there is no progress in art: why jazz musicians are like gold miners
Some of these shows feature the best jazz musicians in the world, playing for crowds of less than 30 people. I notice in these environments how welcomed it is to play weird sounds. It’s almost like the weirder or more novel the noise is, the more encouraged it is. It’s as if there’s this unspoken rule—the better the musicians, the stranger it’s expected to get.
I’ve also seen a handful of jam band concerts. At these shows, I notice that the part I enjoy most is clearly when the band is trying to imitate Phish, and specifically, the guitar player is trying to play exactly like Trey Anastasio. Despite enjoying these parts of the show the most in the moment, I also find it unsatisfying.
I don’t want to hear some band try to play Phish’s music, even if they could do it better than Phish—I want to see bands do their own thing.
Similarly, Phish is a largely improvisational band known for their jams. There are many jams the band has made in the past that fans hold in high regard, but fans don’t want to see Phish recreate their most legendary jams, nor other bands play them, or even composed parts that sound like them. This gets at something really interesting about how we think about art—we’re typically not actually looking for “better” versions of things we already love.
