There’s a couple of jam bands that you’re particularly close to. For instance, The String Cheese Incident. I wonder if you could comment on them.

Those guys are fine players and they really added a whole different perspective to the shows that we did together. Kyle Hollingsworth is a fantastic keyboard player. And Mike Kang is brilliant. I call him Kong. I really got off playing with them.

Another jam band that you’ve had some dealings with is Joe Gallant & Illuminati, whom you often played on your former radio show and commissioned to reproduce the Blues for Allah album for its 25th anniversary. They’ve since treated Terrapin Station in similar big band fusion of chamber music, rock, jazz, funk and urban soundscapes. Comment on what they’ve done as both an original act and their reworking of Dead material.

I just got Joe’s latest CD. I have to say that Joe has a unique perspective. I demand that these musicians take our material and do anything that they want with it. (Bay Area saxophonist) David Murray did the same thing. He did a whole disc of Grateful Dead material.

The ‘Dark Star’ tribute. Now he’s doing Coltrane, so he’s come full circle.

I hear he has an African band now with some African drummers. They’re playing at the San Francisco Jazz Festival, but I’m going to be out of town. I can’t say enough about how I dig all of that stuff. To me, there’s no right way or wrong way to interpret this material. There’s only a multiplicity of ways. There’s as many ways to interpret it as there are interpreters. And they’re all valid and wonderful and beautiful.

Are there any other young jam bands you’re who make you proud?

I’m really not that familiar with any particular band. I sort of discover them as I go along.

Are you happy with the Dead’s place in musical history? Do you feel the Dead has gotten enough credit?

I don’t think anyone living really can pass judgment on that. That happens later. I think our perspective is too close. I think there has to be some distance between the phenomenon and who ever’s looking at it. If you’re too close, I don’t think you can see the whole picture.

So the jury isn’t in yet?

It isn’t even out yet, but the evidence is out there.

What do you like most and least about Deadheads?

What I like most is the sense of community that they have, the love that they manifest for each other and for us. I don’t know if there is anything I like least about them. Maybe I don’t know them well enough.

How much did you enjoy the last few years of the Dead as a stadium act?

I didn’t enjoy playing stadiums. The first few times we did it, it was really a thrill, an incredible experience. But after a while, it gets to be like playing in infinite space. There’s no feedback, no bounce back. In a stadium, the band is putting out energy from the stage and the audience is trying to get energy back to the stage, but instead of going towards the stage, it’s just going straight up, out the roof.

In what ways do you prefer what you’re doing now, like Phil & Friends?

I like the ability to structure the sets and open up the music in ways that we can allow little doors to open in the music and then when they do open, you go through them and explore what’s on the other side. The Grateful Dead hardly ever did that at the end. It was one directional. We always knew where it was going to go and we just wanted to go ahead and get there without exploring any of the bi-ways that opened up. Because of that, there weren’t many bi-ways that were suggested or even showed up on the map. There were in the old days, but it got really uni-directional. So the way that music develops now is like a garden of forking paths.

So between that and Little League, you’re pretty psyched.

Yeah (laughs), that brackets my consciousness.

What’s up with the Rex Foundation, the charity group of the Grateful Dead that preceded your Unbroken Chain Foundation?

It’s sort of in limbo. After Jerry’s death, there was a lot of divided opinion about what to do with the Rex Foundation. In fact, there were so many different ideas that nothing got done. So I just went away and started with my wife, our own foundation. Unbroken Chain operates on a much smaller scale. We do local charity work, some stuff in the arts and education. It’s a lot smaller scale, because we don’t have the resources.

What other music have you been working on besides Phil & Friends?

I’m working on a piece now that is like a Fantasia on Grateful Dead song themes. I’m using material from about 30 Grateful Dead songs and it’s all going to be strung together in a 45-minute piece for orchestra. I’ve been working on that for a couple of years.

Will your performance of John Cage’s ‘Apartment House 1776’ with the San Francisco Symphony ever CD the light of day?

The San Francisco Symphony may produce that themselves.

So it could be out on RCA?

Could be.

What’s up with Terrapin Station, the proposed cultural center in San Francisco dedicated to the band and its fans?

That’s still in negotiation and we’re trying to figure out what to do with it. There’s still several sites that we’re looking at.

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