Jam Band

Some of Louisiana's best-known musicians have joined forces in an ongoing effort to help save Louisiana's coast — and fans at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival reaped the benefits Saturday. Voice of the Wetlands All-Stars — featuring Tab Benoit, Dr. John, Cyril Neville, Anders Osbourne, Big Chief Monk Boudreaux, Johnny Vidacovich, Johnny Sansone and Waylon Thibodeaux — hit the Acura Stage just before the day's closing headliner, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Benoit, a Cajun musician, founded the all-star band to help send the message that coastal land loss is...

Some of Louisiana's best-known musicians have joined forces in an ongoing effort to help save Louisiana's coast — and fans at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival reaped the benefits Saturday. Voice of the Wetlands All-Stars — featuring Tab Benoit, Dr. John, Cyril Neville, Anders Osbourne, Big Chief Monk Boudreaux, Johnny Vidacovich, Johnny Sansone and Waylon Thibodeaux — hit the Acura Stage just before the day's closing headliner, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Benoit, a Cajun musician, founded the all-star band to help send the message that coastal land loss is...

To become a better band, the String Cheese Incident quit playing so much. That may seem like a contradiction, but this is a band that thrives on pulling beguiling music from odd juxtaposition, so finding success in unlikely fashion is sort of typical for these guys. As it blossomed through the late '90s and into the middle '00s, String Cheese Incident mashed up bluegrass and electronic music, rock and jazz, global rhythms and back-porch charm. The whole thing was a hippie-hillbilly hybrid that found a healthy audience within the jam band scene and drew invites from hosts as diverse as the Newport Folk...

POP & ROCK RUMER Close your eyes and you'll swear you're listening to a smooth, '60s pop singer in thrall with the catalog of Burt Bacharach, who, coincidentally, is a fan. Already a sensation in her native England, Rumer is now aiming for the US market with her debut, "Seasons of My Soul," recently released in this country. Feb. 10, 9 p.m. Tickets: $16. Brighton Music Hall. 800-745-3000, www.ticketmaster.com UMPHREY'S McGEE The songs will go on. And on. And on. And for fans of this progressive jam band from Chicago, that's exactly why they keep coming back.

The jam band Phish is returning to its home state of Vermont to help the victims of Tropical Storm Irene with a benefit concert. Phish will play on Sept. 14 at the Champlain Valley Exposition in Essex Junction, its first Vermont show in seven years. The Burlington Free Press ( http://bit.ly/nVQYWX) reports that tickets go on sale Saturday. In a statement issued Tuesday, Phish keyboardist Page McConnell says: "It's been heartbreaking to see all the loss and destruction that came from the storm.

DISPATCH Tonight with Elephant Revival (sold out), tomorrow night with Young the Giant (sold out), and Sunday with OFS, TD Garden, 7 p.m. Tickets: $37.50. 800-345-7000, www.livenation.com “You didn’t get the message?’’ Dispatch drummer Brad Corrigan asked. “We’re doing 730 shows next year, two a day.’’ And thus he deflected the “What’s next?’’ question during an interview with all three members of the recently reunited Dispatch. Corrigan, bassist Pete Francis, and guitarist Chad Stokes simply seemed to be enjoying their first concert tour since 2002, a trek that brings Dispatch...

EVENTS Wayland : The Walden Forum presents Tom Ashbrook (pictured), who will discuss his career in journalism from newspaper correspondent to host of WBUR's nationally syndicated radio show "On Point," tonight at 7:30 at First Parish in Wayland, 50 Cochituate Road. Free. 508-788-3636, www.waldenforum.org. FAMILY Brookline : The children's jam band Rolie Polie Guacamole sings about nutritious foods like hummus, guacamole, apples, and açaí berries, and about staying active on Sunday, 2 p.m., at Brookline Music School, 25 Kennard Road.

MANSFIELD -- Being branded a jam band implies performing a show stuffed with pointless are-we-there-yet noodling, and sound-alike songs that would have been better served by a traditional verse-chorus-verse structure than yet another 25-minute bass solo. Since their 1994 breakthrough, "Under the Table and Dreaming," the rabidly popular Dave Matthews Band has been considered a jam band in the tradition of the Grateful Dead and Phish, and while that speaks to this quintet's adventurous musicality, it also misses the point.

CAMBRIDGE -- With dreidels and gelt scattered around the club, a plate of latkes being escorted through the crowd, and a lit (electric) menorah onstage, T.T. the Bear's clearly got into the spirit of the Jewltide Hanukkah Bash. Organized by Jewish label JDub Records and Heeb magazine, Thursday's event offered up a selection of Jewish-themed bands. Opener Shtreimel fell somewhere between a klezmer group and a jam band. But part of the charm of klezmer has always been its adaptivity, and if most of the songs kept the basic harmonic vocabulary, the instrumental band was more rhythmically...

COVENTRY, Vt. -- State Police and organizers of this weekend's Phish concerts tried to put the best face on the bad weather yesterday as rain pounded the area for the second day in a row, while fans of the jam band navigated a venue that had become a muddy bog. "The show will go on, and the show will go on on time," said Adam Lewis, a spokesman for the concert promoter, Great Northeast Productions. Lewis's comments at a news conference yesterday morning came as workers were putting the finishing touches on a concert stage across the road from the Newport State...

Dough in East Boston takes its laid-back vibe seriously. Psychedelic posters of the band Phish cover much of the wall space. The SiriusXM station Jam On provides a fitting soundtrack. With only three tables and countertop window seating, it's more of a takeout than dine-in spot, but you can order from the counter and, well, chill. And on a quiet weeknight, we immediately feel like we own the joint. "You guys ordered a lot of good food, so this is going to come out tapas-style," announces co-owner Kevin Curley, delivering roasted garlic bread ($2.95 and $4.95)

To become a better band, the String Cheese Incident quit playing so much. That may seem like a contradiction, but this is a band that thrives on pulling beguiling music from odd juxtaposition, so finding success in unlikely fashion is sort of typical for these guys. As it blossomed through the late '90s and into the middle '00s, String Cheese Incident mashed up bluegrass and electronic music, rock and jazz, global rhythms and back-porch charm. The whole thing was a hippie-hillbilly hybrid that found a healthy audience within the jam band scene and drew invites from hosts as diverse as...

EVENTS Wayland : The Walden Forum presents Tom Ashbrook (pictured), who will discuss his career in journalism from newspaper correspondent to host of WBUR's nationally syndicated radio show "On Point," tonight at 7:30 at First Parish in Wayland, 50 Cochituate Road. Free. 508-788-3636, www.waldenforum.org. FAMILY Brookline : The children's jam band Rolie Polie Guacamole sings about nutritious foods like hummus, guacamole, apples, and açaí berries, and about staying active on Sunday, 2 p.m., at Brookline Music School, 25 Kennard Road.

The jam band Phish is returning to its home state of Vermont to help the victims of Tropical Storm Irene with a benefit concert. Phish will play on Sept. 14 at the Champlain Valley Exposition in Essex Junction, its first Vermont show in seven years. The Burlington Free Press ( http://bit.ly/nVQYWX) reports that tickets go on sale Saturday. In a statement issued Tuesday, Phish keyboardist Page McConnell says: "It's been heartbreaking to see all the loss and destruction that came from the storm.

DISPATCH Tonight with Elephant Revival (sold out), tomorrow night with Young the Giant (sold out), and Sunday with OFS, TD Garden, 7 p.m. Tickets: $37.50. 800-345-7000, www.livenation.com “You didn’t get the message?’’ Dispatch drummer Brad Corrigan asked. “We’re doing 730 shows next year, two a day.’’ And thus he deflected the “What’s next?’’ question during an interview with all three members of the recently reunited Dispatch. Corrigan, bassist Pete Francis, and guitarist Chad Stokes simply seemed to be enjoying their first concert tour since 2002, a trek that brings Dispatch...

JUNE 10-13 MANCHESTER, Tenn. Bonnaroo Festival : We always love a good ugly duckling story, and none is more heartening than the tale of Bonnaroo, a little festival that began in the wilds of Tennessee in 2002 and has since blossomed into a gorgeous gathering of top-notch talent. Given that it began with a humble lineup of Gov’t Mule, Soulive, and (shudder) Umphrey’s McGee, it’s wonderful to see that eight years on, Bonnaroo has shaken its jam band past, given itself a long bath, and emerged as an eclectic and exciting weekend.

Once upon a time a suburban teenager named Matthew, with a weakness for psychedelic drugs and the jam band Phish, sat on a rock in the Colorado wilderness and experienced the truth and goodness of God. A few years later, thanks to sojourns in the Holy Land and the welcome of the Lubavitcher Jewish congregation, that burnt-out kid has become Matisyahu, the Hasidic reggaeman, whose hot streak has music execs in a tizzy and critics debating the...

MADRID Having conquered high-end bar culture in the United States , nightlife impresario (and Cindy Crawford's soul mate) Rande Gerber sets his sights on Europe. Gerber and his brother Scott, who own the Whiskey chain of bars (including Whiskey Park in Boston), opened the Penthouse and Midnight Rose late last year in Spain inside the new ME hotel. There are lounge areas at Midnight Rose, the posh restaurant at ground level helmed by chef Jaime Renedo. But the true night life takes place at the Penthouse, the rooftop ambient bar designed for daytime...