Jam Bands

Is it just me that thinks the widespread singer sounds like Bruce Dickinson?

i know ppl are gonna hate to hear this, but the main connecting thread is...hippie fans

Hippie fans and extended jams.

Okay, I'll bite.

What separates a jam band from other genres is improvisation.  Within the construct of a song the musicians endeavor to create new and interesting interpretations of the melody that make it sound different each time it is played.  There is a collective effort by the musicians to communicate musically and otherwise to create a unique experience each time a song is performed.  This improvisation can lead to crescendos or climaxes in the music.

Summarizing:  every time a jam band plays a song it is different in some way because there is improvisation.

Jam bands need an audience that understands this and believe me there are a lot of people that do not because they like their music to sound the same every time.

I guess a person could say it's next level music because the musicians are interpreting music not just reciting the notes.Only the best musicians can improvise.

Like them or not, Phish is a jam band.  

Jam bands need an audience that understands this are on drugs. 

Not just improvisation.  Otherwise, all jazz and bluegrass would be "jamband.".  Need the hippie fans on drugs to complete the definition.

Jam bands jam, man 

It has to pass the Glen Miller test.

It Must Be Jelly ('cause Jam Don't Shake Like That)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxaOz6s40s8

Psychedelics

Spastic dancers.

In most pop music and  most bluegrass, and even  most jazz (!), while a soloist is soloing  (improvising), the other players just comp along on the standard pattern,

In true jam music, everybody's improvising, even if they aren't the "lead" instrument at the moment, trying to come up with licks that maintain the structure of the tune - or not! - , support the soloist, and still be creative.

Veggie burritos in the parking lot 

Surfdead has it 

I believe I've heard or read Phil say the Grateful Dead was hugely influenced by John Coltrane and the collective improvisation concept.  From the little I know of this free jazz era it was big in the late 1950's and early 1960's.  Arnett Coleman was a huge name at the forefront of this. 

Coltrane and free jazz were definitely influences on the GD, as was the composer Charles Ives by way of Phil study of his works. Ives' music was a radical departure from the classical world, in that he introduced elements like dissonance, complex rhythms, and quoting other composers' works, which are all qualities that came to define GD music, and other jambands music as well.

Chuckled as I read the OP thinking of all the rotating guitarists early on in the P&F days .... and how befuddled some of them were by jamming on A to G for a 20 minute Dark Star. Many were out of ideas by minute 2.

So whatever makes a jam band ... they can make a two chord song interesting

Modal jams (vamping on the same chord) is a hallmark of jamband music.

would love some more explanation on modal jams.  I'm not familiar with the term and don't know what vamping on the same chord means.  Melodies made from the notes within the chord? Thanks.

Playing modally involves using a scale other than the conventional modes of standard major and minor keys. For instance, Dark Star is a modal tune because it is in the key of A but uses a D major scale. This is called A Mixolydian, and thus Dark Star is in that key. Another way to look at it is as a regular A major scale with the 7th note dropped one half step. There are a number of other modes besides Mixolydian, using different scales.

https://youtu.be/SyYLQUZQR-s 

Your ham band is irrelevant 

Serious knowledge drop from surfdead there

Sure 

But does it have a beat; can you dance to it

The band's jams temporarily turned us into jelly.  And here we are years later basking in the preserves.

Marmalade!

ateix, that Morgan set just kills.

I agree. A band stacked with talent. Lee was constantly ahead of his time; gone way too soon.

Arnett Coleman<<

Any relation to Ornette?