i hope you like jamming too
One of the reasons that I’ve not paid any attention to the grammys over the years is that until very recently, almost all of my music listening was live.There are 108 Grammy categories …….Why isn’t there a category for Best Jam Album, Best Jamband Album, or Best Jamband Performance? - Allen Ostroy, A Jammy at the Grammys?
Hate to admit it, but the iPod changed that. In my defense, I upped the listening to recorded music, not reduced the listening to live. Anyway, I always thought it weird that the major music awards went for recorded music instead of live. I mean, the theater world has long had both the Oscars and Tony Awards.Since 2000, the Jammys have tried to make up this gap. Despite the name, they don’t just focus on jam bands, but live, improvisational music in general. The categories aren’t always the same, but typical ones include:
- Lifetime Achievement
- Song of the Year
- New Groove of the Year
- Tour Of The Year
- Download of the Year
- DVD of the Year
- Archival Live Album of the Year
- Community Service Award
- Studio Album of the Year
- Live Album of the Year
- Live Performance of the Year
- Grahamy Jammy
“In the Kitchen” Umphreys’s McGee, 2005 Jammy winner for Song of the Year[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=g3e5TvWmot0]
categories: music
posted by what at 04:31 am
This is probably lame starting the comments on my own post, but I wanted to bring a strand from yesterday’s open thread discussion over here. After putting this post to bed, it finally occurred to me just what was eating me about the “should Hicks be touring still” part of that discussion.
One view expressed concern that he was maybe touring too much and should be getting on with writing for the next album, with the side question of whether this was being done to promote the album or him and who was behind it, label or management.
I expressed the view that touring gave him a chance to develop material because I think that that’s an important part of the process.
But what was finally nagging at me was that for both viewpoints, there is an underlying assumption that getting a good album made and sold is the main goal, and playing live is a means to that end. It’s either there to promote the album sales, promote the artist in general, or help develop the material to make a better album.
Do we have that assumption? And if so, where does it come from? Is it an aesthetic thing, as in you really want a good studio recording to listenn to? Or is it part of your desire to make sure that Hicks (or whoever you’re following) has the wherewithall to keep performing live?
For me, it’s the latter. If he did nothing but perform live, making concert DVDs or live recorded CDs available, I’d be happy as a music consumer. So I see the studio album as a means to an end, not the other way around.
Hard to imagine that view sitting well with the grammy people.
Isn’t the Grammy party really about record sales? I don’t really understand how it all works, but that is the feeling I have. However it works, the Grammys don’t seem very ‘real.’ They seem commercial and shallow.
The Jammys sound like the perfect alternative. I hope that the lack of the awards this year don’t mean they are going away.
And thanks for Umphreys’s McGee.
Thanks for that. I like Umphrey’s. Kind of ironic that I don’t have much live of theirs. Probably should fix that.
I guess the question today is really parallel to the question that yesterday ended on and that what brought over here. What is the purpose of the grammys or jammys? Is it just recognition? I imagine that for recording artists it’s a feather-in-the-cap sort of thing “Grammy award winning artist Joe Smoe!” That seems kind of anti-jam philosophy. If there is such a thing.
I’ve done zero reading on this, but maybe that’s one reason for the jammys going away this year. Maybe they just decided that awards shows are just an excuse for everyone to get together and party and they realized that most every weekend in the summer there’s a festival somewhere that does the same thing. And in the winter, there are cruises.
This blog is in my head. I didn’t even sleep much. I tried to make some kind of answer last to itm to try and explain what Jam is. I not great with words so I kept writing stuff and then deleting it. For me Hicks is a Jam man and this thing about what is jam is the whole meat of the thing. So then I see the new stuff What has up today and think he must have been up too like me. I kind of shut down about music after Jerry Garcia left us. I never paid any attention to the grammy’s because they don’t think Jam but after Jerry died another deadhead wanted to make a petition and send it off to the Grammy’s so try and get them to at least look at good tapes of jam. I just went along and helped. We got like a lot of people that signed but it never did make a difference. I could do without any studio produced music. It’s like canned spinach compared to the fresh stuff out of the garden. It doesn’t even taste the same. Maybe its ok, I mean I know lots of people want that stuff but not me. I want it live — I want my music sushi. And that stuff about giving awards and stuff. You know Jerry never even wanted to be looked at the main guy — he said he was just part of the band. I don’t like to hear a song the same two times. What I’m saying is I’m not an expert about career but I did live on the road with the dead for a long time and I know stuff about live music. I sure don’t see a live show as less than a record. I see it as the real thing.
Maybe What, you could some time try to take on explaining what jam is to ITM cuz your words come out better than mine and it sounded like she really wanted to know maybe. I could try.
If you’re already into jam, then while you’re over reading the Ostroy article linked from his quote above, look at the poll that jambands has on their front page. I didn’t want to post it prominently, because it’d be cool if only real jam fans did the poll, and not just whoever happened to read the post.
The results to the poll are interesting; I voted first of course . I was not surpirsed by the breakdown.
Jazzy, I think you’re killer with words. That right there is IT!
Oh yeah, Jazzy, I agree with calypsotune that you captured IT.
This discussion reminded me of a jamband column I found awhile back. I think I went looking in response to the c2w post about whether Taylor is a jam band. Anyway, the column is 7 years old, but very much on point to today’s topic. And it really opened my eyes to the sad irrelevance of the grammys in terms of much of the music that I love.
Here’s an excerpt.
Here’s the link to the whole piece.
http://www.jambands.com/kitchensink/kitchensink9.html
For those in the SF Bay Area you can still make this
jamband event.
http://www.ibabuzz.com/concerts/2007/07/20/string-cheese-incident-hosts-two-day-party-at-greek
music sushi…oh music sushi…oh that is so fresh Jazzy. Seriously dude.
Wow…that list of who never won a Grammy is unreal. Guess I don’t need to start watching the show….cuz it seems they (whoever they is) don’t like what I like.
hi i enjoyed the read
Glad you liked it, reece. come back and read again.