 | | During the early '90s, Phish emerged as heirs to the Grateful Dead's throne. Although their music was somewhat similar to the Dead's sound -- an eclectic, free-form rock & roll encompassing elements of folk, jazz, country, bluegrass, and pop -- the group adhered more to jazz-derived improvisation than folk tradition. |
 | | Rising from the dingy college bars of upstate New York, moe. carved a niche for themselves with a distinct blend of Americana, melodic turns, clever songwriting, and jam band ethics. |
 | | The bluegrass-based jam band the String Cheese Incident is comprised of mandolinist/violinist Michael Kang, guitarist Bill Nershi, bassist Keith Moseley, pianist Kyle Hollingsworth, and percussionist Michael Travis. |
 | | One of the many neo-hippie jam bands inheriting the road-warrior mantle left behind by the Grateful Dead, Widespread Panic established a devout grassroots following on the strength of constant touring and a loose, rootsy brand of Southern rock informed by jazz and blues textures. |
 | | Rock's longest, strangest trip, the Grateful Dead were the psychedelic era's most beloved musical ambassadors as well as its most enduring survivors, spreading their message of peace, love, and mind-expansion across the globe throughout the better part of three decades. |
 | | A jam band coming out of the Midwest in the mid-'90s, Umphrey's McGee edged toward the Frank Zappa side of the improv rock scale, as opposed to the Grateful Dead/Allman Brothers Band direction espoused by many of their contemporaries, like the Big Wu. |
 | | Guitarist, singer, and songwriter Jerry Garcia was best known as a founding member of the Grateful Dead, the rock band for which he served as de facto leader for 30 years, 1965-1995. |
 | | Singer, songwriter, and guitarist Keller Williams is literally a one-man jam band. His fascinating live shows feature him solo on-stage with a Gibson Echoplex Digital Pro looping unit, and he creates his backing loops in the moment, building and improvising as he goes on his custom-made ten-string guitar, and thanks to his equally as quirky, upbeat, and semi-surreal songs (which he frequently weaves into extended, half-improvised medleys) and his warm, friendly tenor singing voice, Williams is an utterly unique performer whose musical eccentricities don't keep him from being immediately accessible. |
 | | A jam band active since 1995, the Disco Biscuits play a distinct blend of rock, techno, jazz, soul, blues, and classical music that quickly took them to the upper echelon of the jam-roots-groove scene. |
 | | Multi-instrumentalist group Rusted Root integrate the Grateful Dead's jam-heavy rock with percussion influences based on the music of Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. |
 | | The leaders of Gov't Mule, Warren Haynes and Allen Woody, should be well known to Allman Brothers fans for their stint in Southern rock's most famous native sons. |
 | | The self-described "polyethnic cajun slamgrass" group Leftover Salmon formed in Colorado in the early '90s as a merger of two area acts, the Left Hand String Band and the Salmonheads. |
 | | The New Orleans-based jazz-funk ensemble Galactic formed in 1994; originally an eight-piece, the group soon pared down to an instrumental sextet comprised of guitarist Jeff Raines, organist Rich Vogel, bassist Robert Mercurio, saxophonists Ben Ellman and Jason Mingledorff, and drummer Stanton Moore. |
 | | Although the Yonder Mountain String Band was formed in Nederland, CO, its origins go back to Urbana, IL, where college student and banjo player Dave Johnston met mandolin player Jeff Austin. |
 | | Famed for his three-decade stint as the bassist with the Grateful Dead, Phil Lesh was born March 15, 1940, in Berkeley, CA; rooted in jazz and classical performance, he initially explored the violin and trumpet and, while attending Mills College, studied avant-garde composition and electronic music under the tutelage of Luciano Berio. |
 | | A group that effortlessly straddles the gap between avant-garde improvisation and accessible groove-based jazz, Medeski, Martin & Wood have simultaneously earned standings as relentlessly innovative musicians and as an enormously popular act. |
 | | Moving into much rootsier territory than their former punk band DDT, brothers Luther (guitar, mandolin, vocals) and Cody Dickinson (drums, sampling) formed the North Mississippi Allstars in 1996 with bassist Chris Chew. |
 | | Railroad Earth emerged from the breakup of one of New Jersey's most popular bands, From Good Homes, in early 2001. |
 | | A New York-based blues-rock quartet formed in 1988 by singer/harmonica player John Popper, guitarist Chan Kinchla, bassist Bobby Sheehan, and drummer Brendan Hill, Blues Traveler were part of a revival of the extended jamming style of '60s and '70s groups like the Grateful Dead and Led Zeppelin. |
 | | San Francisco-based jam band Tea Leaf Green got their start in the relationship between guitarist Josh Clark and drummer Scott Rager, who played in a high-school band together in Arcadia, CA. |
 | | The story of the Allman Brothers Band is one of triumph, tragedy, redemption, dissolution, and a new redemption. |
 | | A founding member of the Grateful Dead, Bob Weir's musical legacy (separate from its cultural implications) will be of an utterly strange rhythm guitar player and songwriter who grew up in one of the most lasting outside bands of the 1960s. |
 | | Combining funky, groove-laden soul with handcrafted acoustic folk-rock, Ben Harper enjoyed cult status during the course of the '90s before gaining wider attention toward the decade's end. |
 | | Blues/blues-rock guitarist Derek Trucks is the nephew of longtime Allman Brothers drummer Butch Trucks. |
 | | Premier banjo player Béla Fleck is considered one of the most innovative pickers in the world and has done much to demonstrate the versatility of his instrument, which he uses to play everything from traditional bluegrass to progressive jazz. |
 | | Formed in the early '90s by South African vocalist/guitarist Dave Matthews, the Dave Matthews Band presented a more pop-oriented version of the Grateful Dead crossed with elements of jazz, funk, and the worldbeat explorations of Paul Simon and Sting. |
 | | At the time of their 1990 debut, the kind of rock & roll the Black Crowes specialized in was sorely out of style. |
 | | Warren Haynes is a generation-spanning guitar hero; he wasn't out of grade school when some of his best-known collaborators were at the peak of their fame, but he's earned a powerful reputation for his fiery guitar work, steeped in blues and Southern rock traditions, and has distinguished himself as a songwriter, bandleader, and solo artist as well as a gifted sideman. |
 | | Formed in the early '90s by South African vocalist/guitarist Dave Matthews, the Dave Matthews Band presented a more pop-oriented version of the Grateful Dead crossed with elements of jazz, funk, and the worldbeat explorations of Paul Simon and Sting. |
 | | Comprised of the unlikely trio of Trey Anastasio, Les Claypool, and Stewart Copeland (of Phish, Primus, and Police fame, respectively), the supergroup Oysterhead first came together for an intended one-off gig at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in May 2000. |
 | | Not your typical jam band (they have just as many disco and electronica influences as anything else), Particle started in 2000 in Los Angeles with keyboardist Steve Molitz, drummer Darren Pujalet, bassist Eric Gould, and guitarist Dave Simmons. |
 | | A virtuoso on the pedal steel guitar, Robert Randolph set the music world on fire in 2000 when he began playing his first club dates in New York City. |
 | | The bassist/vocalist for the jam band Phish, Mike Gordon is also a multi-instrumentalist and filmmaker. |
 | | G. Love & Special Sauce are a Philadelphia-based trio whose laid-back, sloppy blues sound is quite unique, as it encompasses the sound/production of classic R&B and recent rap artists (the Beastie Boys, in particular). |
 | | During the late '80s and early '90s, Big Head Todd & the Monsters (the Colorado-based trio of guitarist/keyboard player Todd Park Mohr, bassist Rob Squires, and drummer Brian Nevin) built their audience through constant touring, playing college towns across the country. |
 | | Since 1991, the celebratory jam sounds of Columbus, OH's Ekoostik Hookah has made them one of the finest Midwestern bands to emerge from the neo-hippie scene of the 1990s. |
 | | The most original rock bassist to come along in the '90s was unquestionably Primus' Les Claypool. With his oddball sense of humor and funky playing, Claypool took his varied musical influences and created an invigorating and completely inventive style. |
 | | Reggae's most transcendent and iconic figure, Bob Marley was the first Jamaican artist to achieve international superstardom, in the process introducing the music of his native island nation to the far-flung corners of the globe. |
 | | The harmonica virtuoso and rotund frontman for jam band favorites Blues Traveler, singer/harpist John Popper was born in Cleveland, OH, on March 29, 1967. |
 | | Best known as the piano and keyboard player for Phish, Page McConnell was born May 17, 1963, in Philadelphia, PA, moving to Basking Ridge, NJ, in 1969 with his family. |
 | | Begun as an acoustic spinoff of the Jefferson Airplane, Hot Tuna eventually became the full-time focus of founding members Jack Casady and Jorma Kaukonen, emerging as a popular touring act of the 1970s. |
 | | For roughly half a decade, from 1968 through 1975, the Band was one of the most popular and influential rock groups in the world, their music embraced by critics (and, to a somewhat lesser degree, the public) as seriously as the music of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. |
 | | Founded in Georgia in the late '90s, Sound Tribe Sector 9 quickly refined a style of dub-influenced, breakbeat-infused psychedelic music with a heavy emphasis on group improvisation, comparable to the work of jam band peers such as the Disco Biscuits, Lake Trout, and the New Deal. |
 | | Though he spent the first 11 years of his life in California, it was in Australia -- his father's native land -- that guitarist John Butler picked up the instrument that would later launch his music career. |
 | | O.A.R. (an acronym for the band's full moniker, Of a Revolution) transformed itself from an independent college band to a Billboard chart-topper over the course of a long, varied career. |
 | | Though they had all the trappings of a Southern-fried blues band, Little Feat were hardly conventional. |
 | | Brothers Alan and Neal Evans, on drums and Hammond B-3 organ, respectively, form two-thirds of the soul/groove trio Soulive. |
 | | Since his days as a member of the Beatnigs while in his early twenties, Michael Franti grew from an angry young hip-hopper with a political, socially conscious bent (the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, Spearhead) to a man who channeled his seriousness, social unease, and desire for change and merged them with his love for music, particularly old-school R&B, soul, and hip-hop. |
 | | A band with a laid-back California vibe, ALO (Animal Liberation Orchestra) are a hit on the jam band circuit and often associated with their good friend Jack Johnson. |
 | | David Grisman is normally associated with the bluegrass wing of country music, but his music owes almost as much to jazz as it does to traditional American folk influences. |
