With a quick turnaround on the heels of a three set New Year’s Eve show, The String Cheese Incident spoiled friends and family to more of that cheesy goodness on their second night at Broomfield’s 1^st Bank Center. While the costumes and elaborate spectacles were reeled in (as much as they can be at a SCI show), the 3D screen was stunning and the music seemingly more engaged. Hangovers be damned, the band and crowd came to jig.

Dead & Company, the latest Grateful Dead-family arena band, has made its way to California, for two shows at San Francisco’s venerable Bill Graham Civic Auditorium before heading to Los Angeles to close out the year.

In Handmade Moments’ second album, Eye in the Sky, you’ll find a wonderful array of classy beatboxing, great rhythms and a smattering of political commentary. The beatboxing acts as a subtle foundation for their melodies. Their rhythms are interlinked between South and Central American sounds, classic bluegrass and modern folk with a few twinges of slide guitar. And the commentary – it’s subtle as well. There are no overbearing opinions, just lightly dancing hopes for a better world.

This past February, Perpetual Groove announced that they would be back from a two year hiatus, and in the summer they got back on the road again to the delight of fans around the country. As part of the giving of gratitude Thanksgiving this year, the band came to Cervantes Masterpiece Ballroom in Denver, CO for a pair of nights of jamming.

One of Denver’s hottest new venues turned up on Friday, November 6^th with the Disco Biscuit side band, Conspirator. Sadly, this was one of the last shows at the 1up on Colfax ever. The venue closed the music venue section to stay faithful to its arcade bar roots, and ironically RAQ was the last shows there. Conspirator is far from a stranger to the area, as the Disco Biscuits play in Colorado more than anywhere else, Lotus just played in Colorado a couple months ago, and RAQ even more recently.

Few jazz guitarists have led a career of both diversity and longevity as Mike Stern. Though he earned his professional chops as part of the mid 1970s lineup of Blood, Sweat, and Tears, he really came to shine alongside some of the true jazz giants such as Miles Davis, Billy Cobham, and Jaco Pastorius. His ease in blending a range of styles through powerfully chorused interactive pedal effects has gained him worldwide recognition.

The gargantuan summer Fare Thee Well concerts represented a few milestones for the Grateful Dead. To celebrate the band’s fifty year anniversary the four living members, Phil Lesh, Bob Weir, Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart collectively decided two concerts at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California and three more at Chicago’s Solider Field would be the last time all of them got together to perform as The Dead.

Kyle Hollingsworth is well known as the keyboard player for The String Cheese Incident, but over the years he’s become just as recognizable by his insatiable thirst for craft brews of all sorts.

Was it the reunion of brimming fans? Or was it the band’s majestic sound? Regardless, Elephant Revival’s two homecoming shows at the Ogden this past weekend produced nothing short of sweeping communal joy.  Sights, sounds, and vibes provided respite from wintry woes all too common this time of year.

There is unquestionably an art to the super jam. It can’t just be a bunch of talented musicians thrown onto one stage with a few hours of rehearsal, then go! There has to be context if not history, empathy between the players, and of course chemistry. Often times musicians of the same craft will have such different approaches that the live performance result is far from copacetic. One city that harbors an authentic understanding of musical collaboration is New Orleans.