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verrata View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Topic: jam bands are prog
    Posted: August 07 2006 at 06:33

This rant started with the poll of whether or not The Grateful Dead were a jam band. This question seems to have been rolling around on this site for a while, but i think the deeper question is whether or not jam bands as a whole are progressive. The Grateful Dead were a jam band, and it is my belief that jam bands by nature and by definition are a part of prog rock, even if only prog related. This makes me a minority on this site, but so be it.

Truth be told, depending on your point of view, jam bands may be the most progressive. Think about it, prog to me is about breaking boundaries, not setting rules. Most jam bands look acheive the same experimentalism and to go to the same emotional spaces that prog bands do, the avenue is just different. You don't have to plan an eighteen minute epic (CTTE) to get emotional reaction out of listeners or to yourselves. Contrarily, you could say that getting there through a jam allows for a sense of discovery you wouldnt otherwise have had once you reach that peak. For those who will now argue the aspects of the ability of players, i say that if thats important to you in what you like, you're a fool. Technicality is never more important than energy and emotion. Music is about emotion, period.
 
On a seperate topic, one thing thats sort of paradoxal in prog is "planned" emotional highs. Its like riding a roller coaster, all those twists and turns, its great the first time, but how original can it get and still be the hundredth time and so many after that. You start to see all those twists and turns and rolls and it loses its flavor, just ask anybody whos ever been in one of those competitions where they have to ride the same ride for a year and a half to win (what was then) a new car. With jam bands, its a new song every timne they play it; new twists and new turns. Does that mean it will always be great? Hell no it wont always be wonderful, but the experimentalism is there, and the intent is there, and no matter what, the discovery is there. And you know what, sometimes you have to trudge your way through ten minutes of crap to get a high greater than anything could have ever been otherwise, cause you got there naturally and you appreciate so much more otherwise; like traveling for forty years in a barren desert to finally find the promised land.
 
Then think about this, prog purists all the time claim how much better they are because of the link between the genre and classical music. Now, no prog fan in his right mind would deny how amazing was JS Bach, but you know what, almost verything he ever played was improvised, jammed out, the jam band of his time. So if you want to include classical leanings in your argument, youve got to say that jam bands take just as much. 
 
I dunno, i just read all the time on this site about how jam bands are a lesser form of music than prog, and it pisses me off, because its not true. Like i said, music is about emotion, and prog is about breaking boundaries, not setting rules, so why look so far down upon groups that set out to do the same thing with their music as prog sets out to do. Sorry about the rant, I just couldnt take it anymore.


Edited by verrata - August 07 2006 at 08:06
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verrata View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 07 2006 at 06:45
If that seemed all really insulting, I'm sorry, I didn't sleep well last night. I didn't mean to come off as knocking prog if it came off that way. I was just trying to make an argument for jam bands. I'm still a huge fan of prog, I really am. Wink  Any doubters can come and look at my record and cd selection. cool. the end.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 07 2006 at 06:50
Dude, paragraph breaks are your friend if you want people to read what you've written and maybe make a point.

Also, since AOR and Soft Rock and Heavy Metal bands are evidently Prog, might as well rope in the damned Jam Bands as well. That Prog was compositionally almost nothing like any of those kind of music at its inception doesn't seem to matter much at all.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 07 2006 at 07:54
As Teaflax said, it's really hard to read that whole paragraph with no breaks, but if you're saying that a jam band must be prog, then surely it would depend on the type of music that they're jamming too. They'd have to be amazing musicians to jam and come up with some typical prog music. I would have thought it more likely to be blues or jazz based.
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verrata View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 07 2006 at 08:09
Originally posted by chopper chopper wrote:

They'd have to be amazing musicians to jam and come up with some typical prog music. I would have thought it more likely to be blues or jazz based.
 
You'd be surprised at how many can jam prog-ish. What surprises me, as a fan of jam bands, is how much many of them sound like...   bluegrass.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 07 2006 at 09:08
I can't see bands like Phish, Widespread Panic, and the Dead as progressive. I'd just as soon see them off PA, to be honest. And I'm a fan of (some) jam bands, too.

E
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 07 2006 at 09:09
Typical jam bands are Allman Brothers Band, Grateful Dead etc.....
 
Modern days band like Gov't Mule are jam bands
 
 
I supoose you want them all in?Confused
let's just stay above the moral melee
prefer the sink to the gutter
keep our sand-castle virtues
content to be a doer
as well as a thinker,
prefer lifting our pen
rather than un-sheath our sword
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 07 2006 at 09:12
I think verrata has a point...Bands like Phish and Umphrey's Mcgee are both on here, and many people consider them to be "jam bands."  One is Art Rock and the other Fusion. 

While some jam bands do have a bluegrass/bluesy feel to them, many employ elements of jazz in their music, too, like Umphrey's Mcgee. Chopper said it himself, isn't jazz-based rock, prog, by our standards? 
Aram
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 07 2006 at 09:41
I like some jambands, used to be into them alot more and I can see some of the jazzy ones such as Umphreys, MMW and the Jazz Mandolin Project being considered prog, but the bluegrass ones I dont think are very progressive. Only the best jambands can really take the improvs in new directions night after night, alot of them rehash the smae cliche noodling.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 07 2006 at 10:11
Jam bands that should be considered prog:
Phish, Umphrey'sMcGee, Medeski Matrin & Wood, The Disco Biscuits
 
Jam bands that should not be considered prog:
Widespread Panic, Gov't Mule, Allman Brothers Band, The String Cheese Incident.
 
The ones I don't consider prog are the bands more influenced by blues and country, that borrow a lot of standard blues and country riffs, and don't offer anything new or progressive.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 07 2006 at 10:15
Originally posted by E-Dub E-Dub wrote:

I can't see bands like Phish, Widespread Panic, and the Dead as progressive. I'd just as soon see them off PA, to be honest. And I'm a fan of (some) jam bands, too.

E


Phish can totally be Jam-Prog. The chops these guys have wow me and the complexity of some of the music they write far exceeds the likes of The Dead or WP.
    
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 07 2006 at 11:51
excuse me i'm a newbie...
but i dont really know what a jam band exactly is and i've never heard any if the ones you've listed.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 07 2006 at 17:18
Originally posted by verrata verrata wrote:

Originally posted by chopper chopper wrote:

They'd have to be amazing musicians to jam and come up with some typical prog music. I would have thought it more likely to be blues or jazz based.
 
You'd be surprised at how many can jam prog-ish. What surprises me, as a fan of jam bands, is how much many of them sound like...   bluegrass.
 
Greatfull Dead is technicly a country band and Jerry Garcia was obssesd with the complexity of bluegrass and studied to be a Bluegrass artist so there is the sound. Another reason would be that most of the famous Jam bands took influnce from the american south.
 
As for Jam bands being prog: If Postrock and Jazz Fusion is prog on this site Jam bands definitly should be. Prog is not "breaking down borders" and exclusive to classical influnce, it is a sound and a formula that jam bands do not prescribe to. That is OK, and does not mean that it is less intellegent as the ego mongers try to attest.
 
It gets to the point on this site that anything technical/complex/or good is prog and the ego mongers get a hold of it, so the chance is good that Jam bands will be accepted someday. 
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