A Jam Band Hater's List of Jam Bands to Love
Phish is back with a vengeance. Now that Trey is off the junk, the band has been busier - and more focused - than ever. Since reuniting this year (they broke up in 2004) the jam band has released a new album ("Joy" produced by longtime U2 collaborator Steve Lillywhite), headlined this year's Bonnaroo Festival, and made their first Rock Band appearance.
And next weekend, the Phish takes over the Coachella grounds for Festival 8 - three days of Phish-ness kicking off on Halloween and including their first-ever full acoustic set (Sunday morning with coffee and donuts being served).
I'll admit that I have a difficult relationship with jam bands. Improvisational music is a dangerous proposition. For every 3-minutes of musical bliss, there are another 20 of mind-numbing noodling. I went to a Grateful Dead show. Once. After the spinners, the naked dude asking me, "do you know where I am," the 10,000 tie-dyed, patchouli-smelling stoners looking for their miracle, and the interminable "space" drum solo, I had enough and never looked back. Give me a tight, three minute, 20-second pop song - and a shower - any day.
Who's the best jam band of all time? [SodaHead Poll]
Still, I'm man enough to admit it when I see a guitar player who can bend the mind. And most jam bands have some insanely godlike guitarists. Even if the solo goes on too long. Plus, I'm a sucker for the southern twang most jam bands employ. I probably flew a confederate flag in another life. Coming back as a black man is my penance (although it has its perks).
Here's a jam band haters list of jam bands to love. Wait for the solo. Tapers take note.
Cream
The first supergroup (at the least the first that mattered), Cream was comprised of former Yardbirds guitarist Eric Clapton and Graham Bond Quartet drummer and bassist Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce. The ride lasted only a brief two years (with a 1993 and 2005 reuniting) but the jams were sweet and bluesy.
The Jerry Garcia Band
Despite the legendary inconsistencies (by his own admission, he turned in the worst performance at Woodstock), Jerry Garcia could be surprisingly melodic and majestic. The late Garcia's playing was some of the most romantic around…when the drugs were working just right. Garcia's side project, The Jerry Garcia Band was hands down the superior alternative to the Dead. In fact, they played Dead songs better than the Dead. All the jam, less the out-of-tune harmonies.
Allman Brothers Band
For me, the Allman Brothers Band died along with slide guitarist Duane Allman's 1971 fatal motorcycle accident. Their "At Fillmore East" album (released shortly before Duane's death) is the gold standard of live albums - by jam bands or otherwise. Not a wasted note and not a false move.
Widespread Panic
The Athens, Georgia, jam band lost their lead guitarist and co-founder, Michael Houser, to pancreatic cancer in 2002. The band's name was inspired by his frequent panic attacks before shows. Houser's solos (which involved excessive use of a volume pedal) were high art and while two subsequent guitarists - George McConnell (2002-2006) and Jimmy Herring (2006 - current) have real gifts Houser's loss is still real.
String Cheese Incident
The Boulder, Colorado band has a place in my heart because of their love of bluegrass (although the Dead's Jerry Garcia had the same love which turned up in their tunes). SCI's love of twang and groove stays close to the roots. Founding member Bill Nershi left the band in 2007 which has left SCI a part time operation since.
Follow Shawn Amos on Twitter: www.twitter.com/GetBack
Jerry Garcia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Grateful Dead | Official Site of the Grateful Dead
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o.k-from the west cost of europe by the sea with the waves of the atlantic ocean cames the dead sound. i love all the guys the you talk but the dead is in my heart forever,and since i was a kid 35 years a go.i am a jazz fan i love jambands.a
i remenber when i saw the dead in barcelona i did 1.200km to see them and it was the only time, but they are my company. i saw many groups and guitar players:za
Little Feat!
Legend has it Lowell George was kicked out of Zappa's band for writing a great song. He was pushed to form his own. The bassist and persucussionist were also from Zappa's band. Add truly underrated piano and keyboardist Bill Payne (search and see who he has played with over the years), and Paul Barrere on vocals and guitar - this was a great lineup.
Mixed slide guitar of Duane Allman, lyric images of the Band, and with a New Orleans roll and funk. Waiting for Columbus is one of the great live albums of all time.
After listening to a few select albums over many years, I wouldn't be making this case until recently. I just saw them live for the first time - and they are as tight as ever. They have updated and expanded the jams from songs both pre and post Geoge periods, and I didn't see anyone remotely disinterested with the extend versions. Feat don't fail me now!
Little Feats "Waiting for Columbus" is right there with the ABB's - Fillmore East as an all time favorite Live album
For me,
The ultimate "Jam Bands" I saw in my concert-going years were Miles Davis and George Clinton.
Seen Miles twelve times throughout the 80s. And his shows were primarily jam fests for his players to show their stuff. Miles was a true ringmaster at his shows.
Seen P-Funk at least seven times.
Clinton and his P-Funk army have been nothing but Jam Central. People walking up on stage out of nowhere, doing their thing. The group always plays at least three hours. One P-Funk show I saw at the old Ritz in the early 80s, Flea from The Red Hot Chili Peppers walked on stage, and played for about an hour. He had Eddie Hazel's name studded down the sides of his bell-bottoms.
For anyone who saw the recent Allman Bros./Wide
The classic John Coltrane quartet was the original jam band.
Bob Weir's guitar playing is very derivative of McCoy Tyner.
Yes, yes and yes to Allman Brothers at Fillmore East. A superb album and always up there on my top five list. They recently played in NYC with a different guest guitarist on some nights. Clapton, Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, and Johnny Winter were three of the guests. Personally, I think Johnny Winter has always been underrated. If you want to hear some jams, listen to the album that came out around the same time as Fillmore East, Second Winter. The "third side" in particular, the album only had three. Tell me Hustled Down in Texas does not rock.
Shawn: Check out Rail Road Earth...Th
No discussion of current jambands is complete without mentioning P-Funk and the guitar MASTERY of the late Eddie Hazel. Maggot Brain? Red Hot Mamma? C'MON!!!
I've played guitar for 20+ years. A Neil Young freak. Have a number of friends who are/were Deadheads. Saw the Dead in concert twice. Due to having friends who were very hardcore fans, I've heard many, many, many hours of Dead jamming.
Taking my life in my hands, Jerry Garcia is(was) a bad guitarist; he sucks. Probably the worst lead guitarist of any major-label band. Ever.
Improv being impressive? I can improvise a 5 hour guitar solo at the drop of a hat if you want to hear one. Any halfway decent lead guitarist can do what Jerry--and Bobby--did. It's just that you don't find many mediocre guitarists who think their playing is worth listening to for more than a minute or two, so they don't/didn't have a lot of competition in the "space" jam genre.
Haynes has far, far more in common with Hendrix than with Jerry.
I think your statement about Garcia is way too harsh but I agree when it comes to technique Garcia isn't even in the same league with people like Hendrix or Clapton. But for that matter neither is Neil Young. To me both Young and Garcia are great because they are very interesting to listen to even though their technique pretty much sucks. This was really brought home to me the other day when I was listening to a live concert of Dylan, Clapton, Neil Young, and George Harrison. On an extended Dylan song there were two guitar solos the first by Clapton the second by Young. The first ten times I listened to the song I admired how Clapton's solo was so much more professional and proficient than Young who sort of rambled held on to one note for a long time, etc. Then after ten times I realized that Young's solo was actually a lot more interesting to listen to than Clapton's.
Yes, Neil is technially limited. I agree as mcuh as anyone. His creativity, I think, is great. He does a lot with a more limited vocabualry than a Clapton et al., or the thousands of other guitarists who are technically better than he is. But his compositional skills as a lead guitarist are what get him where he is. And he has a unique, engaging, charismatic style to his playing.
I think Calpton, for all his technical skill, is bland. Generic blues/rock, though the best of it in the bland-type. I lsiten to minutes-long solos of his and walk away with nothign to remember.
There are at least 10 million guitarists that would tend to disagree with you there buddy (Neil included). You must be like the King in Amadeus complaining of "Too many notes" . I love Neil Young too, and in his own way, he is a great guitarist with a unique voice. So is Mark Knoffler, or David Gilmour, all examples of great guitarists who don't play fast. However to dismiss Jerry is to completely ignore the fact that no guitarist did more within his own genre as Jerry did. Jerry's playing was incredible, his fingering and speed was as unmatched as his phraseing. I can understand if you don't care for his tone (some don't), but to dismiss his playing as aweful simply exhibits YOUR absolute ignorance. You will be dead and gone and Jerry Garcia recordings will STILL be getting released and hitting Platinum.
Jerry was a rater ordinary acoustic -style flatpicker -cum electric guitarist.
10 million? Jerry isn't that popular with serious guitarists. The Dead as a group were great--they did their thing, it was their's alone, they concocted it out mutliple genres--creative genius of a kind. But Jerry sucked. Primitive playing, poor compositional skills in his playing. A high junk-to-good ratio in his playing. Reminds me of my early days when I'd need to solo forever to finally come up with a decent line to play. That's my view of Jerry's live jams. Keep noodling around--for a long time--with effect until hitting a good lcik.On studio albums Jerry is bascially o.k., but the jam-band versions he sucked at. I'm one of the few who likes their studio stuff better than the live stuff, it seems. They had some great songs and great musicians. Jerry was the leader, but as a guitarist, sorry.
As I said, I was taking my life in my hands. One thing I've learned is never criticize the Dead to a Deadhead in person. They are relentlessly loyal. Which is why I did it here rather than live in person with someone. There's no way to debate taste as a vibe.
Probably the worst guitarist of any major label band. Ever.
That's probably one of the worst and most ridiculous comments I've ever read on Huffington Post. Ever.
Great, you play guitar and you saw two Dead shows. Did you stay at a Holiday Inn as well?
Garcia always said he was unique; he was as modest as anyone in the industry, shy in fact. He never compared himself with others. Probably would say the same about Hendrix and others as I see in similar posts here: that they were incredible.
But where are your 30 years of shows and albums, guitar solos and more??? Just curious...
The question of who's a better guitar player is an irrelevant passtime. The true test is whether they have a unique voice and that is why they are artists that everyone else tries to imitate.
You guy's conversation makes me think of what Chet Atkins said when asked who he thought the "best guitarist in the world" was...
(paraphrasing)
"I don't know and neither do you. The best guitarist ever is just some guy in his basement, not playing for fame or money but for the love of music".
My personal favorites have alway been the uber-technique guys like Danny Gatton and Robert Fripp.
Although they were considerably more eclectic, I'd like to lobby for the inclusion of Fleetwood Mac. Danny Kirwan and Peter Green had such complimentary guitar voices when they stretched out; they purportedly had been exposed to jamming as an art when playing w/the Dead. Their "Live at the Boston Tea Party" albums (not to be confused w/the AOR Mac's Live in Boston album, from decades later) have some truly passionate and lengthy workouts; geez, The Green Manalishi (from vol 1) even concludes w/Peter Green doing an extended solo on a 6-string bass.
Having seen Fleetwood Mac in 1980, I will have to concur that they were a MONSTER live band!!
The man is right about the Allman Bros Fillmore album.
Those boys knew how to keep the music moving and not meander the way the Dead did.
My favorite jam band would be the Miles Davis groups of the Bitches Brew/Jack Johnson/Live Evil era, with John McLaughlin, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, et al. Check out the show Miles played at Fillmore as the opening act for Neil Young. (Miles Davis and Neil Young on the same bill!)
Btw, Neil Young and Crazy Horse aren't a jam band but sure play some mean jams.
Man, you really went there with that particular Miles group. Any cynics regarding his RNRHOF induction need only to delve into any of the records you mentioned.
And as for Mr. Young, "Cowgirl in the Sand" is the greatest jam this side of the mighty Pink Floyd.
Miles, Neil and those respective units on the same bill...
Simply immense. Wish I was there.
Allmans Live at the Fillmore -- I go crazy when I hear lists of Best Live Albums and that's not on it. And seriously, it's one of the greatest rock albums of all times, not just live ones. Quite a feat.
Jukesgrrl I feel exactly the same. Its one of those albums you never get tired of hearing.
I love Cream, and I'm not a fan of jam bands at all. Of course, the interesting thing about Cream (and this was represented perfectly on "Wheels of Fire") was that they were actually two bands simultaneously: the one that played 'Crossroads' for twenty minutes at a stretch, and the one that played Jack Bruce's very individualistic and un-jam-band-like songs ('Deserted Cities of the Heart', 'As You Said'). I've always always preferred the latter.
I would rather listen to Badge five times in a row than Spoonfull once. (which is more about how great Badge is, I still like Spoonfull).
One band that I think should have been added to the list was Frank Zappa and the Mothers. Often pigeon holed as "comedy music" Zappa was one of the most innovative and talented musicians of the 20th century and he put together bands that were always the best and could jam as good as anyone.
Not much of a Phishead or a Mothers fan here, but it occurred to me recently that Phish is much more closely related to the Zappa than to the Dead, which I once just assumed most modern jam bands were derived from. I don't know, just an opinion/theory. I'm sure that's already occurred to most fans of those two bands.
Good call RedDogBear, although I'd say they could jam much better than the bands mentioned.
It's cool that his music has found a posthumous resurgence in popularity among jam band fans,
but most of them only seem to like his bluesier stuff which really only makes up about a third of what he did. Put on any of his avant jazz or classical stuff and you'll get blank stares.(be
I could be wrong but I think Zappa's resurgence is only just beginning. I think one of the major musical tragedies right up there with Hendrix dying so young was Zappa dying when he had reached the point that he could have started writing serious, well OK not serious but Zappaish classical music. Despite his early death I think he'll eventually get attention from the MUSIC world not just rock music or jazz music. He did some amazing things with sound, rhythm, and atonality. As much as I try I can't get enthused about any modern classical music after Ives, except for Zappa.
Zappa, a jam band? Hardly! Every note (except possibly for the occasional guitar noodling of the madman himself) was carefully crafted ahead of time by the master. Wild and imaginative music? Yes. Jams? No.
"except possibly for the occasional guitar noodling of the madman himself" Oh just that. The "guitar noodling" was only the most interesting inspiring part of the music. Why did Zappa go through such convolutions to warp various guitar solos he did live into albums that sounded as if they were completely recorded in the studio? He valued that extra bit of energy and creativity that he only got when doing it live.
Come on, Shawn, you can do better than this. How about:
Mountain - check the 16 minute version of NANTUCKET SLEIGHRIDE on THE ROAD GOES EVER ON. Leslie West takes all the clowns you reference above to school and back
Mike Bloomfield
Les Claypool/Frog Brigade/Primus/ - In any of his myriad of configurations, Claypool always brings out the best in whoever is playing with him at the time. Fantastic musician that never bores you on an extended tune
Government Mule - Warren Haynes is one of the most versatile guitarists playing today, but when the original Mule (Warren, Woody and Matt Abts) kicked it into gear, they could outplay anyone in their league
Not to diminish Leslie West as a guitar player , he's a damn fine one , but when he sat in with Gov't Mule , I recall reading a review where he said regarding playing alongside Warren Haynes for a couple of songs "I just got a guitar lesson from Warren Haynes "
Agree that Warren is technically superior, but for tone, vibrato and pure soul, Mr. Weinstein is the man.
Eric Clapton, Duane Allman, and Jerry Garcia - 'clowns'?
seriously?
Should have been more specific. Was really referring to the Panics and String Cheese. And Trey, for that matter. Don't find him particularly interesting or innovative. For me, Jerry peaked early (1977 or so). Duane is a personal musical hero and I'm just not a Clapton fan. Think that covers it.
Los Lobos can jam with the best of them.
Is Phish going to do a cover album for Halloween? In the past they have done, the White Album, Quadrophenia, Remain in Light, Loaded, and Dark Side of the Moon.
Los Lobos are an amazing band. Good on records, great on stage.
Their lead guitarist is a great blues player.
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