It is important to note that the idea of picking best jams is really counterintuitive to listening to improvised music. These picks are the result of listening to Grateful Dead tapes since the age of 15, and slowly building up a list of my best picks specifically for the road, which for me is exploratory improvisation, especially when it strays far from its basic form.

Improvised music isn't necessarily better than great studio work, but for me, the sensibility of not knowing where the music is going lends itself well to travel, because it gets your synapses firing in all the right ways. Many of these segments are long enough that getting caught up in them is best practiced when you are away from home, where you have big, open spaces of time to dive in to the music. This list is about the Grateful Dead's most exquisite improvised jams the ones that go along with open car windows, solitary hikes in foreign places, and doodling travel sketches in old cafes.

This has nothing to do with great songs (like Ripple or Box of Rain), or great versions of songs (like Ruben and Cherise at Folsom Prison).

Grateful dead space > let it grow