Artist: Stormy Mondays

One of the show pieces for the late, great Garaj Mahal was Poodle Factory , a manic Zappa-esque tune that often gave Fareed Haque space to rant and explore his madness. Like so many GM songs, it could be vastly different from performance to performance and include long nasty bouts of funkiness. This week's Stormy Monday, another in the Ghosts of Jambands Past series, features what may be the single longest version of the song—together with a short Bajo to finish, it's 28 [...]

Continuing along with this year's Ghosts of Jambands Past theme, this week Stormy Monday turns to Project Logic, the rotating groove collective that was DJ Logic's brainchild. The band was only around for a few years but worked up a nice repertoire of deep beats and soaring, spacey tunes, including a pretty diverse set of covers, from Miles Davis to Phish, many of which are featured here. The band also often boasted special guests such as Vernon Reid, John Medeski, Marc Ribot and Eric Krasno, although the sound [...]

This week we turn our attention to Santana. I have a bunch of fond memories of seeing the band in the very early nineties, one night in particular deciding to go at the absolute last minute and being treated to a spectacular performance under a starry summer sky. But to be fair, as much as Santana can offer up soul satisfying sets, they can also dish out some cheesier fare as well, especially since the pop star collaboration days started in the late nineties. With that in mind [...]

Although Merl Saunders is certainly best known for his collaborations with Jerry Garcia in the early '70s up through Legion of Mary, two decades later he was a staple of the jam scene across the United States. Merl Saunders and the Rainforest Band were a constant presence in college towns and at small festivals, serving up heaping helping of funky, danceable, MIDI drenched grooves and environmental messages; his affection for the rainforest couldn't be missed. While the band went through some changes and eventually became something [...]

Continuing to look back at the Ghosts of Jambands Past, this week's Stormy Monday focuses on what was once a staple of the scene: the super group. Time was you could expect a one-off collaboration of talented groovers from different generations to come together for a benefit gig, a celebration or a festival spot (festival all-star jams were a must have and a big draw). Those days aren't entirely gone—all-star lineups certainly populate the Jazz Fest late night scene, and they're still a feature of the NYC music world—but somehow the mystique and excitement just isn't what it once was. [...]

Continuing along with a look back at jambands of the past, this week's Stormy Monday features Bad Hat, the short lived jazz band featuring drummer Jon Fishman and guitarist Trey Anastasio of Phish along with mandolinist Jamie Masefield and bassist Stacy Starkweather. [Photo via Phasinated.com ] It was an interesting time for the Phish boys to delve wholeheartedly in that direction as 1994 was the last year of playing smaller venues with any regularity, and the jazz material that was common, though never quite a staple, in setlists had [...]

Now for the first installment of the irregular Ghosts of Jambands Past series in over a year. Back in 2000, a collective of rootsy jam men decided to give a new treatment to the Pink Floyd catalog by covering the seminal psychedelic group's material with a gutsy blues inflection. Blue Floyd was born. Featuring Johnny Neel, Berry Oakley, Allen Woody (on guitar, not bass), Marc Ford and Matt Abts, the Mule/Crowes/ABB offshoot quickly became one rowdy, nasty bar band, ripping through Roger Waters era Floyd with layers of organ and loud guitars, often with an accompanying sci-fi classic playing in [...]

I ran some Ratdog on Stormy Mondays not too long ago, back when Bobby's postponed solo tour was supposed to take place, but that was before anyone knew Ratdog itself would make an appearance. On Wednesday of this week, an enhanced version of The Dog will play at Bobby's TRI Studios , that golden room with its unparalleled sonics and web casting capabilities. The band will feature both Rob Wasserman and Robin Sylvester on bass (both played the inaugural TRI Bob Weir and Friends gig) and both Mark Karan and Steve Kimock on guitar. A lot of people who [...]

It's been a while since I ran a single track here on Stormy Monday, and there's a great one that I've been listening to over and over since the concert happened: Steve Kimock and Friends doing Berm from the Brooklyn Bowl in November. The band featured Bobby Vega, Bernie Worrell and Wally Ingram, augmented at times throughout the weekend with John Morgan Kimock, Steve Bernstein, Peter Apfelbaum and Trevor Exeter, although here it's just the quartet for a slick, extended take on the old tune, with a tight version of [...]

As we do every year, Stormy Monday finishes this year and celebrates the new one with the music of John Coltrane. This time around we're looking back to Trane's work with Miles Davis, and in the Kind of Blue band in particular, with a full radio broadcast from Birdland. It's actually only two tracks (although there may be a hidden track or two), but they're smoking and I've left in the wonderfully dated announcements and the advertisements for the US Armed Forces. The So What is a real treat too. Here's a year well spent and twelve months [...]

We're going to close out a year of celebrating MMW's 20th anniversary with a set of the trio's bread and butter: improv. As much as Hidden Track readers are used to some improvisation in their music and even seek it out, MMW plays the game on a different level. Grounded in jazz and world rhythms, their approach to jamming is far more free and open than other bands; it's an approach that let's them jingle jangle through passages, and absolutely crush a groove too. They've done whole improv tours from [...]

I've been reading Ashley Kahn's great Kind of Blue , a wonderfully detailed account of the recording of jazz's great album and the context from which it grew. ( His book on A Love Supreme is also well worth reading.) It has me thinking about how interconnected all those artists from the fifties and sixties were, how rich a musical world it was, and how rich a jazz world we live in right now. There's been such an explosion of amazing music and musicians in the past 15 years or [...]

It's time for Volume 9 in the Stormy Mondays acoustic series, and this time it's a mix just right for the upcoming holiday. We open with Aimless Peacock from the Black Crowes sessions at Levon's barn, a big spinning, communal tune. Next is XVSK, Trevor Exeter and John Kimock's cello and bass duo, with a tune called Natalie - good music in the Wood Brothers vein. Neil Young does Pocahontas , followed by Garcia and Grisman's version of The Thrill Is Gone . Every time I hear this track I think that the great musical tragedy [...]

Around this time of year Stormy Monday always turns to look at Phil Lesh's storied post-Grateful Dead career, and this year we're listening back to his first really settled post-Q band, the one that established the Americana vibe that he had been working towards for the better part of a year. In the summer of '06 Phil hit the road with a lineup that saw the return of Molo on drums and Barry Sless on guitar, held onto Larry Campbell (who had by this point become comfortable with the material and started to leave his mark), and featured Joan Osborne [...]

Since Trey has just been gigging with TAB and Phish has just announced a New Year's run at Madison Square Garden , it seems like a good time to check something I've been mulling over for the past year or so: the first big jam of 3.0. [Photo by Dave Vann] It seems like every tour I read comments along the way that say, "Phish is finally back!" but the fact is, they've been on fire from right out of the gate, whether or not you happened [...]

As part of our irregular, but ongoing series of recycled podcasts, this week's Stormy Monday features the Tedeschi Trucks Band on the World Café from July. The group is on fire right now, easily one of the most enjoyable rock and soul bands touring today, and this is a killer performance—much better than the BBC gig that was also recorded and broadcast over the summer. [Photo by James Michin] The interview segment is also really interesting so that is included here as well. [...]

Bob Weir finished up a run of abnormal gigs over Labor Day Weekend: a solo show and two gigs as a guest in the Levon Helm Band. With a rescheduled solo mini-tour forthcoming, more Furthur dates and his TRI Studios , Weir's got a full plate, but there was a time when his only muse was Ratdog, a steady grooving road machine that boasted an incredibly tight rhythm section and a sax/guitar matrix always at the forefront of segue-laden sets. This week's Stormy Monday [...]

Over the weekend, Medeski, Martin and Wood finished their month-long residency at The Whitney in New York during which they explored a number of facets of the MMW sound as well as side projects, including MSMW and Billy Martin's Wicked Knee, as part of their 20th anniversary celebration. Here at Stormy Monday we've already started to mark the occasion, and Friday's great set with Cyro Baptista and DJ Logic seems like a good time for the second installment: a first set from 1997 that's heavy on [...]

It's a great groove mix this week on Stormy Mondays, kicking off with John Scofield's A Go Go , the title track of the album that single-handedly initiated the New Groove revolution near the turn of the century, helped in no small part by his band for the album, MMW. It is one of the true classics of the genre, a document that is as fresh and vital today as the day it was recorded. Next is Robert Walter's Super Heavy Organ with Kickin' Up Dust , no funkier tune around. [...]

To help you cope with the heat, this week's Stormy Monday is a very cool full Burning Spear festival set from 1999 in France. It's loaded with his best known material including great versions of The Youth, Christopher Columbus and Door Peep, and has a long African Postman > Happy Day encore that will leave you smiling, smiling, smiling. As always, enjoy! CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THIS WEEK'S MIX