Grateful Dead

The two things that separate the Dead from other bands, IMHO, are the songs of Hunter/Garcia and thewillingness of the band to go together wherever their collective or individual inspiration led, even if it meant they sometimes got lost along the way. It was that willingness to fail on stage that freed them to achieve the transcendent moments.

Y'all are hitting the nail on the head with the jamband discussion. You're saying what I've been thinking -- that most of them are too quick to go for the easy groove without enough unpredictable exploration in the rhythm section. No one does it like the GOGD and that's a big part of it. The superior songs themselves are another vital ingredient. There are exceptions of course and your mileage will certainly vary. I'll take raggedy old space case Keith Godchaux over that Furthur virtuoso any day. Interestingly, there is a parallel discussion on classical music going on back at the Dave's #11 board (if you can find it). It also favors expression over technical "perfection".

There are tons of bands/artists that stretch out songs and improvise on stage but they are never labeled as a Jam Band or heard on the Jam Band station or whatever... Why not? Who knows/who really cares? I think the main problem is that the bands that generally fall under the "Jam Band" Umbrella aren't the best at songwriting and place most of talents in the jam part...well, it shouldn't be a surprise that if you jam out a boring song, its still going to be boring. I say this but there are some "jam bands" I like but some really are just utterly boring, to me at least. Since I'm posting this post on Dead.net, I obviously think that Garcia/Hunter & Weir/Barlow are some of the best songwriters that ever lived. There were definitely songs that were built with heavy improvising being the main purpose but, for the most part, they were trying to write nice songs and the jams came later (I know some of this was already pointed out in previous post, but its correct). Playing In The Band, Dark Star, & Thats It For The Other One all started out as nice little songs, am I right? I don't really care if a band is considered a jam band or not or jams or not...if they write a good song, I'll listen to them and go to their shows.