When I was a kid there was a TV advertisement that ran every 15 seconds for a cheese snack. The product was Polly-O String Cheese; portable tubes of mozzarella flavored cheese product, ostensibly to be tossed into your brown bag in lieu of "unhealthy" Fritos (which, we had recently been told, "[went] with lunch"). Polly-O String Cheese was "the best part of the pizza, without the pizza!" No one ever ate it, but we all talked about the commercial a lot. It was part of our consciousness.

Years later I wound up in college, and all anyone talked about was taking LSD and going to a Dead show. The Dead would come, like the tides, to Madison Square Garden every year and the NYU area would all get into the act. Dead Week was an event. Hippies would meet up with friends who were touring, new hippies would be crashing in the dorms, new sheets of blotter would be distributed. It was all fun and peaceful, but after a while, it started to smell. I liked the Dead, liked them a great deal, in fact. But I also liked going down to Fez to see the memorial Charles Mingus Big Band, and none of those fans had any exhausting ritual. Listening to the Dead involved a lot of bragging rights. The "code of the Dead" involved listing the shows you'd seen, how many were outdoors, how many included "Dark Star", how ripped on acid you were, how ripped on acid the girl you were with was, how many "miracles" you were granted. The subtle chord progressions in "Help/Slip/Frank" often fell by the wayside.

Jazz Is Dead Live At New York's Bottom Line

A few years have passed now, and of course Jerry's gone. Kids tour with bands, still, but even with Phish the tour hasn't got any of the myth of "the long, strange trip." The good news, though, for fuddy-duddys like myself, is that we can finally concentrate on the music.

Producer and Dead enthusiast Michael Gaiman has assembled five of some of the jammingest psychadelic-funk-rock-jazz musicians on the scene right now to form Jazz Is Dead. The group consists of T Lavitz, Jimmy Herring, Alphonso Johnson, Rod Morgenstern & Jeff Sipe, alumnus all of the Leftover Salmon, Dixie Dregs, Gov't Mule & Widespread Panic scene. As you may glean from the name, Jazz Is Dead interpret The Grateful Dead's music in a jazzy vein, eschewing vocals for guitar-keyboard-bass-drum-percussion jams. They fit somewhere betwen the all-out funk-fest of T.J. Kirk's interpretation of Monk, Rahsaan & James Brown, and the Ed Palermo Big Band's treatment of Frank Zappa.

I was lucky enough to catch Jazz is Dead during a recent stop in New York at the Bottom Line, and it was there when the old slogan suddenly came back: it was the best part of the Dead, without the Dead. Here, the fans were there primarily for the music, not the T-shirts, not to get toasted. Their live act sticks pretty close to their original mission: to highlight the more intricate and jazzier tunes, specifically the albums "Wake of the Flood" and "Blues for Allah." Indeed, when they tear into the title track from "Blues for Allah," which the Dead rarely performed live, it becomes clear that this group is not merely honoring a gone, great group. They are creating something new, certainly something more instrumentally sophisticated, certainly something that could appeal to a musical enthusiast who has perhaps not given much attention to the Grateful Dead's compositions.

Herring, Lavitz & Johnson in a groovy wood-panelled room

"It sometimes gets like the Allman Brothers playing the dead," Michael Gaiman beams from the back of the Bottom Line in between sets. I tell him I'm just floored by Jimmy Herring's guitar playing, how he changes styles so fluidly. "Yep," Michael agrees, "he'll throw in a phrase that you'd swear was Dickey Betts or Steve Morse. It's become, in a way, part of his own phrasing." I note that now and again, almost as a wink, some passage here and there will sound startlingly like Jerry. "Sometimes it just happens naturally, like when he's playing what in the original song was the vocal melody." This doesn't immediately gel for me--I mean, if Herring is recalling the original song, he would play guitar like Jerry sang, not how Jerry played--but luckily the second set was starting.

Jazz Is Dead aren't fools. They throw in a "China Cat Sunflower" or "Scarlet Begonias" for every "Row Jimmy"--just don't expect "Friend of the Devil" anytime soon. But for those really paying attention, you might notice a quick nod to the Underwater World from Super Mario Brothers, or "Billy The Mountain." It's a music nerd's dream, all coming from a source we all know was worthy of the treatment, even if the music may have been occasionally obscured by the myth.

T Lavitz 'round the corner from the Bottom Line

Keyboardist T Lavitz confirmed some of my theories during a conversation we had after the show. Lavitz' was the only member who had seen the Dead! And he had only seen them three times, which is nothing by the aforementioned "code." Some serious Heads may shrug Jazz Is Dead off right now upon hearing this, but Lavitz is quick to point out that no one would doubt anyone's admiration for Weather Report if they'd "only seen them three times." He also reminds me that he and the band are just focused on the source composition. "You'd be stunned," he says, "at how many Dead tunes are filled with weird chords, weird progressions, shifting tempos. They certainly never got enough respect for their composition."

Jazz Is Dead, like the Dead before them, still use the composition for groundwork for serious jamming. The arrangements, I'm told, are a group effort, emerging from rehearsals. "It'll just evolve, but since we work without vocals we do try hard to emphasize the poetry from the lyrics into our playing. But it always keeps you guessing--for half the song Jimmy might be playing the vocal on his guitar, I'm playing Bobby Weir's rhythm on keys, bass is taking the lead solo, then it all switches. That to me is some of our most challenging work."

When asked if the band was planning to expand and use some more "traditional" jazz instruments, like horns, I was met with a resigned shrug. "It's hard to get people on board, 'cause now we're just playing it to play it . . . on our newest album, "Laughing Water," we do have Victor Clements playing violin, and Donna Jean Godchaux giving vocal intros. Believe me, I'd love to have Michael Brecker come and sit in with us!"

As Lavitz and I hung around outside the Bottom Line in the village, a kid came by distributing flyers for a Wetlands show of Joe Gallant and Illuminati. "Oh no!" I thought to myself, "how embarrasing. That's Jazz Is Dead's chief competitor." Galant & crew do a slightly more Vegas-y big band Dead show, with vocals. Like Jazz Is Dead's first album, Gallant started with "Blues For Allah" as initial inspiration. When Lavitz realized what this person was doing, he seemed really excited. "I've heard about the band! I hear they're really terrific." Then, to the kid, "Tell 'em we say 'hi,' and to keep up the good work!" So maybe some of that old myth lives on?

Laughing Water Cover

"Laughing Water," the newest CD, is the entire "Wake of the Flood" album, recorded live. While it doesn't quite capture the essence of Jazz Is Dead's stage act (Christ, now I'm starting to sound like one of those old Heads!) it is certainly an impressive piece of work. What's lacking, though, has nothing to do with "spirit" or "vibe". Frankly, the disc cuts some of the jamming short, and lacks the great opening rumbling, fierce torrents of sound Jazz Is Dead create as they hit the stage. In other words, it's worth the trip out when these guys come to your town.

If you have trouble finding Jazz Is Dead CDs at your local record-o-mart, you may want to hit their label Zebra. And, to keep track of their whereabouts, hit their home page as well.