Cover Story: JAMMERS & JAZZERS

I wore the big pants with elaborate corduroy patchwork down the hems. To prove my dedication to the cause, my friends and I traversed state lines and time zones to catch consecutive shows, living the lives of penniless drifters (only we were often very well-funded drifters who sipped expensive microbrews in the tailgates of our friends’ SUVs). At one of my most severe moments, I can remember using the word “kind” to describe a Blimpie sandwich.

I could lose my job for admitting this, because the glossy-eyed optimism and blind allegiance of the jam band community has long made it a favored punching bag of music critics. I’m damaged critical goods. Tomorrow, the union comes for my microcassette recorder and Pavement T-shirt.

Or maybe it’s time to examine some “jam bands” with a little more precision. My fellow mocha-porter swilling 19-year-olds and I were lame, but the bands we followed were often not. Bands built on a base of devout fans and steady touring schedules have traditionally found themselves lumped into the jam band category, and have been lazily critiqued as such. Some for good reason, others not.

Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe (Sun., 3:30 p.m., BellSouth/Z93 Stage) is one of the most energetic and entertaining jazz fusion collectives currently performing. Denson revisits the funked-up bugaloo style that made his last group, the Greyboy Allstars, leaders in the ongoing soul-jazz revival.

Robert Randolph and the Family Band (Fri., 7:15 p.m., BellSouth/Z93 Stage) is another group curiously pegged under the jam band moniker, but Randolph’s distinctive, lyrical pedal steel owes more to generations of gospel and blues than to Jerry Garcia. The bluegrass-flavored fusion of Bela Fleck and the Flecktones (Sun., 6:30 p.m., BellSouth/Z93 Stage) gravitates toward the improvisational hallmarks of the jam band, but with stylistic imagination and sophisticated technique. They’re jazz geeks, maybe, but they’re never loose or aimless.

The Disco Biscuits (Sun., 3:30 p.m., BellSouth/Z93 Stage), Lake Trout (Sun., 2:15 p.m., BellSouth/Z93 Stage) and O.A.R. (Sat., 5:45 p.m., Jose Cuervo/96 Rock Stage) are definitely jam bands in the more conventional sense, but the former two make attempts to lend a contemporary, electronic-inflected edge to the jam band equation.??