@chillen said:

This was a patient jam and, while it felt like they were actively searching for a launching point at times, it comes across as effortless and sensual on relisten.

I agree, while listening live it really felt like they were searching in the middle of that Twist jam. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoyed the hell out of the song last night, but now I'm really looking forward to the re-listen to see if it sounds different. Great point and great review.

I've noticed this searching too, but I think that what's happening is that Trey isn't leading the jam, finding a particular riff/progression to settle on. In those moments, everything just sort of swirls around - Trey is noodling or playing percussive strums, Page adding atmosphere and color with electric piano, Mike highly active on circular riffs. That's a lot of what I was hearing last night during Twist. It does sound like they're searching for something to click, but that's only if you assume that every jam segment needs to have that kind of melodic cohesion. In this case, I'd say that the Twist jam had both soaring peaks where the band was totally locked in, but also moments where there was no direction, there was just exploration of a particular harmonic area and rhythmic groove. Those directionless moments are some of my favorite jams, when they are genuinely good and not actually searching for something that isn't there.

In my hearing of their improvisation these days, when the band is searching and nothing is clicking, that's when you get the ripcord into "Light" or "Piper" or "Number Line" or whatever. That's when you get the 10 minute jams that seem like they could keep going but they don't. Last night there was none of that. Whether it's because they were content to sit in one particular musical schema for a while to see how it panned out, or because Trey is just more comfortable being in a jam that isn't going anywhere, it worked in our favor last night.

Exploring harmonic stasis and the edges of a particular structural space are the kinds of improvisation that characterized some of the most psychedelic and far out GD jams, especially think of Playin from '71-74 or a '72 Dark Star. Perhaps Trey let some of his studying of that style of improv into his Phish worldview, since he does seem to be more comfortable at the edges, exploring, willing to find nothing but just poke around nonetheless.