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What about Jam bands??
- Thread starter On the down low
- Start date
- Oct 18, 2012
- 6,683
- 5,538
- Disclosures
- Endorsing Artist: Fender, Spector, Ampeg, Curt Mangan, Nordstrand Pickups, Korg , Conquest Sound
I can't stand jam bands. Nothing more than self indulgent crap. Nobody wants to hear the same song for 25 minutes.
Well, everyone is entitled to there worthless opinion
I just can't do Phish personally, as it's extremely derivative (even down to the bass amp) of the Grateful Dead, which I got to enjoy many times in the early '80's.
I work with some folks who are Phish heads, listened to them a lot like it or not but it can't beat the real thing for me. Really that scene is kind of frat boy, sorry to say.
Except for the first Phish record, the one that was basically a thesis if i'm not mistaken. That one is interesting, it's own thing more.
Glad younger generations get to go on a similar journey though!
Wooten and the Flecktones jam and improvise their asses off, not sure what you mean there.
That bassist Jesus is just amazing, without a doubt.
But the depth of the hippie jam scene music usually doesn't really go as deep as Jazz improvisation does, not knocking it (gotta start somewhere!),
but as serious musicians progress in the improv direction they generally seem to want to go further than that, to more dangerous (figuratively) places.
I played in jam bands for years, but got to the point where I wanted more, I guess that's where my opinion comes from.
I find the heavier, more intense stuff these days takes from all the genre mentioned so far in this thread, and more.
Not so easy to stereotype as "jam band", but there's a lot happening in music right now that gives me great hope for the future.
I work with some folks who are Phish heads, listened to them a lot like it or not but it can't beat the real thing for me. Really that scene is kind of frat boy, sorry to say.
Except for the first Phish record, the one that was basically a thesis if i'm not mistaken. That one is interesting, it's own thing more.
Glad younger generations get to go on a similar journey though!
Wooten and the Flecktones jam and improvise their asses off, not sure what you mean there.
That bassist Jesus is just amazing, without a doubt.
But the depth of the hippie jam scene music usually doesn't really go as deep as Jazz improvisation does, not knocking it (gotta start somewhere!),
but as serious musicians progress in the improv direction they generally seem to want to go further than that, to more dangerous (figuratively) places.
I played in jam bands for years, but got to the point where I wanted more, I guess that's where my opinion comes from.
I find the heavier, more intense stuff these days takes from all the genre mentioned so far in this thread, and more.
Not so easy to stereotype as "jam band", but there's a lot happening in music right now that gives me great hope for the future.
Jesus is a solid funk bass player. Lettuce is a funk band not a jam band. Grateful Dead is a jam band.
Diversity of taste is what makes this place fun. I've checked out many bands as a result of my lurking here that never would have been on the radar otherwise (mostly metal, and even some classics that aren't my personal cup of tea like RUSH and Yes)... I'm still not likely to download most of it, but I like giving it all a shot. I feel that the opinions of the members here are worth looking into if I've never heard of it.
I mainly listen to straight ahead jazz of the classic variety and jam bands, with Phish being chief among them. There's so much parallel in terms of the sheer musical competence and transcendent execution of complex, yet cohesive, musical ideas. Mike Gordon is an absolute monster, and a legitimate multi-media artist on and off the stage.
You'll find a lot of naysaying and weird butt-hurt around jam bands here for some reason... different strokes for different folks is never enough for those types, as if bashing an entire genre will convince people that the whole lot of it is "self indulgent crap". It's a weird compulsion; you'll see it every time.
I mainly listen to straight ahead jazz of the classic variety and jam bands, with Phish being chief among them. There's so much parallel in terms of the sheer musical competence and transcendent execution of complex, yet cohesive, musical ideas. Mike Gordon is an absolute monster, and a legitimate multi-media artist on and off the stage.
You'll find a lot of naysaying and weird butt-hurt around jam bands here for some reason... different strokes for different folks is never enough for those types, as if bashing an entire genre will convince people that the whole lot of it is "self indulgent crap". It's a weird compulsion; you'll see it every time.
Lettuce plays in the jam band scene, though.
That scene is great for long term fans, no denying it. But maybe that's part of it, you can't challenge those folks too much. For example, during the Dead's typical drums/ space section of the show, it was always easy to go up front as most folks would go take a break....
That scene is great for long term fans, no denying it. But maybe that's part of it, you can't challenge those folks too much. For example, during the Dead's typical drums/ space section of the show, it was always easy to go up front as most folks would go take a break....
Here's a funny thing to consider; Kind of Blue by Miles Davis' group is a jam band album. Maybe the first one recorded? That was modal music, improvised.
The "Jam Band" thing always sounded like watching a bunch of people during rehearsal. And yes, according to all the people I know who are or were in the scene, it's pretty frat-heavy now. Not my thing, but some people are diehards about it. You don't go to A Phish concert, you go to ALL OF THE PHISH CONCERTS 
.
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I know. It seems a bit taboo to say it out loud. The guy is technically great, but I just could never get into his stuff, try as I might.
While I do own one Phish album, and don't listen to... I really never got into the jam band genre. The closest would probably be being in a jazz combo - and I really don't listen to jazz either (which was probably obvious to jazz listeners).
Off the top of my head the one extended jam I do like is Tower of Power's 23 minute version of "Knock Yourself Out."
Off the top of my head the one extended jam I do like is Tower of Power's 23 minute version of "Knock Yourself Out."
Grateful Dead is not a jam band. Jam bands may have been inspired by the dead, but they were a psychedelic rock and roll band with roots in folk, jazz, and blues. I would say the Allman Brothers were the original jam band.
Nah, Listen to the discography, notably Live Dead. Recorded when the Allman bros. were just forming. Total modal improvisation.
Right, which makes it more like Jazz than the Allman brothers 20 minute major pentatonic jams. I'm like many others in here, I can't get into jam bands, but Ive listened to tens of thousands of hours of Grateful Dead. I actually play in a jam band now, but only because it's more fun to play than it is to listen to.
I think the bottom line is both of these bands are jam bands when it comes down to it. The point being to stretch out as their predecessors did with jazz, and eschew the given form to take the music to new places as a unit.
It definitely is more fun to play than listen to for hours. If you think about it even Iron Maiden is a jam band with 18 minute songs. It's funny how we all try to pigeon hole every type of music to say they are this type of band or that. All I wanted from this thread was to salute bass players from a different type of music for a job well done. At the end of the day, and we go to bed our fingers on our right hand or left are still twitching playing invisible strings from the same instrument we all love. No matter what music you make come out of it.
There is jam band love on TB. Mike Gordon has a fan club, and so does Phil Lesh. The Lesh thread is great with lots of info on how to get Phil's tones through history, but especially the Alembic-modded Stafire era tones. Try a search, you'll be reading for weeks.
