May 5, 2025, marks the 60th anniversary of the Grateful Dead’s (who were at the time named The Warlocks) first concert. The Grateful Dead are considered the pioneers of the jam band scene. For the next 30 years, until Jerry Garcia’s death, the band was one of the biggest names in 20th-century psychedelia, playing festivals like Woodstock in 1969 and pulling crowds of up to 125,000 at Raceway Park, Englishtown, New Jersey, in 1977.
Before I dive into the history of how the “modern” jam band came to be, it is important to discuss the genres that helped define earlier jam bands. Jam bands pull from many different genres, but the main concept of “Jamming” is just a slightly different way of improvising with a couple of stipulations depending on the band. Jam bands aren’t for everyone but to be able to pull off some of the performances that jam bands have is an impressive feat in it of itself. When it comes to pop music where songs usually aren’t longer than four minutes, jam bands often get dismissed because some believe that their songs are too long but I think that for those willing to explore, you will find nothing short of new world of music that is now yours to dive deeper into and to discover.
Musical improvisation has been a part of music since the medieval period (400-1400) but became more popular in the Renaissance (1400-1600), Baroque (1600-1750), and Classical periods (1750-1820). This is mostly about Western music, but musical improvisation can also be found in Indian Classical music. But it is most likely known from where it was made popular in modern music in genres like Jazz and Blues in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, from the southern United States among African-American people.
Additionally, these genres kept improvisation popular and inspired genres that would derive from their sound. These genres would include Jazz subgenres/derivatives, including Jazz Fusion, and Rhythm & Blues. Blues, other than Jazz, would also inspire Bluegrass and Country. One genre that came from both jazz and blues emerged in the 1940s: Rock and Roll. Rock and Roll would be the face of music in the U.S. for decades once it made it to the mainstream in the 1950s. The term “Jam Band” originated in 1934 and referred to jazz groups that mostly played minimally prepared improvised compositions. The term would later gain new meaning in the 1980s to define rock groups that would improvise their songs when playing live, as opposed to the jazz groups that existed before them.
Before the Grateful Dead were the Grateful Dead, they were Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions, but if you look at the track list of the only album they recorded under that name, you’ll see songs that regularly appeared in the repertoire of the Grateful Dead. Most of which are blues, bluegrass, or folk standards. It’s interesting to see how all of these different genres, bluegrass, blues, folk, jazz, and so many more all form to create jam bands. All jam bands have their unique sound, but they are still very distinguishable from the different genres that feed into them. I think that there are a couple of criteria that jam bands meet to gain their title as such.
- Long songs and longer-than-average shows
The name jam band comes from groups jamming on their studio tracks. For example, the Grateful Dead’s longest single-song performance was on May 21, 1974, at the Hec Edmundson Pavilion at the University of Washington, Seattle, WA. They played a 46-minute version of “Playing in the Band, one of their most-played songs. With songs being longer, the shows tend to follow suit. The average length of a concert for one (non-jam band) group to perform is around an hour and a half to two hours. But for jam bands, the average is closer to three or four hours, except for some outstanding outliers. On New Year’s Eve 1999, Phish’s second set alone lasted seven and a half hours.
- Covers
Setlists for jam bands often include songs not by the band. Phish is known for playing entire albums that aren’t theirs in full. Coming out of bluegrass and folk, both of which are genres that rely on culture and the passing down of songs, it’s no surprise that jam bands playing covers are so common.
- Live Albums/Releases
The Grateful Dead is a prime example of having live releases. They played around 2,300 concerts in their 30 years as a band and are one of the most recorded bands in history. On the Internet Archive, there is a whole section that has 17,500 submissions from users of recordings from shows dating as far back as 1965. However, the bands themselves will typically release the soundboard recordings officially for sale or streaming.
These are not the only things that factor into classifying jam bands, but it’s usually pretty easy to tell just from listening that you are listening to a jam band. Because even bands like Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Cream, and The Jimi Hendrix Experience all meet some of the classifications listed, but aren’t really jam bands like the Grateful Dead, Phish, The Allman Brothers Band, or Billy Strings are.