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jam bands 101

Hold on to your hacky-sack! Jam Bands are not exclusive to the psychedelic, red-eyed, or dyed-in-the-wool. Although most closely associated with the Grateful Dead and PHISH; The Jam Band scene is perhaps the most inclusive, exciting, and dynamic genre of music in music today.

Impulsive improvisation of the expression of the moment through music is pure magic. They are the sweet things that both listener and musician strive for; dynamic and responsive to the moment: the moment changes and so does the music. It’s where the lines between performer and listener start to blur. The evolution from Jamming to Jam Bands is interesting: pull up a chair.

The first known use of the term “jam band” was in a 1937 glossary of terms that stated “A jam band depends entirely on improvisation, using no written music.” Close, but no cigarette.

The true Fathers of the Jam Bands were the Jazz musicians of the 1940’s – the “Jazz Cats”. Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie and others are said to have been educated after hours at Minton’s Playhouse in New York City during the 1940s and 1950s. Makes sense, Jazz was the most experimental and most improvised music at that time. moment. Sometimes these Jam’s or Jam Sessions had competition. Musical battles such as “Cutting Contests”, where musicians could display their musical prowess against one another, were legendary at Minton’s. Typically, “cutting contests” involved pianists.

“Cutting Heads” or “Head Cutting” or “Head Hunting” usually involved blues guitarists. In the 1991 documentary The Search for Robert Johnson, blues musician Johnny Shines describes a head-slicing battle he had with blues legend Robert Johnson on opposite corners in Helena, Arkansas in the 1930s, to ward off bullies. viewers of the other. Movies like Crossroads (1986) and Cadillac Records (2008) show some head-cutting scenes.

A Jam Session is when the musicians play and improvise without extensive preparation or preset arrangements. Jam Sessions (or jams) can be based on existing songs, jam to develop new material, or just enjoy. Jam Sessions are held with musicians of all levels, from kids learning to play in their drummer’s basement to epically talented musicians providing sophisticated improvisational music.

For the most part, Jamming and Jam Sessions were exclusively live music products. Jack Kerouac describes it well:

“Here’s a guy and everyone’s there, right? It’s up to him to write down what’s on everyone else’s mind. Start the first chorus, then line up your ideas, people, yeah, yeah, but get it, and then rises to its destination.” and it has to blow just like him. Suddenly, somewhere in the middle of the chorus, he gets it: everyone looks up and knows; they listen; he picks it up and carries it. The time stops. He’s filling the empty space with the stuff of our lives, confessions of his lower-belly tension, recollection of ideas, rehashes of old beats. He has to cross bridges and come back and do it with such an infinite feeling of soul searching for the tune of the moment that everyone knows it’s not the tune that counts but YOU.”

So throughout the ’50s and ’60s, Jamming and Jam Sessions had been going on for a while, The Jazz Cats, Bluegrass and Blues Musicians have been doing it, and to a lesser degree Rock and Folk, but almost all the jams are done live. performance. (Another reason to go see live music).

Entering the 60s, the bluegrass influences of the Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia mix with the psychedelia of the time. Acid parties turn into late-night jam sessions; music becomes improvised by the fact that it is improvised and, at the same time, experimental. Hippies free their minds and their music too. In the late ’60s and early ’70s, the Grateful Dead devoted parts of their show to pure “space” improv. The Allman Brothers, Traffic, Jefferson Airplane, Jimmie Hendrix and Cream are starting to jam more. Throughout the ’70s, the Grateful Dead tour extensively: Dead Heads are born, the Jazz cats are still playing, Blues and Bluegrass artists are still playing, and now rock guys are playing in extended solo form. The over-the-top rock guitar solo is born. Almost everyone is improvising, in one way or another.

Remember back in the ’60s and ’70s and ’80s, music genres were still pretty defined, there wasn’t much crossover. The most notable Jam bands were the Hippy Bands. In the 80s bands like PHISH, Edie Brickell and Bella Fleck began to appear. Jamming became more prominent in other musical genres. The Grateful Dead’s fan base grew, the Dead Heads followed them from show to show as no show was the same. Many other bands began to play in a more expressive and sometimes unstructured manner as their musicianship grew.

Enter the 90s: Dave Matthews, Blues Traveler, Spin Doctors, Wide Spread Panic, Rusted Root, Government Mule, Leftover Salmon, Galactic and many others. The fan base starts to grow even more, festivals start popping up, and cross-genre collaborations by musicians become more common. To the horror of the true Dead Heads, the Grateful Dead became mainstream and the term “Jam Band” was coined. This is where people assume when Jam Bands started. In 1995, Jerry Garcia, the inspiring and spiritual icon of the hippy movement, had passed away. The Grateful Dead became The Other Ones, and many Dead Heads began to explore other bands and musical genres. PHISH was huge, drawing tens of thousands at a time to its festivals.

2000 and beyond, music genres mix even more as technology advances, people experience new bands and new music over the internet. The Jam Band scene begins to flourish. Moe, The Disco Biscuits, Umphrey McGee, Keller Williams, North Mississippi Allstars, John Butler Trio, Madeski Martin and Wood, Les Claypool, STS9, Lotus, Perpetual Groove, many other bands and every kind of collaboration you can imagine. More established musicians like Steve Kimock, Phil Lesh, Warren Haynes, Levon Helm, Greg Allman, Buddy Guy and Bela Fleck collaborate with new musicians. Festivals pop up everywhere: Bonaroo, Jam Cruise, Higher Ground, Jam in the Dam (Amsterdam), Rothbury, All Good, Mountain Jam, Wakaroosa and 10,000 Lakes are just a few. In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine stated that Phish “were the living, breathing definition of the term ‘jam band'”, in that they became a “cultural phenomenon”.

One of the most exciting things about music today is the crossover between musical genres. and the Jam band genre seems to attack and infuse many other genres. You can find elements of: Blues, Jazz, Bluegrass, Folk, Rock, Cajun, Afro, Cuban, Techno, Funk, Rap, House and World Music in the Jam band music genre. Jam band music crosses genres, demands improvisation, and is played by some of today’s best musicians. And it’s still unconventional. What does that mean? That means you can still see amazing music in the smallest clubs.

So what is a Jam Band? Good question. I think the term is limiting. What we are really talking about here is music that is structured but includes improvisation, oh, and with a (very important) rhythm. So whether it’s a Jam Band or a band playing, get out there and see some live music and experience it for yourself. .

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