I will say from the start that this is a dumb question and my answer may be (certainly is!) equally as ridiculous, but it’s something I think about from time to time, something I’ve developed my own opinion on over the years, and something I’ve been wanting to write up for a while. Of course, this is all semantics and all my opinion (and I should state up front that whatever you may think about my take, I do not use the term “Jamband” as pejorative), but when someone says “so-and-so is a ‘Jamband’,” this is what I think about…
First of all, what do we mean when we say “jam.” I think most people would equate the term jam with improvise, although even that may be up for debate. Is a dude taking a guitar solo while a band behind him vamps on theme jamming or just taking a solo? I once saw a before-they-were-big indie-rock band call every 3-minute song in their set a “jam” and it made me shake my head a bit, but it just goes to show, there’s no good definition of “jam,” but maybe, like so many things, we just know it when we see it.
So, there are many bands that jam and to say they’re all Jambands seems way, way too broad to me. I mean, is every jazz band in New York City a Jamband? Maybe to some people the answer is yes, but I think a reasonable answer is no, not every jazz ensemble is a Jamband. Same for large portions of the bluegrass world, etc. The definition of Jamband, in my opinion, can’t just be bands-who-jam/improvise.
I think it’s important to note that the term “Jamband” is a relatively new invention. When I was a kid, going to things like the HORDE, no one used the term regularly. Oh, if someone said the word “jamband” you knew what they were talking about, but it wasn’t quite a genre or even a family of bands. The term was mostly codified, in my mind, by Dean Budnick who wrote a book with that name in the late 90’s about a certain community of bands, and, if I am not mistaken, this book actually spurred the creation (directly and/or indirectly) of both Jambands.com and JamBase.com websites in the late 90’s. So, when I think of Jambands, this is where my history comes into play, it is of a certain time and place, certain influences and intent. The book was literally just a compendium of a bunch of bands, bands that you’d find at festivals like Berkfest and in rooms like the Wetlands.
Taking this all together, to me a Jamband has a certain sound. That sound is informed by certain influences and has a certain intent. Let me be blunt, to me, a Jamband is a band that is informed and/or influenced by one thing and that one thing is the four dudes from Vermont known as Phish. Jambands know about Phish and are influenced in some way by them, their jams are informed by the way Phish jams. This isn’t to say they necessarily want to be Phish (although, clearly many started this way) or started as Phish cover bands or sound like Phish at all or ever wanted to sound like them, but at some level of consciousness, their music just knows about Phish’s music, particularly their improvisational style. Once this clicked for me, it became very clear that this was my definition and, if I may be so humble as someone active in this space for 30 years, the right one.
This raises some interesting questions: is the Grateful Dead a Jamband? Were the Allman Brothers? Perhaps surprisingly, I say no, they weren’t. Maybe even more interesting: is Phish a Jamband? My answer to that is: actually, they weren’t when they started, but maybe at some point in the mid-90’s they became one. Here’s the thing, intent matters. The Dead, the Allmans, Phish, Widespread Panic… these bands weren’t put together to jam; the jamming, the improvisation came later (if at all!). If you went to see Phish in the early 90’s, the jams were actually few and far between, were usually short by today’s standards, and only one of the many reasons you went to see them. Depending on your definition of “jam,” most of the bands on the first HORDE tour, perhaps the proto-jam-festival/tour, didn’t even really jam at all. The Aquarium Rescue Unit barely changed their setlist over their entire history and, like, Blues Traveler? Spin Doctors? Do we think those guys are Jambands? There are tons of bands, many of which improvise, influenced by the Grateful Dead, but their sound is so much different from the class of bands I would call Jambands, I can’t consider them the same thing at all.
I consider moe. to be one of the first, maybe the first Jambands, a band whose sound pervades many of the other Jambands to follow (to my ear). Disco Biscuits, Sting Cheese Incident, Umphrey’s McGee, Yonder Mountain String Band, Goose, Spafford, Billy Strings, these are all Jambands. Garcia Peoples, Causa Sui, Chris Forsyth, etc… these bands certainly jam, but to call them Jambands always seemed wrong to me and once I settled upon my definition, I knew that they weren’t. They were influenced by the Dead and/or Crazy Horse and/or Miles Davis, often leading to rich improvisation, but not to Jambandom. Joe Russo’s Almost Dead is an interesting situation: I do consider them a Jamband, a band that plays Dead tunes with a sound that is no-doubt informed by Phish’s jamming style.
There is a secondary feature to most Jambands that, to me, is a more-effect-than-cause situation. This is what I call a band’s “mythology.” A band’s mythology is the reward for fans of that group: each song is more than a song, but a piece of its history, some are rare, some go in certain parts of a set, some are part of larger song-cycles, etc. Sets (often) change from show to show and fans are bonus-points rewarded beyond the music itself for knowing this mythology (“can you believe they opened the show with Harry Hood!?!?”). This is something Phish (and WSP and others) took from the Grateful Dead, but really was taken to the next level by Phish almost from their start. I don’t think every Jamband needs to have a mythology, but it helps with the other common trait of Jambands: a fanbase that keeps coming back for more, not just because they enjoy the music, but because there is a wealth of other treasures and an ever-changing treasure map. Drugs, hippies, partying, etc. are also a correlation-not-causation situation with most Jambands. You have these things in your band’s orbit because you are a Jamband, not the other way around.
Of course, over the years many bands that do not fit within the boundaries of my definition certainly get lumped in with Jambands, appear at Lockn or other jam-centric festivals, get written up in Relix or JamBase, etc. That’s all good as far as I’m concerned, Jamband fans are historically a bit insular with their listening habits… but I still wouldn’t call My Morning Jacket a Jamband, would you? I sometimes like to distinguish between “jamming” and “rocking out” — like MMJ might rock out an especially great version of “Steam Engine,” but I wouldn’t put that in the same category or even same definitional space as a 30-minute “Tweezer.”
In this way, Jamband is a genre of a music, a know-it-when-you-hear-it definition just like jazz or bluegrass or rock and roll, although perhaps a bit of a meta one. Of course, musical genres are a bit silly to begin with and are meant to be smashed to bits by the truly visionary. I appreciate your reading this to the end (or whenever you stopped with my claptrap) and look forward to your thoughts and explanations about why I’m wrong. Cheers!
