisation ever recorded".^[8]

It was probably the trading of recordings of Grateful Dead shows which built the band's fan base. The bands sold "taper" tickets for a taper's section which had a soundboard line-out for the tapers to record from. This type of encouragement has spread to nearly all of the jam bands. Some jam band enthusiasts argue that if a band does not allow fans to tape their live shows, this band is not actually a jam band in the Grateful Dead tradition.

Fans trade recordings and collect recordings of different live shows because improvisational jam bands are play their songs differently at each performance. Fans can collect various versions of their favorite songs. They can keep track of how many times a specific song has been played, and thus increase the momentousness of a rare song being dusted off and played live. ^[9]

Some bands play with this phenomena by throwing short little "teases" into their sets. Playing, for example, a few bars of a famous cover song or hinting at a popular jam and then either never getting around to playing the song, or coming back to it after an extended jam. The use of segues to blend strings of songs together is another mark of a jam band, and one which makes for treasured tapes. ^[10]

[edit] Jam bands downloads

Archived jam band downloads are available at Live Music Archive. Nugs.net is also a source for music and provides MP3 and FLAC files. Asking for B&P's or trades is part of being in the phamily. Peer-to-peer trading is also a common way for fans to trade recordings of live shows. The Furthur Network is a site for trading jam band recordings.^[11] In 2005, Relix Magazine lanuched its own podcast, Cold Turkey, hosted by writers Benjy Eisen and Mike Greenhaus.

More bands have been distributing their latest shows online. Bands such as Phish, Widespread Panic, The String Cheese Incident, Gov't Mule, Umphrey's McGee, Ben Harper, and The Disco Biscuits have been offering digital downloads within weeks of concerts. The Grateful Dead have begun to offer online, digital download only, live releases from their archives as well. While there is some obvious conflict of interest between the "free and open trading of shows" and artists packaging and selling the same shows for money, a dynamic equilibrium has been reached where die-hards trade and others are happy to pay for the convenience.

Certain venues offer kiosks where fans may purchase a digital recording of the concert and download it to a USB flash drive or another portable digital storage device. Some bands, including The Allman Brothers, offer Instant lives, which are concert recordings made available for purchase on Compact Disc shortly after the show ends. Most major music festivals also offer instant digital live recordings at the event. The fact that these shows are available and freely traded doesn't diminish their commercial popularity. Every show of Phish's famous "Live Phish" series or the Dead's "Dick's Picks" series and their spin-offs are all available freely in lossless digital format should one be willing to dig or trade for them; and yet, people regularly plunk down large sums of cash for these "official" versions largely due to their excellent graphics, liner notes, packaging and other extras.

[edit] Places to see jam bands

In the August 2006 issue of Guitar One on jam bands, the following places were referred to as the "best places to see jam music": Red Rocks Amphitheater; Red Rocks Park, Denver, CO; Jam Cruise, Fort Lauderdale, FL; The Gorge Amphitheatre, George, Washington; High Sierra Music Festival, Quincy, CA; The Greek Theater, Berkeley, CA; Bonnaroo Music Festival, Manchester, TN; The Warfield Theater, San Francisco, CA; The Barrymore Theater, Madison, WI; The Higher Ground, Burlington, Vermont; and the Jam in the Dam in Amsterdam.

[edit] Festivals

One way to see many jam bands in one place is by going to a jam band-oriented music festival. Some popular festivals that include jam bands are: Bonnaroo in Tennessee; All Good in West Virginia; Langerado in Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Wakarusa Music and Camping Festival in Lawrence, Kansas; 10,000 Lakes Festival in Minnesota; the Gathering of the Vibes; the Garden of Eden Festival in Greenfield, Mass.; Camp Bisco in Hunter Mountain, New York; Telluride Bluegrass Festival in Colorado; Hookahville in Ohio; Schwagstock in Missouri; and Vegoose in Nevada. Also Illinois hosts Summercamp in Chillicothe Illinois.

[edit] References

1. ^ ^{a b} What is a jam band? (html). Jambands.com. Retrieved on February 2, 2007.
2. ^ Grateful Dead – Inductee detail (asp). Inductees. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, Inc. Retrieved on February 2, 2007.
3. ^ Frank Zappa – Inductee detail (asp). Inductees. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, Inc. Retrieved on February 2, 2007.
4. ^ The Allman Brothers Band – Inductee detail (asp). Inductees. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, Inc. Retrieved on February 2, 2007.
5. ^ Online Etymology Dictionary – Jam (v.) (asp). Retrieved on February 2, 2007.
6. ^ http://www.phantasytour.com/phish/shows.cgi?showID=331
7. ^ http://www.phantasytour.com/bisco/shows.cgi?showID=611
8. ^ Robert Christgau (1969). Live/Dead review (php). Music reviews. Robert Christgau. Retrieved on February 2, 2007.
9. ^ The Dead's playing of "Unbroken Chain" in their final year or so, after never really playing that Phil Lesh penned (and sung) fan-favorite from the Dead's much-loved From The Mars Hotel (1974) Lp, was one such event. As was their playing of the archetypal jam song "Dark Star" again after decades of being out of the repertoire.
10. ^ Fans will wax rhapsodic about that one show where Phish segued out of "Fee," into "Stash," into "You Enjoy Myself," and then back into "Stash" again.
11. ^ for examples, go to: http://www.jambands.com/deansdownloads/ Moe or http://www.jambands.com/deansdownloads/index.php?start=9 Steve Kimock and The Slip, Soulive, Merl Saunders and host Peter Prince for a version of the Isley Brothers’ “It’s Your Thing.”

[edit] External links

• Jambands.com
• The101Report
• JamBase
• Endless Boundaries Music In and Around the Jam Scene!

• Jamaroo