Brendan Bayliss, Umphrey’s McGee I n March legendary jam act Phish reunites for a series of shows in Hampton, Virginia. Trey Anastasio’s crew hasn’t toured for more than four years. The shows have ignited a nationwide buzz, with the concerts selling out in five minutes—the latest proof of the enduring love for improvisational music. We discussed the phenomenon with old-guard members of the scene Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead and Gregg Allman of the Allman Brothers, along with members of newer bands—Chuck Garvey of moe. and Brendan Bayliss of Umphrey’s McGee—that kept the jam-band banner aloft during Phish’s long absence from the road.

PLAYBOY: What magic quality in jam-band music keeps audiences flocking to shows?
BAYLISS: We do something for everyone. We’ll cover “Africa” by Toto and then 10 minutes later play one of our originals influenced by hard rock or metal. You know there’s a chick in the front row who likes Toto but doesn’t like metal. Also I would say 15 of our original songs over the past five years have come from onstage improvisations. We offer the possibility that you’ll see something written in the moment.

Gregg Allman, the
Allman Brothers Band WEIR: It’s quintessential American music taken from every era and idiom—not something created intellectually but from growing up listening to those idioms and loving them all.
ALLMAN: At the end of the day it’s a method of transferring one person’s point of view to another person, and it seems to work pretty well. It soothes the savage beast.
GARVEY: The magic comes from not discussing exactly what you’re going to do and not squeezing the life out of it. Most rock bands and pop artists try to cut all the accidents out of the equation. When they produce a live show, everything goes off without a hitch.

PLAYBOY: So the magic is in the mistakes?
GARVEY: The most inspiring moments for us and the audience occur when the whole band moves in a certain direction as if using ESP, as if directed. That kind of democratic invention makes it exciting. It’s based on reacting to what’s happening, listening to everything going on with five or more musicians onstage. And yes, sometimes it can be a train wreck.

PLAYBOY: How much is directed?
ALLMAN: We set up the order of solos. We’ll have as many as three people sitting in along with our guys—and our guys aren’t going to miss a guitar solo!

Chuck Garvey, moe. BAYLISS: We use a lot of hand signals for key changes. We try to create an A section and a B section and go back and forth between the two.
GARVEY: We have a game plan for seamless segues between songs in different keys. We know we have to get from point A to point X, but no other letters are delineated. It’s a matter of feeling it and finding the right moment. You take a chance and hope everyone else in the band comes along and the audience hears it all.

PLAYBOY: Does the audience have to learn to hear certain things?
GARVEY: Casual music listeners may not get it at first. It may sound like a mess to them because they’re used to structured music rather than musicians interacting with one another, which isn’t the same. There is a lot of push and pull, and it feels different. That’s not to say it won’t sound tight, but improvised music is different from a two-minute Beatles tune.