JAM OFF.(The Talk of the Town)(The Jammys)

The producers of awards shows tend to be anxious about time: performers and presenters are urged not to squander it, in the interest of keeping to a TV schedule. You wouldn't think that the Jammys would share this concern. For one thing, they are not televised. For another, they involve a genre of music that does not typically submit to the constraints of the clock. The Jammys are the jam-band equivalent of the Grammys; jam bands may or may not rock, but, at a minimum, they must jam. Very loosely speaking (naturally), they value instrumental improvisation over songcraft, live performance over studio recording, real smoke over the machine-made kind. The scene's progenitors (leaving aside a few thousand jazz and blues musicians) are the Grateful Dead and the Allman Brothers, groups who were never known for keeping it brief, and whose descendants--Phish, Widespread Panic, String Cheese Incident--are considered imitators as much for their profligacy as for any real musical resemblances.

So when the fourth annual Jammys were held last week, in the Theatre at Madison Square Garden, it was somewhat surprising to see, taped to the wall of every dressing room, a strict agenda of the evening's performances. The intervals were generous but precise; an outfit called Assembly of Dust was scheduled to play from 8:28 to 8:53, at which point they would vacate the stage for the presentation of the New Groove award. This Jammy went to Psychedelic Breakfast, which beat out Raisinhill and the Hot Buttered Rum String Band, among others. The trophy itself is a golden guitar neck in the shape of the letter "J."

Old groove was there, too. The New Orleans piano man Dr. John (9:25-9:50) sat in the corner of his dressing room, leaning on an ornately carved cane, waiting for an attendant to find a lost pack of cigarettes. He squinted at the schedule on the wall. "Let's see, what the hell is all this? I can't see that good no more. 'Derek Trucks.' I can't read that shit, but it don't matter. Whatever." His voice was a low, slurred growl. "I'm the worst guy to ask anything about time. I've got no concept of time and stuff like that."

Outside in the hall, the show's impresario, Peter Shapiro, seemed to take a more linear view. Stubbled and pale, with the bedraggled intensity of a fraternity entrepreneur (he used to own Wetlands, the live-music club ...