
A jam band is a musical group whose concerts and
live album
An album is a collection of audio recordings (e.g., music) issued on a medium such as compact disc (CD), vinyl (record), audio tape (like 8-track or cassette), or digital. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early 20th centur ...
s substantially feature improvisational "
jamming". Typically, jam bands will play variations of pre-existing songs, extending them to
improvise
Improvisation, often shortened to improv, is the activity of making or doing something not planned beforehand, using whatever can be found. The origin of the word itself is in the Latin "improvisus", which literally means un-foreseen. Improvis ...
over
chord patterns or rhythmic
groove
Groove or Grooves may refer to:
Music
* Groove (music)
* Groove (drumming)
* The Groove (band), an Australian rock/pop band of the 1960s
* The Groove (Sirius XM), a US radio station
* Groove 101.7FM, a former Perth, Australia, radio station
...
s. Jam bands are known for having a very fluid structure, playing long sets of music which often cross genre boundaries, varying their nightly setlists, and
segueing from one song into another without a break.
The jam-band musical style, spawned from the
psychedelic rock
Psychedelic rock is a rock music Music genre, genre that is inspired, influenced, or representative of psychedelia, psychedelic culture, which is centered on perception-altering hallucinogenic drugs. The music incorporated new electronic sound ...
movement of the 1960s, was a feature of nationally famed groups such as the
Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead was an American rock music, rock band formed in Palo Alto, California, in 1965. Known for their eclectic style that fused elements of rock, blues, jazz, Folk music, folk, country music, country, bluegrass music, bluegrass, roc ...
and
The Allman Brothers Band
The Allman Brothers Band was an American rock music, rock band formed in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1969. Its founding members were brothers Duane Allman (slide guitar, lead guitar) and Gregg Allman (vocals, keyboards), as well as Dickey Betts ( ...
, whose regular touring schedules continued into the 1990s. The style influenced a new wave of jam bands who toured the United States with jam band-style concerts in the late 1980s and early '90s, such as
Phish
Phish is an American rock band formed in Burlington, Vermont, in 1983. The band consists of guitarist Trey Anastasio, bassist Mike Gordon, drummer Jon Fishman, and keyboardist Page McConnell, all of whom perform vocals, with Anastasio being the ...
,
Blues Traveler,
Widespread Panic
Widespread Panic is an American rock band from Athens, Georgia. The current lineup includes guitarist/singer John Bell (musician), John Bell, bassist Dave Schools, drummer Duane Trucks, percussionist Domingo "Sunny" Ortiz, keyboardist John "JoJ ...
,
Dave Matthews Band,
The String Cheese Incident,
moe., and
Col. Bruce Hampton and the Aquarium Rescue Unit. The jam-band movement gained mainstream exposure in the US in the early 1990s with the rise of Phish and the Dave Matthews Band as major touring acts and the dissolution of the Grateful Dead following
Jerry Garcia's death in 1995.
Jam-band artists often perform a wide variety of genres. While the Grateful Dead is categorized as psychedelic rock, by the 1990s the term "jam band" was applied to acts that incorporated genres such as
blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated among African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spiritual (music), spirituals, work songs, field hollers, Ring shout, shouts, cha ...
,
country music
Country (also called country and western) is a popular music, music genre originating in the southern regions of the United States, both the American South and American southwest, the Southwest. First produced in the 1920s, country music is p ...
,
contemporary folk music
Contemporary folk music refers to a wide variety of genres that emerged in the mid-20th century and afterwards which were associated with traditional folk music. Starting in the mid-20th century, a new form of popular folk music evolved from trad ...
,
funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in African-American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African-Americans in the ...
,
progressive rock
Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog) is a broad genre of rock music that primarily developed in the United Kingdom through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early-to-mid-1970s. Initially termed " progressive pop", the ...
,
world music
"World music" is an English phrase for styles of music from non-English speaking countries, including quasi-traditional, Cross-cultural communication, intercultural, and traditional music. World music's broad nature and elasticity as a musical ...
,
jazz fusion
Jazz fusion (also known as jazz rock, jazz-rock fusion, or simply fusion) is a popular music genre that developed in the late 1960s when musicians combined jazz harmony and improvisation with rock music, funk, and rhythm and blues. Electric gui ...
,
Southern rock
Southern rock is a subgenre of rock music and a genre of Americana. It developed in the Southern United States from rock and roll, country and blues, and is focused generally on electric guitars and vocals.
History 1950s and 1960s: origin ...
,
alternative rock
Alternative rock (also known as alternative music, alt-rock or simply alternative) is a category of rock music that evolved from the independent music underground of the 1970s. Alternative rock acts achieved mainstream success in the 1990s w ...
,
acid jazz
Acid jazz (also known as club jazz, psychedelic jazz, or groove jazz) is a music genre that combines elements of funk, soul music, soul, and hip hop music, hip hop, as well as jazz and disco. Acid jazz originated in clubs in London during the 1 ...
,
bluegrass,
folk rock
Folk rock is a fusion genre of rock music with heavy influences from pop, English and American folk music. It arose in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom in the mid-1960s. In the U.S., folk rock emerged from the folk music re ...
and
electronic music
Electronic music broadly is a group of music genres that employ electronic musical instruments, circuitry-based music technology and software, or general-purpose electronics (such as personal computers) in its creation. It includes both music ...
into their sound.
Although the term has been used to describe cross-genre and improvisational artists, it retains an affinity to the fan cultures of the Grateful Dead or Phish.
['' Relix'', all issues.]
A feature of the jam-band scene is fan recording of live concerts. While the mainstream music industry often views fan taping as "illegal
bootlegging", jam bands often allow their fans to make tapes or recordings of their live shows. Fans trade recordings and collect recordings of different live shows, because improvisational jam bands play their songs differently at each performance.
History
Modern use and definition

In the 1980s, the
Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead was an American rock music, rock band formed in Palo Alto, California, in 1965. Known for their eclectic style that fused elements of rock, blues, jazz, Folk music, folk, country music, country, bluegrass music, bluegrass, roc ...
's fan base included a large core group that followed their tours from show to show. These fans (known as "
Deadheads") developed a sense of community and loyalty. In the 1990s, the band
Phish
Phish is an American rock band formed in Burlington, Vermont, in 1983. The band consists of guitarist Trey Anastasio, bassist Mike Gordon, drummer Jon Fishman, and keyboardist Page McConnell, all of whom perform vocals, with Anastasio being the ...
began to attract this fan base. The term "jam band" was first used regarding Grateful Dead and Phish culture in the 1980s. In 1998,
Dean Budnick wrote the first book devoted to the subject, entitled ''Jam Bands''.
[Budnick, Dean (1998). ] He founded Jambands.com later that year and is often credited with coining the term. However, in his second book on the subject, 2004's ''Jambands: A Complete Guide to the Players, Music & Scene'', he explains that he only popularized it.
''
Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason.
The magazine was first known fo ...
'' magazine asserted in a 2004 biography that Phish "was the living, breathing, noodling definition of the term" jam band, in that it became a "cultural phenomenon, followed across the country from summer shed to summer shed by thousands of new-generation hippies and hacky-sack enthusiasts, and spawning a new wave of bands oriented around group improvisation and super-extended grooves." Another term for "jam band music" used in the 1990s was "Bay Rock". It was coined by the founder of ''
Relix'' magazine, Les Kippel, as a reference to the 1960s
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a List of regions of California, region of California surrounding and including San Francisco Bay, and anchored by the cities of Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose, California, S ...
music scene, which included the Grateful Dead,
Jefferson Airplane
Jefferson Airplane was an American Rock music, rock band formed in San Francisco, California, in 1965. One of the pioneering bands of psychedelic rock, the group defined the San Francisco Sound and was the first from the San Francisco Bay Area, ...
and
Moby Grape, among many others.
By the late 1990s, the types of jam bands had grown so that the term became quite broad, as exemplified by the definition written by Dean Budnick, which appeared in the program for the first annual
Jammy Awards in 2000 (Budnick co-created the show with
Wetlands Preserve owner Peter Shapiro).
Although in 2007 the term may have been used to describe nearly any cross-genre band, festival band, or improvisational band, the term retains an affinity to Grateful Dead-like bands such as Phish.
Andy Gadiel, the initial webmaster of Jambands.com, states in Budnick's 2004 edition of ''Jambands'' that the music "...had a link that would not only unite bands themselves but also a very large community around them."
Ambiguity

By the late 1990s, the term ''jam band'' became applied retroactively in jam band circles for bands such as
Cream
Cream is a dairy product composed of the higher-fat layer skimmed from the top of milk before homogenization. In un-homogenized milk, the fat, which is less dense, eventually rises to the top. In the industrial production of cream, this proces ...
, who for decades were categorized as a "power-trio" and "psychedelic rock", and who when active were largely unrelated to the Grateful Dead, but whose live concerts usually featured several extended collective improvisations. In his October 2000 column on the subject for ''jambands.com'', Dan Greenhaus attempted to explain the evolution of a jam band as such:
At this point, what you sing about, what instruments you play, how often you tour and how old you are has become virtually irrelevant. At this point, one thing is left and, ironically, after all these years, it's the single most important place one should focus on; the approach to the music. And the jamband or improvisational umbrella, essentially nothing more than a broad label for a diverse array of bands, is open wide enough to shelter several different types of bands, whether you are The Dave Matthews Band or RAQ.
The Jammy Awards have had members of non-jamming bands which were founded in the 1970s and were unrelated to the Grateful Dead perform at their show such as
new wave band
The B-52's
The B-52s, originally presented as the B-52's (with an errant apostrophe; used until 2008), are an American band formed in Athens, Georgia, in 1976. The original lineup consisted of Fred Schneider (vocals, percussion), Kate Pierson (vocals, k ...
. The Jammys have also awarded musicians from prior decades such as
Frank Zappa
Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American guitarist, composer, and bandleader. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa composed Rock music, rock, Pop music, pop, jazz, jazz fusion, orchestra ...
.
Debate

Artists such as
The Derek Trucks Band have resisted being labelled a jam band.
Dave Schools of
Widespread Panic
Widespread Panic is an American rock band from Athens, Georgia. The current lineup includes guitarist/singer John Bell (musician), John Bell, bassist Dave Schools, drummer Duane Trucks, percussionist Domingo "Sunny" Ortiz, keyboardist John "JoJ ...
said in an interview, "We want to shake free of that name, jam band. The jam band thing used to be the
Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead was an American rock music, rock band formed in Palo Alto, California, in 1965. Known for their eclectic style that fused elements of rock, blues, jazz, Folk music, folk, country music, country, bluegrass music, bluegrass, roc ...
bands. We shook free of that as hard as we could back in 1989. Then
Blues Traveler came on the scene. All together, we created the
H.O.R.D.E. tour, which focused a lot of attention on jam bands. Then someone coined the term jam bands. I'd rather just be called retro. When you pigeonhole something, you limit its ability to grow and change." An example of a prior-era band that gained the label "jam band" through an active affiliation with the 1990s jam band culture is
The Allman Brothers Band
The Allman Brothers Band was an American rock music, rock band formed in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1969. Its founding members were brothers Duane Allman (slide guitar, lead guitar) and Gregg Allman (vocals, keyboards), as well as Dickey Betts ( ...
. However,
Gregg Allman
Gregory LeNoir Allman (December 8, 1947 – May 27, 2017) was an American musician, singer and songwriter. He was known for performing in the Allman Brothers Band. Allman grew up with an interest in rhythm and blues music, and the Allman B ...
has been quoted as recently as 2003 by his fellow band member
Butch Trucks in stating that rather than being a jam band, The Allman Brothers are "a band that jams".
Although Trucks suggests that this is only a difference of semantics, the term has a recent history for which it is used exclusively. An example of this discernment is the acceptance of
Les Claypool as a jam band in the year 2000. Though known for his decade with
Primus (a band that jams) and solo works, it was after he created the
Fearless Flying Frog Brigade with members of
Ratdog and released ''
Live Frogs Set 1'' that as Budnick wrote had "marked
laypool'sentry into
he jambandworld." Budnick has been both editor-in-chief of Jambands.com and executive editor of ''
Relix'' magazine.
Late 1960s–1970s: The Dead and the Allmans

The band that set the template for future jam bands was the
Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead was an American rock music, rock band formed in Palo Alto, California, in 1965. Known for their eclectic style that fused elements of rock, blues, jazz, Folk music, folk, country music, country, bluegrass music, bluegrass, roc ...
, founded in 1965 by San Francisco-based guitarist
Jerry Garcia. The Dead attracted an enormous cult following, mainly on the strength of their live performances and live albums (their studio albums were only modest successes and received little radio play). The band specialized in improvisational jamming at concerts. They played long two-set shows, and gave their fans a different experience every night, with varying
set lists, evolving songs, creative segues, and extended instrumentals. Some of their fans, known as "Deadheads", followed their tours from city to city, and a hippie subculture developed around the band, complete with psychedelic clothes, a black market in concert-related products, and drug paraphernalia. The band toured regularly for most of three decades.
The Allman Brothers Band
The Allman Brothers Band was an American rock music, rock band formed in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1969. Its founding members were brothers Duane Allman (slide guitar, lead guitar) and Gregg Allman (vocals, keyboards), as well as Dickey Betts ( ...
were also considered a jam band, particularly during the
Duane Allman era. Songs such as "
In Memory of Elizabeth Reed" and "
Whipping Post", which were 5–7 minutes long on their studio albums, became 20-minute jams at concerts. The Allmans performed a 34-minute jam with the Grateful Dead in 1970. Their 1972 album ''
Eat A Peach'' included "
Mountain Jam", a 34-minute instrumental that was recorded live. The 1971 live album ''
At Fillmore East'' featured a 24-minute version of "Whipping Post", and a 20-minute version of
Willie Cobbs' "
You Don't Love Me".
The British
space rock
Space rock is a music genre characterized by loose and lengthy song structures centered on instrumental textures that typically produce a hypnotic, otherworldly sound. It may feature distorted and reverberation-laden guitars, minimal drummin ...
band
Hawkwind were also progenitors of the jam band sound.
1980–1999: Deadheads

In the mid-1980s and early-1990s, the bands
Phish
Phish is an American rock band formed in Burlington, Vermont, in 1983. The band consists of guitarist Trey Anastasio, bassist Mike Gordon, drummer Jon Fishman, and keyboardist Page McConnell, all of whom perform vocals, with Anastasio being the ...
,
moe.,
Edie Brickell & New Bohemians,
Blues Traveler,
Ozric Tentacles,
Widespread Panic
Widespread Panic is an American rock band from Athens, Georgia. The current lineup includes guitarist/singer John Bell (musician), John Bell, bassist Dave Schools, drummer Duane Trucks, percussionist Domingo "Sunny" Ortiz, keyboardist John "JoJ ...
,
Dave Matthews Band,
Bela Fleck and the Flecktones,
Spin Doctors
Spin Doctors are an American alternative rock band from New York City, best known for their early 1990s hits "Two Princes" and "Little Miss Can't Be Wrong", which peaked on the Billboard Hot 100, ''Billboard'' Hot 100 chart at No. 7 and N ...
,
The String Cheese Incident,
Col. Bruce Hampton and the Aquarium Rescue Unit,
Medeski Martin & Wood,
The Black Crowes,
Leftover Salmon,
The Samples,
Galactic,
əkoostik hookah, and
Lettuce
Lettuce (''Lactuca sativa'') is an annual plant of the family Asteraceae mostly grown as a leaf vegetable. The leaves are most often used raw in Green salad, green salads, although lettuce is also seen in other kinds of food, such as sandwiche ...
, began touring with jam band-style concerts. Their popularity increased in the early 1990s.
Phish formed in 1983 at the University of Vermont. They solidified their lineup in 1985 and began their career with a few Grateful Dead songs in their repertoire. The Grateful Dead released "
Touch of Grey" which became a hit song on MTV in 1987. They eventually began playing football stadiums. Widespread Panic originated when Michael Houser and John Bell started playing together. In 1986, after Todd Nance and Dave Schools joined them, the band played their first show as "Widespread Panic". Blues Traveler and Spin Doctors - formed and fronted by school friends
John Popper
John Popper (born March 29, 1967) is an American musician and songwriter, known as the co-founder, lead vocalist, and frontman of the rock band Blues Traveler.
Early life
Popper was born on March 29, 1967, in Cleveland, Ohio. His father was a ...
and
Chris Barron, respectively - regularly performed at the jam band-friendly venue
Wetlands Preserve in New York City. In 1991
Dave Matthews, together with jazz musicians
Carter Beauford and
LeRoi Moore, formed a trio which - after
Stefan Lessard
Dave Matthews Band (also known as DMB) is an American Rock music, rock band from Charlottesville, Virginia. The band's lineup consists of Dave Matthews (lead vocals, guitar), Stefan Lessard (bass), Carter Beauford (drums), Tim Reynolds (lead gui ...
joined them - became the first iteration of the Dave Matthews Band.
Improvisations have taken a backseat to more polished material, which may be due to their crossover commercial successes,
MTV
MTV (an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable television television channel, channel and the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group sub-division of the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global. Launched on ...
videos, and mainstream radio airplay. In the mid nineties, Dave Matthews band achieved commercial success and won a Grammy for Best Rock Performance with the song "
So Much To Say". By the end of the decade, Phish had signed a recording contract with
Elektra Records
Elektra Records (or Elektra Entertainment) is an American record label owned by Warner Music Group, founded in 1950 by Jac Holzman and Paul Rickolt. It played an important role in the development of contemporary folk and rock music between the ...
, and transformed from a New England/Northeast-based band into a national touring band (''see:
Colorado '88''). With its fusion of southern rock, jazz, and blues, Widespread Panic has earned renown for appearing multiple times in
Pollstar
''Pollstar'' is a trade publication for the concert and live music industry. The publication was purchased by Oak View Group, a venue consultancy founded by Tim Leiweke and Irving Azoff, in July 2017.
''Pollstar'' holds an annual award ce ...
's "Concert Pulse" chart of the top fifty bands on the road, and they have performed more than 150 live dates a year."

In the early 1990s, a new generation of bands was spurred by the Grateful Dead's touring and the increased exposure of
The Black Crowes, Phish, and Widespread Panic. At the same time, the Internet gained popularity and provided a medium for fans to discuss these bands and their performances as well as to view emerging concepts.
Phish and the Grateful Dead were two of the first bands to have a
Usenet
Usenet (), a portmanteau of User's Network, is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose UUCP, Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Elli ...
newsgroup. Many new bands were formed, which were the first to actually be called "jam bands", including
ekoostik hookah,
Dispatch,
Gov't Mule
Gov't Mule (pronounced "Government Mule") is an American Southern rock jam band, formed in 1994 by guitarist Warren Haynes, bassist Allen Woody (both of The Allman Brothers Band at the time) and drummer Matt Abts (whom Haynes had worked with in ...
,
Leftover Salmon,
moe.,
Rusted Root and
The String Cheese Incident.
During the summer of 1995 Garcia died. The surviving members of the Grateful Dead formed
The Other Ones (appearing as "
The Dead" for some tours). During the same period, Phish rose to prominence, and bands such as String Cheese Incident and Blues Traveler became successful. Many Deadheads migrated to the Phish scene, and Phish became recognized as more mainstream.

The jam-band scene gained more recognition during the late 1990s, with Dave Matthews Band and Phish being among the most influential bands of the genre, drawing large crowds to amphitheaters and arenas. Dave Matthews Band played at
Woodstock '99 while Phish celebrated the new millennium with an enormous festival called "Big Cypress" in southern Florida, which concluded with an eight-hour set. Other jam bands followed the success of these festivals, notably the Disco Biscuits, who held their first Camp Bisco in 1999, and moe., which began its annual moe.down festivals in 2000.
2000–present
The third generation of jam bands appeared in the late 1990s and early 2000s, many inspired by Phish and other acts of the second wave. These included
Soulive,
Gov't Mule
Gov't Mule (pronounced "Government Mule") is an American Southern rock jam band, formed in 1994 by guitarist Warren Haynes, bassist Allen Woody (both of The Allman Brothers Band at the time) and drummer Matt Abts (whom Haynes had worked with in ...
,
The Derek Trucks Band,
Steve Kimock Band and
My Morning Jacket
My Morning Jacket is an American Rock music, rock band formed in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1998. The band consists of vocalist/guitarist Jim James, bassist Tom Blankenship, drummer Patrick Hallahan, guitarist Carl Broemel, and keyboardist Bo Kos ...
. Additionally, groups such as
The Disco Biscuits and
Sound Tribe Sector 9 added electronic and techno elements into their performances, developing the livetronica subgenre. The early 2010s saw a fourth generation of jam bands, including
Dopapod,
Pigeons Playing Ping Pong,
CBDB,
Goose
A goose (: geese) is a bird of any of several waterfowl species in the family Anatidae. This group comprises the genera '' Anser'' (grey geese and white geese) and '' Branta'' (black geese). Some members of the Tadorninae subfamily (e.g., Egy ...
,
Twiddle,
Moon Taxi and
Spafford. Members of the Grateful Dead have continued touring since 1995 in many different iterations, such as
The Dead,
Bob Weir & Ratdog,
Phil Lesh and Friends,
Donna Jean Godchaux Band,
7 Walkers,
Furthur, and
Dead & Company. Members of other jam bands often perform together in various configurations and supergroups, such as
Tedeschi Trucks Band,
Oysterhead, and
Dave Matthews & Friends. A consequence of Phish's repopularization of large-scale festivals can be seen in the founding of the
Bonnaroo Music Festival in 2002. This multi-band, multi-day festival which annually draws close to 100,000 music fans, started as a jam band-focused event. Over time, bands from many genres have performed at Bonnaroo, but the similarities to Phish's festivals are still apparent.
There was no clear jam-band successor after Phish's 2004 breakup. Newer bands such as
STS9,
Disco Biscuits, and
Umphrey's McGee
Umphrey's McGee, sometimes stylized as UM, is an American rock band originally from South Bend, Indiana. The band experiments with many musical styles, including rock, metal, funk, jazz, blues, reggae, electronic, bluegrass, country, and ...
grew their fanbase. No upcoming jam band has yet to reach the attendance levels of Phish, who themselves had never attained the peak attendance of the Grateful Dead. The long-term fragmentation of the jam-band scene has been a continuing process. Phish held a reunion concert in March 2009 at
Hampton Coliseum, and again became one of the top US concert draws. The band were one of the highest-grossing touring musical artists of both 2016 and 2017, and their 13-night "
Baker's Dozen" run at
Madison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden, colloquially known as the Garden or by its initials MSG, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in New York City. It is located in Midtown Manhattan between Seventh Avenue (Manhattan), Seventh and Eighth Avenue (Manhattan), Eig ...
in 2017 grossed $15 million.
Many of today's jam bands have brought widely varied genres into the scene. A jam band festival may include bands with
electronic,
folk rock
Folk rock is a fusion genre of rock music with heavy influences from pop, English and American folk music. It arose in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom in the mid-1960s. In the U.S., folk rock emerged from the folk music re ...
,
blues rock
Blues rock is a fusion music genre, genre and form of rock music, rock and blues music that relies on the chords/scales and instrumental improvisation of blues. It is mostly an electric ensemble-style music with instrumentation similar to electri ...
,
jazz fusion
Jazz fusion (also known as jazz rock, jazz-rock fusion, or simply fusion) is a popular music genre that developed in the late 1960s when musicians combined jazz harmony and improvisation with rock music, funk, and rhythm and blues. Electric gui ...
,
psychedelic rock
Psychedelic rock is a rock music Music genre, genre that is inspired, influenced, or representative of psychedelia, psychedelic culture, which is centered on perception-altering hallucinogenic drugs. The music incorporated new electronic sound ...
,
southern rock
Southern rock is a subgenre of rock music and a genre of Americana. It developed in the Southern United States from rock and roll, country and blues, and is focused generally on electric guitars and vocals.
History 1950s and 1960s: origin ...
,
progressive rock
Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog) is a broad genre of rock music that primarily developed in the United Kingdom through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early-to-mid-1970s. Initially termed " progressive pop", the ...
,
acid jazz
Acid jazz (also known as club jazz, psychedelic jazz, or groove jazz) is a music genre that combines elements of funk, soul music, soul, and hip hop music, hip hop, as well as jazz and disco. Acid jazz originated in clubs in London during the 1 ...
,
hip hop
Hip-hop or hip hop (originally disco rap) is a popular music genre that emerged in the early 1970s from the African-American community of New York City. The style is characterized by its synthesis of a wide range of musical techniques. Hip- ...
,
hard rock
Hard rock or heavy rock is a heavier subgenre of rock music typified by aggressive vocals and Distortion (music), distorted electric guitars. Hard rock began in the mid-1960s with the Garage rock, garage, Psychedelic rock, psychedelic and blues ...
,
reggae
Reggae () is a music genre that originated in Jamaica during the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its Jamaican diaspora, diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, "Do the Reggay", was the first ...
, and
bluegrass sounds. The electronic trend has been led by such bands as
The Disco Biscuits,
Sound Tribe Sector 9 (STS9),
Lotus,
EOTO,
The New Deal, and
Dopapod. Bands like
moe.,
Umphrey's McGee
Umphrey's McGee, sometimes stylized as UM, is an American rock band originally from South Bend, Indiana. The band experiments with many musical styles, including rock, metal, funk, jazz, blues, reggae, electronic, bluegrass, country, and ...
,
Lettuce
Lettuce (''Lactuca sativa'') is an annual plant of the family Asteraceae mostly grown as a leaf vegetable. The leaves are most often used raw in Green salad, green salads, although lettuce is also seen in other kinds of food, such as sandwiche ...
,
Assembly of Dust,
The Heavy Pets and The Breakfast have carried on the classic rock sound mixed with exploratory jams. Members of the Grateful Dead have continued touring in many different configurations as
The Dead,
Bob Weir & Ratdog,
Phil Lesh and Friends,
7 Walkers,
Furthur, and
Dead & Company.
The British electronic music duo
Autechre was characterized as "a sort of post-human jam band" in a
Pitchfork
A pitchfork or hay fork is an agricultural tool used to pitch loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves. It has a long handle and usually two to five thin tines designed to efficiently move such materials.
The term is also applie ...
review of their 4-hour long 2016 album set ''
elseq 1-5''. Blending jam-band elements with those of
electronica
Electronica is both a broad group of electronic-based music styles intended for listening rather than strictly for dancing and a music scene that came to prominence in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the term is mos ...
is known as "jamtronica" or "livetronica" (a
portmanteau
In linguistics, a blend—also known as a blend word, lexical blend, or portmanteau—is a word formed by combining the meanings, and parts of the sounds, of two or more words together. of the terms "
live music" and "
electronica
Electronica is both a broad group of electronic-based music styles intended for listening rather than strictly for dancing and a music scene that came to prominence in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the term is mos ...
").
Bands includes
The Disco Biscuits,
STS9 (Sound Tribe Sector 9), and
The New Deal (although STS9 guitarist Hunter Brown has expressed basic reservations about the "livetronica" label, explaining that "it's a really vague term to describe a lot of bands", he did cite
Tortoise
Tortoises ( ) are reptiles of the family Testudinidae of the order Testudines (Latin for "tortoise"). Like other turtles, tortoises have a shell to protect from predation and other threats. The shell in tortoises is generally hard, and like o ...
as stylistic precursors).
''Entertainment Weekly'' also identified
Prefuse 73,
VHS or Beta,
Lotus, Signal Path, MFA, and Midwest Product as notable livetronica groups.
Jam scene
The contemporary jam scene has grown to encompass bands from a great diversity of musical genres. A 2000-era genre of jam-band music uses live improvisation that mimics the sounds of DJs and
electronica
Electronica is both a broad group of electronic-based music styles intended for listening rather than strictly for dancing and a music scene that came to prominence in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the term is mos ...
musicians and has been dubbed "jamtronica".
Progressive bluegrass,
progressive rock
Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog) is a broad genre of rock music that primarily developed in the United Kingdom through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early-to-mid-1970s. Initially termed " progressive pop", the ...
and
jazz fusion
Jazz fusion (also known as jazz rock, jazz-rock fusion, or simply fusion) is a popular music genre that developed in the late 1960s when musicians combined jazz harmony and improvisation with rock music, funk, and rhythm and blues. Electric gui ...
are also quite popular among fans of jam bands. In the early 2000s, the jam scene helped influence the touring patterns and approach of a new wave of indie bands like Vampire Weekend, MGMT, Interpol, and The National.
Hundreds of jam-based festivals and concerts are held throughout the US. The
Bonnaroo Music Festival, held each June in Tennessee, continues to provide a highly visible forum for jam acts, although this festival has attracted many different genres during its decade-plus history. As with other music scenes, devout fans of jam bands are known to travel from festival to festival, often developing a family-like community. These committed fan groups are often referred to by the derogatory terms "wookies" or "wooks".
Taping

Jam bands often allow their fans to record their live shows, a practice which many other musical genres view as "illegal bootlegging". The Grateful Dead encouraged this practice, which helped to create a thriving scene around the collecting and trading of recordings of their live performances.
Starting in 1984,
the band recognized the fact that people were already "unofficially" taping their shows, so they started to sell
taper tickets for a taper's section, segregating these people with their equipment into one area of the venue to keep them from interfering with other concertgoers.
Improvisational jam bands perform their songs differently at each performance and generally have no fixed setlist, to encourage fans to see them on multiple nights. Some fans collect versions of their favourite songs and actively debate which is the best version of any particular song, keeping lists of notable versions. This may extend to the song's relative rarity in setlists of differing eras. Some bands will play on this anticipation by adding little "teases" into their sets. For example, playing a few bars of a famous cover song or hinting at a popular jam and then either never getting around to actually playing the song, or coming back to it after an extended jam. The use of
segue
A segue ( , ; ) is a transition from one topic or section to the next.
In music
In music, ''segue'' is a direction to the performer. It means ''continue (the next section) without a pause''. The term ''attacca'' is used synonymously. For writ ...
s to blend strings of songs is another mark of a jam band, and one which makes for sought-after tapes.
Music downloading
By the 2000s, as internet downloading of MP3 music files became common, the downloading of jam-band songs became an extension of the cassette taping trend. Archived jam-band downloads are available at various websites, the most prominent ones being
etree and the
Live Music Archive, which is part of the
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...
.
Some jam bands distribute their latest shows online. Bands such as
Phish
Phish is an American rock band formed in Burlington, Vermont, in 1983. The band consists of guitarist Trey Anastasio, bassist Mike Gordon, drummer Jon Fishman, and keyboardist Page McConnell, all of whom perform vocals, with Anastasio being the ...
,
Widespread Panic
Widespread Panic is an American rock band from Athens, Georgia. The current lineup includes guitarist/singer John Bell (musician), John Bell, bassist Dave Schools, drummer Duane Trucks, percussionist Domingo "Sunny" Ortiz, keyboardist John "JoJ ...
,
The String Cheese Incident,
Gov't Mule
Gov't Mule (pronounced "Government Mule") is an American Southern rock jam band, formed in 1994 by guitarist Warren Haynes, bassist Allen Woody (both of The Allman Brothers Band at the time) and drummer Matt Abts (whom Haynes had worked with in ...
,
əkoostik hookah,
Umphrey's McGee
Umphrey's McGee, sometimes stylized as UM, is an American rock band originally from South Bend, Indiana. The band experiments with many musical styles, including rock, metal, funk, jazz, blues, reggae, electronic, bluegrass, country, and ...
,
Dopapod,
Lotus, and
The Disco Biscuits have offered digital downloads within days, or sometimes hours, of concerts. The Grateful Dead have begun to offer live releases from their archives for download.
Some concert venues offer kiosks where fans may purchase a
digital recording
In digital recording, an audio signal, audio or video signal is converted into a stream of discrete numbers representing the changes over time in air pressure for audio, or Color, chroma and luminance values for video. This number stream is s ...
of the concert and download it to a
USB flash drive
A flash drive (also thumb drive, memory stick, and pen drive/pendrive) is a data storage device that includes flash memory with an integrated USB interface. A typical USB drive is removable, rewritable, and smaller than an optical disc, and u ...
or another portable digital storage device. Some bands offer concert recordings made available for purchase on compact disc or flash drive shortly after the show ends. Most major music festivals also offer digital live recordings at the event. Several vendors such as
Instant Live by
Live Nation
Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. is an American multinational Entertainment industry, entertainment company that was founded in 2010 following the Mergers and acquisitions, merger of Live Nation (events promoter), Live Nation and Ticketmaster. It ...
and
Aderra offer this
remote recording service for instant delivery. Although these shows are freely traded in digital format, "official" versions are collected by fans for the graphics, liner notes, and packaging.
Venues and festivals
In the August 2006 issue of ''
Guitar One'' on jam bands, the following places were referred to as the "best places to see jam music":
Red Rocks Amphitheatre
Red Rocks Amphitheatre (also known colloquially as simply Red Rocks) is an open-air amphitheater in the Western United States, western United States near Morrison, Colorado, approximately southwest of Denver. It is owned and operated by the c ...
,
Red Rocks Park,
Denver, CO
Denver ( ) is a consolidated city and county, the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. It is located in the Western United States, in the South Platte River Valley on the western edge of the High Plains east of ...
;
The Gorge Amphitheatre,
George, Washington;
High Sierra Music Festival,
Quincy, CA;
Saratoga Performing Arts Center,
Saratoga Springs, NY;
The Greek Theater,
Berkeley, CA
Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Anglo-Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and ...
;
Bonnaroo Music Festival (Bonnaroo has become increasingly mainstream in recent years, and has seen a shift in fan base),
Manchester, TN;
The Warfield Theater, San Francisco, California;
Higher Ground,
Burlington, Vermont
Burlington, officially the City of Burlington, is the List of municipalities in Vermont, most populous city in the U.S. state of Vermont and the county seat, seat of Chittenden County, Vermont, Chittenden County. It is located south of the Can ...
, Nelson Ledges Quarry Park,
Garrettsville, Ohio; and the Jam in the Dam in
Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...
.
One way to see many jam bands in one place is by going to a jam band-oriented music festival. Some popular festivals that include jam bands are:
Bonnaroo Music Festival in Manchester, Tennessee;
Gathering of the Vibes in Bridgeport, Connecticut;
Rothbury Festival in Rothbury, Michigan (now known as
Electric Forest Festival);
High Sierra Music Festival in Quincy, California;
All Good Music Festival;
The Peach Music Festival in Scranton, PA;
Mountain Jam (festival) in Hunter Mt, New York;
Telluride Bluegrass Festival in Colorado;
Lockn' Festival in Arrington, Virginia;
The Werk Out Music Festival in Thornville, Ohio; and
Summer Camp Music Festival in Chillicothe, Illinois.
Business model and copyright law
Law professor Mark Schultz found that jam bands had fundamentally different business models from the mainstream music industry. This could be seen in the perceptions of their fans: Jam-band fans view themselves and the band as part of a shared community, which the band management serves. In comparison, fans of mainstream music "often portray band management as part of a ruthless industry that ... mistreats fans and musicians alike".
Professor
Tom R. Tyler considered the main law-enforcement strategies for copyright protection, finding that deterrence and process-based strategies could both be effective, but that the latter was more efficient.
Jam bands encourage fans to bring recording equipment to live performances and give away copies of what they record. This practice may increase the sizes of their audiences and the total revenue received from concerts and the sale of recorded music. The fans reciprocate the generosity of the jam bands by helping enforce the copyright rules that the bands write, consistent with Tyler's "process-based" law enforcement. Schultz said the
Recording Industry Association of America
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/o ...
(RIAA) seems to call most fans
pirates intent on stealing their music.
Schultz said that the key concept here is reciprocity: Fans treated with generosity and respect by jam bands tend to be more loyal even to the point of helping enforce the copyrights the jam bands claim. Fans similarly reciprocate the hostility they perceive in the anti-piracy lawsuits filed by the mainstream recording industry. It is unclear which business model is most remunerative for music industry managers, but Schultz insisted that jam bands tend to have more loyal fans, and the mainstream music industry might benefit from following this model and treating their fans with more respect.
List of jam bands
See also
*
Deadhead
*
Jerry Garcia
*
Monterey Pop Festival (1967)
*
Woodstock (1969)
*
Altamont Free Concert
The Altamont Speedway Free Festival was a counterculture rock concert in the United States, held on Saturday, December 6, 1969, at the Altamont Speedway outside of Tracy, California. Approximately 300,000 attended the concert, with some an ...
(1969)
*
Isle of Wight Festival
The Isle of Wight Festival is a British music festival which takes place annually in Newport, Isle of Wight, Newport on the Isle of Wight, England. It was originally a Counterculture of the 1960s, counterculture event held from 1968 to 1970.
Th ...
*
Psychedelic rock
Psychedelic rock is a rock music Music genre, genre that is inspired, influenced, or representative of psychedelia, psychedelic culture, which is centered on perception-altering hallucinogenic drugs. The music incorporated new electronic sound ...
*
Jammy Award
*
List of jam bands
*
List of jam band music festivals
References
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jam Band
Musical improvisation
Jazz terminology