Longest jam

'The Ikon' by Utopia clocks in at 30min

Frets N Worries wrote: 'The Ikon' by Utopia clocks in at 30min

It's anything but a jam. The majority of Ikon is meticulously composed.

The Miles Davis live albums, "Pangea" and "Dark Magus", are presented as one long flowing piece of improvisation that stretches over two records on each album for about an hour and a half of music on each album.

Frets,

you are very close but not quite there.

Originally I heard the word "Jam" used in the early 70s. Prior to hearing jams in Progressive Rock I was listening to Psychedelic Rock and Blues Rock which contained a lot of what people called jams. My favorites were "Spoonful" performed by Cream at the Fillmore East on the Wheels Of Fire album.

"Albert's Shuffle" featuring Mike Bloomfield from the Super Session album....different examples of Ten Years After ..Humble Pie Last Night at the Fillmore...It was all very fascinating to me because suddenly after about 10 minutes into the jam Steve Marriott would start playing harmonica and sounding really good..as that would change up the music and give it diversity. A lot of regular Rock bands were doing that in the early 70s.

For me it was a matter of taste because obviously at age 15 in 1971 I felt immediately that a band like Mountain were going on or dragging on their jams too long. "Nantucket Sleighride was a really pretty song...but the band were a bit too much extensive for me and they rarely changed the music up.

Early Prog bands like Beggars Opera, Rare Bird, had sections of music where they jammed. It was done well. Jethro Tull "Dharma For One" and "Bouree" featured shorter jams that I liked.

I wasnt particularly fond of Space Ritual by Hawkwind. I felt it went on for too long and without interesting soloing which GONG definitely did! Possibly GONG had finer musicians in the band which caused the music to sound off differently. Both Hawkwind and GONG I have many titles.

If a jam drags for too long without any interesting solos then it feels redundant. You don't want to have someone soloing in your face for 10 minutes either...that can be annoying. You have to arrive at an "in between "...a mixture...sharing solos or coloring the music with atmospheric sections which creates an interesting vibe. Like Miles Davis did on Jack Johnson, Bitches Brew, and Big Fun.

Onslow wrote: Frets, you are very close but not quite there.

Okay.
Here it is.

Like I said, Frets was very close.

The longest is also Todd Rundgren and also on Bearsville label.

"A Treatise on Cosmic Fire" 36 minutes , from the lp "Initiation".

Side one is the usual Rundgren poprock with vocals but side 2 is so different that I'm lead to believe it is more the doing of keysman Powell than it is Rundgren.

Jacob Schoolcraft wrote: ... If a jam drags for too long without any interesting solos then it feels redundant. You don't want to have someone soloing in your face for 10 minutes either...that can be annoying. You have to arrive at an "in between "...a mixture...sharing solos or coloring the music with atmospheric sections which creates an interesting vibe. Like Miles Davis did on Jack Johnson, Bitches Brew, and Big Fun.

https://youtu.be/IEVceQ-iX_U?si=zZaPIAgf5p_96NKg