Jam Band

Jam Band

Jam bands are musical groups whose albums and live performances relate to a fan culture that originated with the 1960s groups such as the Grateful Dead and The Allman Brothers Band. This jam band environment continued in the 1990s with bands like Phish. The performances of these bands often feature extended musical improvisation ("jams") over rhythmic grooves and chord patterns and long sets of music that cross genre boundaries.

While the seminal group Grateful Dead were originally categorized as psychedelic rock, by the 1990s the term "jam band" was used for groups playing a variety of genres, including those outside of rock such as funk, progressive bluegrass, and jazz fusion. The term is also used for some groups playing blues, country music, folk music, world music, and electronic music.