Hang on to your hacky sack! Jam Bands aren’t exclusive to psychedelics, red-eyed ones, or dyed ones. Although it is most closely associated with the Grateful Dead and PHISH; The Jam Band scene is perhaps the most inclusive, exciting and dynamic musical genre in music today.

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

The first known use of the term “improv band” was in a 1937 glossary of terms that read “An improv band relies entirely on improvisation, without using written music.” Close, but without cigar.

The true Fathers of Jam Bands were the Jazz musicians of the 1940s, 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. It makes sense, jazz was the most experimental and improvised music at the time. . Sometimes these Jams or Jam Sessions had competition. Musical battles such as “Court Contests”, where musicians could show off their musical prowess against each other, were legendary at Minton’s. Usually the “Court Contests” involved pianists.

“Cutting heads” or “Cutting heads” or “Hunting heads” generally involved blues guitarists. In the 1991 documentary The Search for Robert Johnson, blues musician Johnny Shines describes a battle he had with blues legend Robert Johnson on opposite street corners of Helena, Arkansas in the 1930s, to drive away the viewers of others. Movies like Crossroads (1986) and Cadillac Records (2008) show some Head Cutting scenes.

A Jam Session is when musicians perform and improvise without extensive preparation or predefined arrangements. Jam Sessions (or jamming) can build on existing songs, improvise to develop new material, or simply enjoy. Jam Sessions take place with musicians of all levels, from kids learning to play in their drummer’s basement to epically talented musicians delivering 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 they’re all there, right? It’s up to him to write what’s on everyone else’s mind. He starts the first chorus, then he lines up his ideas, people, yeah yeah, but get it, and Then he rises to his destination and 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 takes it and carries it. Time stops. It is filling the empty space with the substance of our lives, confessions of its tension in the butt, memory of ideas, rehash of old murmurs. It has to fly across bridges and come back and do it with such infinite feeling, soul explorer for the melody of the moment that everyone knows is not the melody that counts but that “.

So during the 50s and into the 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 improvisations are performed live. performance. (Another reason to go see live music).

Enter the 60s, the bluegrass influences of the Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia mingling with the psychedelics of the time. Acid parties turn into late-night improvisations; music becomes improvised by being improvisational and, in turn, experimental. Hippies free their minds and so does their music. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Grateful Dead devoted parts of their show to pure “space” improvisations. The Allman Brothers, Traffic, Jefferson Airplane, Jimmie Hendrix and Cream are starting to improvise more. Throughout the 70s, The Grateful Dead toured extensively: Dead Heads were born, Jazz cats, Blues and Bluegrass Artists are still playing, and now the rock guys are playing in the form of extended solos. The exaggerated rock guitar solo is born. Almost everyone is improvising, in one way or another.

Remember that in the 60s and 70s and in the 80s the musical genres were still quite defined, there were not many crossovers. The most notable of the Jam bands were the Hippy Bands. In the 80’s, bands like PHISH, Edie Brickell and Bella Fleck began to appear. Jamming became more prominent in other musical genres. The Grateful Dead fanbase grew, 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 way 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 begins to grow even more, festivals begin to appear, and collaborations of musicians that cross genres become more common. To the horror of the true Dead Heads, the Grateful Dead became popular and the term “Jam Band” was coined. This is where people take over when the Jam Bands started. In 1995, Jerry Garcia, the inspirational and spiritual icon of the hippy movement, had passed away. The Grateful Dead became The Other Ones and many Dead Heads began exploring other bands and musical genres. PHISH was huge, attracting tens of thousands at a time to its festivals.

2000 and beyond, music genres are further mixed 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 any kind of collaborations you can imagine. More established musicians such as Steve Kimock, Phil Lesh, Warren Haynes, Levon Helm, Greg Allman, Buddy Guy, and Bela Fleck collaborate with future musicians. Pop-up festivals 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 declared that Phish “was the living, breathable ….. definition of the term” jam band “, in the sense that it became a” cultural phenomenon “.

One of the most exciting things about music today is the crossover between musical genres. and the band’s genre Jam seems to attract 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 performed by some of the best musicians today. And it’s not mainstream yet. What does that mean? That means you can still see amazing music in the smaller clubs.

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

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