Jazz Is Dead...

My Band of the Month...

Nothing could be further from the truth when it comes to the band that reinvented the Grateful Dead. Not that the Dead needed reinventing in the first place. Imagine Gov't mule covering the Dead... Jazz is Dead 

Admittedly I was not a Grateful Dead fan when I first heard this group. I instead stumbled upon them when browsing a friends library. This incredible group had a sound that immediately jumped out at me. They are not a cover band, (in my eyes) as they took classic Dead songs and turned them jazz-iliciously upside down with blazing guitar licks, funk-to-the-max basslines, harmonics on top of harmonics, and doing this all while mixing in the subtle melodies of the Grateful Dead. All this creates a really sick and unique sound that simply needs to be heard. They are made up of the one and only Jimmy Herring (uh...guitar), Alphonso Johnson (bass), Billy Cobham (drums), and T Lavitz (keys) and when I say they shred boy do they ever. 

Check them out, they are my band of the month and I like to think for good reason. 

P.S. They have 3 albums out... Blue Light Rain, Laughing water wake of the flood, and Great Sky River... This also was the best video I could find on youtube.