Are Jam Bands prog rock?

I think there is a disadvantage sitting this side of the Atlantic, jam bands are not that common. So I've been trying to work out exactly what a jam band was/is. So after being told a jam band should have this and that element included, I've gone through the state of confusion and now come to believe that a jam band is one that simply likes to jam. Otherwise it becomes difficult to see/hear other similarities.  Now advice please: because fans of the following bands have told me these are jam bands - are they right?

MMW

Bela Fleck & The Flecktones

Primus (and hence many of Les Claypool's subsequent projects)

Govt Mule

Phish

Grateful Dead

Jazz Is Dead

Derek Trucks Band

Therefore to put the theory to test: by default the Allman Brothers and Man should be included. Cream? Who else?

I want to give an example, Close To the Edge (The Song) is enhanced by Wakeman incredible solos, which have variations on stage, but the main structure of the song (Guitar, Bass and Drums) don't change at all even the timming is almost the same on studio and in stage.

This can be done necause Wakeman Keyboards are not part of the structure of the song, are like dressings on a cake, help to give a better image (And Wakeman does a superb job).

Even this kind of things couldn't be done in a Genesis concert, because the structure of the song rest on Tony Banks and Steve Hackett, if anyone in the band could improvise would be Phil Collins.

Prog' is based in classical music and because of that the genre depends on strong structures, exact timming and precise conexion between the musicians.

In a jazz concert, every musician improvises and at some points they start playing one determined song and end playing anything totally different, and that's ok for Jazz because it's a genre based in the individualism of the musicians, they have the freedom to change everything and people expects them to do it. IMO sometimes they go too far and mix too much sounds without any structure.

Jazz is a free genre, because it's based in black music that didn't had strong structures and it was adapted in USA, a nation that bases their achievements in the individualism, so there's an historic perspective also.

Love both genres but each one in it's moment, Prog' almost always, Jazz on a Pub with some beers.

Iván

I'm with Ivan, Goose.

For me, Ivan has defined well what makes jazz a different genre to prog. Such a distinction does lead to the question whether some of more respected bands on this site, such as Soft Machine and, dare I say, King Crimson are really prog. There was of course a recent thread on KC's prog credentials.

IMO the term JAM is not compatible with PROG' because Jam is mainly improvisation and if there is a genre that needs solid structures is prog'

When you create a progressive song everything must fit, the structures are basic even on stage when Wakeman or Emerson improvise they maintain the basic and rigid structure. They put some extra dressing to delight the audience but the song on stage is almost identical in structure to the version on the studio album.

Jam is more related with some variations of Jazz, where musicians are allowed to create at the moment, something almost impossible in Prog' Rock.

Iván

Umphrey's I was going to mention, as well as Moe.

On that note , if we're going to classify Jazz fusion as prog here on this site, we should be classifying a band like MMW as a jam band, Furthermore, why are bands like Galactic not more like prog (space fusion/electronic funk prog), not jam bands? 

Bands like Galactic and MMW always get placed in the jam band category, so I think the worlds of Prog and Jam Bands are merging steadily. I mentioned earlier that there was no difference in the 60s and 70s, it was all rock music (pop music). The rock categories came later.

I always thought Djam Karet was a jam band.

I would put some of these jam bands in the same category as Frank Zappa.

Phish and the band I recently requested for consideration, Umphrey's McGee, have just as much prog potential as Zappa.

I sent Max some Umph McGee "samples." I wonder if he'd like to weigh in?

Now not all Jam Bands use prog themes. Blues Traveler, Big Head Todd, Widespread Panic.... Not prog. Good Music, IMHO, but not prog.

Yes, this is like the "is Radiohead prog" poll. Jam Band's aren't prog, even if some bands sound like prog sometimes. Phish is a jam band. Grateful Dead are kind of the original travelling band, or jam band with followers, so they're a jam band.

Jam bands have a more intimate culture with their band than prog fans, not on the internet per se, that's the same, but in travelling with the band, being a part of the social values that the band projects, more separate from other values, the wardrobe and fitting in with the culture is a big thing and there are always roots to being quite for the people, against oppression, that's why the Reggae movement is influential in neo-hippie culture. It's why you see Kerry bumperstickers at Coventry (the past last Phish concert ever  )

Etc, it's more a culture than prog, though related. There are prog fans who listen to traveller's music and there are fans who listen only to prog. And Vice versa with the hippies. But prog fans aren't nearly involved with the amassed culture in the same way as jam band fans. We "have a night out on the town" when we see our bands play. LOL. Usually. We don't follow the band around the continent necessarily. I'd classify myself as a neo-progger, but that's in a regressive way, I don't really like what we would call neo-prog (Glass Hammer, Dream Theatre) as much as the older progressive rock. I belong in the 70s, I think. Yeah, '75 maybe. And also, I hang out with hippies (neo-hippies, imo, the real hippies lived the culture in the 60s and 70s and it died down around Disco, although Disco ate it, c'mon, bellbottoms? You still had the bells and the platform shoes ) so there isn't a real culture clash difference in terms of what music we like (I go to Phish concerts and Yes concerts and the hippies probably do too), except I would say that the two cultures are mutually exclusive, in the end.

Prog, 60s music and hippies are heavily related though, and that's why I thought it might be interesting to hear other people's opinions. In the 60s, if you asked what type of person listened to The Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd, Zeppelin or Zappa, the answer you'd get is probably a hippie.

Generationally, Phish is the only band other than maybe Dave Matthews band that has acheived the same types of groundbreaking success as their mentor, the old music, and they did it by playing their own music, but having it reach many. They rock in the same way that Grateful Dead rocked America. (On that note, Radiohead rocks in the same way that the Floyd did.) It's generational. But it's all popular. Even Phish. They just don't get covered by popular media, hat's why Phish, no matter how diverse they might be, will always be transposed to a Jam band, like the Grateful Dead. It's not their music, it's the surrounding culture.

Experimental (read: I don't know how to play guitar too well, but all the groovy laser sounds are trippin' me out) became psychedelia as skill increased, and as Steve Howe later admitted "the progressive rock [movement] was born out of psychedelia"  so the same people that listened to the Grateful Dead were listening to Floyd and others and the early form of prog rock and jam bands were the same! (though they sounded different, of course, the culture of pop doesn't differentiate - all music back then was pop music!)

Peace,

Gaston