Jazz, Phish Jazz, and the Phuture
October 18 2009

The Pianobabbler had a read of Dog Gone Blog the other day.

The Dog Gone blogger (aka the Pianobabbler's nephew) holds a mighty high ranking as a fan of Phish. Or is it a Phish phan...

Phish. Jam band. Nominally rock, Phish incorporates many other styles into its music. Bluegrass, classical, and reggae, to name but a few. It also throws a lot of improvisation into its music, whence the jam preceding band.

Phish has become a latter day Grateful Dead. It has inspired a following of mostly 20-plus somethings who, being a following, loyally follow Phish across the North American continent as it tours. Phish as an entreprise has achieved admirable success.

Given the band's improvisatory bent, one would expect it to flirt with jazz. And so it does.

Phish for many years has been cracking off versions of what the Pianobabbler and his cohort recognize as jazz standards. Caravan. Take The 'A' Train. So What. Overly familiar to jazz players, these songs taste fresh to the Phishphans. Even Satin Doll (cue to hard jazz fan core rolling eyes, for the tune's putative cheese factor.)

Phishjazz makes no compromises. It remains true to itself. The musicians play their rock instruments- keyboard, electric guitars and bass. They play the music as they know it. They don't let theory overtake the music. They enjoy. The audience enjoys. The musicians enjoy that the audience enjoys.

In short, Phish brings jazz back to where it stood for years. It brings it back to pop.

Jazz reigned as the pop music of its day. Which means parents didn't like it. Most parents don't like Phish, I'm guessing. And most parents, like most jazz fans- most probably parents themselves -wouldn't like Phishjazz. Yeeha. Phish must be doing something right.

Look, the Pianobabbler cannot even say whether he likes Phishjazz. But that bears little on the matter.

What does bear: too few people listen to jazz for sheer enjoyment. In some cases, labels have refined the jazz they present into a silicone simulacrum of music. This has spawned the aural equivalent of the obesity epidemic in the ears of audiences. Flabby listening habits. Musically overfed and undernourished, listeners are stimulated to need and desire for more of the same. A non-virtuous cycle.

In many other cases, jazz has become a classical music. A music one studies. A historical music. A music in, of and for institutions. An I listened to it when I was a kid music. Re-creative. Eldermusic. A music of yesterday.

Thank you Phish. On behalf of jazz fans, many of whom will not have either heard or heard of you, thank you. Thank you for keeping the music alive. For giving it a new life.

Rock on.

- Click here for the Dong Gone Blog, and for links to Phish jazz

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