![]() Some are mellow some are full of surprises." "I'm going to play jazz now I'll play rock later. ![]() He's now working with Australian prog rock group Unitopia cranking out 20-minute songs, but he says he treats each project with the same integrity. That same decade, he put out two highly fusion solo albums and recorded for Phil Collins' first solo record and a couple of Santana albums. He started in the 1970s playing jazz fusion with Weather Report. Throughout his seven decades of life, Johnson has played with many bands. "I was never that big a fan until I started playing with Jazz Is Dead! Then I could admire their craftmanship and see how great the songwriting is." It's a very heavy album." Not that there aren't any Grateful Dead albums Johnson can't appreciate. When people can't get a hold of groceries, it affects our mood. The lyrics have to do with what the country has to go through when there's a change of weather. "It's a great medley of melody and arrangement. Unsurprisingly, Wake of the Flood is one of Johnson's favorite Dead albums. ![]() Then after a break, we play the second side and sprinkle in some more of our favorites," he says. "In the first set, we play the first side of the record and sprinkle in some of our other favorite songs. Jazz Is Dead! celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Grateful Dead's 1973 album Wake of the Flood for this tour. I just went into the shed and had all the charts written out and taped them at my feet. "I think at one point, I had to know 50 of their songs. "For that, I sat with Bruce Hornsby, and he got me to learn all the Grateful Dead songs," Johnson adds. And then, in 2000, Johnson joined Weir's attempt to continue the Grateful Dead legacy with the Other Ones. In 1982, he played in Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir's side project, Bobby and the Midnites. Johnson had been familiarized with the Grateful Dead's work well before joining the band. It's highly improvisational, but sticking to the original song forms and chord progressions." When you're playing jazz, you compose new melodies and phrases and improvisations of overwritten music. "It is jazz arrangements of Grateful Dead songs. There's no keyboard it's all strings and drums," Johnson explains. ![]() "This is a different setup of how we used to do it. The current iteration sees Johnson on bass with Steve Kimock and Bobby Lee Rodgers on guitar, and Pete Lavezzoli on drums. The band toured for eight years, putting out three albums, before going on hiatus in 2006 - seemingly permanently after Lavitz passed away in 2010. We'd say, 'Let's play this part but with 7/4 time.'" So we'd listen and think of different ways to approach their songs. "I always knew there was a place for Grateful Dead songs to be improvised with jazz roots. "We got together and started listening to their songs," Johnson tells New Times. Jazz Is Dead! started in 1998 when keyboardist T Lavitz invited bassist Alphonso Johnson and a few other Los Angeles-based musicians to his home. On May 19, local Deadheads have a new way to celebrate the music of the iconic jam band when Jazz Is Dead!, a band that reimagines the Grateful Dead's songs as jazz standards, stops at Revolution Live. The Grateful Dead's history is intertwined with South Florida's thanks to the band's love-in at Greynolds Park in 1968 and the three Miami Arena shows in 1994, shortly before Jerry Garcia passed away.
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