Jeff Chimenti | |
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Background information | |
Birth name | Jeffrey Chimenti |
Born | San Francisco, California | October 21, 1968
Genres | Rock, jazz, jam, psychedelia |
Occupation(s) | Musician |
Instrument(s) | Keyboards, vocals |
Years active | 1980s–present |
Labels | Columbia Records |
Member of | Dead & Company Wolf Bros |
Formerly of | RatDog Les Claypool's Frog Brigade The Other Ones The Dead Furthur Golden Gate Wingmen |
Website | jeffchimenti |
Jeff Chimenti (born October 21, 1968) is an American keyboardist, best known for his ongoing work with former members of the Grateful Dead. Since May 1997 he has played with Bob Weir & RatDog, and has also played on every tour of The Dead (including the Fare Thee Well lineup) and Furthur. He currently plays with Dead & Company. [1] [2] [3]
A native of the San Francisco Bay Area, Chimenti began playing piano when he was four and he studied formally from the age of seven to around the time he finished high school. Once he graduated from high school, he began playing in bands around the Bay area. He played in local jazz bands as well as Les Claypool's Frog Brigade. He has also played back-up for pop acts such as En Vogue.
He was playing in Dave Ellis's jazz quartet when Ellis was hired to play saxophone in Bob Weir & RatDog. Ellis informed him that RatDog was also looking for a new keyboardist. Chimenti was hired and played his first show 28 May 1997. Chimenti has been a member of RatDog ever since and has occasionally performed with Phil Lesh and Friends. While performing, he commonly uses Brent Mydland's Hammond B3 organ. [4]
He performed with The Other Ones during the band's final tour with that name in 2002. This was the first time that Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart all performed together since the disbandment of the Grateful Dead in 1995.
He continued to perform with every version of the Dead that toured in 2003, 2004 and 2009. Following The Dead's final tour in 2009 he joined Bob Weir and Phil Lesh in their project Furthur. Furthur toured consistently between 2009 and 2014.
During early 2015 Chimenti joined musicians John Kadlecik, Reed Mathis and Jay Lane in the band the Golden Gate Wingmen.
Chimenti performed at the five 50th anniversary performances of the Grateful Dead in Santa Clara, at Levi's Stadium, on June 27 and 28 2015 and in Chicago, at Soldier Field, on July 3, 4 and 5 2015.
Following the success of the Fare Thee Well shows, he toured with the band Dead & Company through 2017, with former Grateful Dead members Bob Weir, Bill Kreutzmann, and Mickey Hart, along with John Mayer and former Allman Brothers bassist Oteil Burbridge. In 2024, it was announced that Dead & Company would do a residency at the Sphere in Las Vegas.
Chimenti has played with one or more former Grateful Dead members for over 25 years (he joined Ratdog in May 1997), which by comparison is as long as the tenure of the last three Grateful Dead keyboardists combined (Keith Godchaux, Brent Mydland and Vince Welnick, 1971–1995).
Chimenti and a roadie developed a product used to prevent facial abrasions from the use of CPAP machines. [5]
In 2017 Chimenti served as Music Supervisor on "Red Roses, Green Gold" an Off-Broadway musical featuring the music of Robert Hunter and Jerry Garcia, with additional music by Phil Lesh, Bob Weir and Mickey Hart, and Hunter's longtime collaborator, Greg Anton. The production was directed and choreographed by Rachel Klein, featured a book by Michael Norman Mann, and performed at the Minetta Lane Theatre in New York City. [6] [7] [8]
Jeff Chimenti has contributed to albums by a number of different musical artists. [1] [9] [10]
The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in Palo Alto, California in 1965, known for their eclectic style that fused elements of rock, blues, jazz, folk, country, bluegrass, rock and roll, gospel, reggae, and world music with psychedelia. The band is famous for improvisation during their live performances, and attracted a devoted fan base, known as "Deadheads". According to the musician and writer Lenny Kaye, the music of the Grateful Dead "touches on ground that most other groups don't even know exists." For the range of their influences and the structure of their live performances, the Grateful Dead are considered "the pioneering godfathers of the jam band world".
The Other Ones was an American rock band formed in 1998 by former Grateful Dead members Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, and Mickey Hart, along with part-time Grateful Dead collaborator Bruce Hornsby. In 2000, Bill Kreutzmann, another Grateful Dead alumnus, joined the group, while Phil Lesh dropped out. In 2002, Lesh rejoined the band, and Hornsby left. At different times the shifting lineup of The Other Ones also included Mark Karan, Steve Kimock, John Molo, Dave Ellis, Alphonso Johnson, Jimmy Herring, Rob Barraco, Jeff Chimenti, and Susan Tedeschi. In 2003, The Other Ones changed their name to The Dead.
Philip Chapman Lesh is an American musician and a founding member of the Grateful Dead, with whom he played bass guitar throughout their 30-year career.
RatDog is an American rock band. The group began in 1995 as a side project for Grateful Dead guitarist and singer Bob Weir. After the Dead disbanded later that year, RatDog became Weir's primary band. They performed some Grateful Dead songs, a mixture of covers, and some originals. They released two albums – Evening Moods (2000) and Live at Roseland (2001). RatDog has not toured since July 2014.
Phil Lesh and Friends is an American rock band formed and led by Phil Lesh, former bassist of the Grateful Dead.
William Kreutzmann Jr. is an American drummer and founding member of the rock band Grateful Dead. He played with the band for its entire thirty-year career, usually alongside fellow drummer Mickey Hart, and has continued to perform with former members of the Grateful Dead in various lineups, and with his own bands BK3, 7 Walkers and Billy & the Kids.
Robert Hall Weir is an American musician and songwriter best known as a founding member of the Grateful Dead. After the group disbanded in 1995, Weir performed with The Other Ones, later known as The Dead, together with other former members of the Grateful Dead. Weir also founded and played in several other bands during and after his career with the Grateful Dead, including Kingfish, the Bob Weir Band, Bobby and the Midnites, Scaring the Children, RatDog, and Furthur, which he co-led with former Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh. In 2015, Weir, along with former Grateful Dead members Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann, joined with Grammy-winning singer/guitarist John Mayer, bassist Oteil Burbridge, and keyboardist Jeff Chimenti to form the band Dead & Company.
Infrared Roses is a live compilation album by the Grateful Dead. It is a conglomeration of their famous improvisational segments "Drums" and "Space".
Jay Lane is an American musician. He is a founding member of Bob Weir's RatDog, with Weir and Rob Wasserman, Wolf Bros, Furthur, Golden Gate Wingmen, Dead & Company and Alphabet Soup. He was the 7th drummer to play in Primus, playing with the band for around eight months in 1988 and later rejoining the band from 2010-2013. Lane was a member of San Francisco Bay Area bands The Uptones from '83-'85, and The Freaky Executives '84-'89.
The Dead was an American rock band composed of some of the former members of the Grateful Dead along with other musicians that were involved in some capacity with the "Dead Ethos". Throughout "The Dead's" career they had a revolving list of members leaving and joining the band including the former members of the Grateful Dead.
Mark Karan is an American guitarist and singer. He is best known for his long-term work with former members of the Grateful Dead, in RatDog (1998–2013), the Other Ones (1998–2000), Mickey Hart's band Planet Drum (1999), and Phil Lesh and Friends (2012). Karan has also played and toured with Terrapin Flyer, Delaney Bramlett, the Rembrandts, Sophie B. Hawkins, Dave Mason, and Paul Carrack.
The Grateful Dead were an American rock band known for their lengthy, partially improvised performances, as well as for a loyal fan base who often followed the band for several shows or entire tours. They disbanded in 1995, following the death of de facto bandleader Jerry Garcia. Since then remaining members have reunited for a number of concert tours and one-off performances, often in very different configurations. The following is a list of instances where former Grateful Dead members have reunited.
Furthur was an American rock band founded in 2009 by former Grateful Dead members Bob Weir and Phil Lesh. The original lineup also included John Kadlecik of Dark Star Orchestra on lead guitar, RatDog's Jeff Chimenti on keyboards and Jay Lane on percussion, and Joe Russo of the Benevento/Russo Duo on drums. Named after the famous touring bus used by Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters in the 1960s, Furthur was an improvisational jam band that performed music primarily from the extensive Grateful Dead songbook, as well as their own original music and that of several other well-known artists. In addition to the original members, the band's lineup included backup vocalists Sunshine Becker of the a cappella ensemble SoVoSó and Jeff Pehrson of the folk rock bands Box Set and the Fall Risk.
Crimson White & Indigo is a live album by the American rock band the Grateful Dead. It contains the complete concert recorded at John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia on July 7, 1989. The album consists of three CDs, plus a video recording of the same show on one DVD. It was released on April 20, 2010. The video was produced and directed by Len Dell'Amico.
30 Trips Around the Sun is an 80-CD live album, packaged as a box set, by the rock band the Grateful Dead. Announced for the celebration of their 50th anniversary, it consists of 30 complete, previously unreleased concerts, with one show per year from 1966 through 1995. Comprising 73 hours of music, the box set is individually numbered and limited to 6,500 copies. It was released on October 7, 2015.
Fare Thee Well: Celebrating 50 Years of the Grateful Dead was a series of concerts that were performed by most of the surviving members of the Grateful Dead: Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart, joined by Trey Anastasio, Bruce Hornsby and Jeff Chimenti, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Grateful Dead. The performances took place at Santa Clara's Levi Stadium on June 27 and 28, 2015 and Chicago's Soldier Field on July 3, 4 and 5, 2015. These performances marked the first time Weir, Lesh, Kreutzmann and Hart had performed together since the Dead's 2009 tour and was publicized as the final time the musicians would all perform together.
Move Me Brightly is a music documentary film. It contains live performances of Grateful Dead songs from a 2012 concert by Bob Weir and a number of other musicians, called "Move Me Brightly: Celebrating Jerry Garcia's 70th Birthday". The film also includes interviews with some of the performers, other musicians, and members of the Grateful Dead extended family. It was released on DVD and Blu-ray in 2013.
Dead & Company is an American rock band that formed in 2015 with a lineup of former Grateful Dead members Bob Weir, Mickey Hart (drums), and Bill Kreutzmann (drums), along with John Mayer, Oteil Burbridge, and Jeff Chimenti (keyboards). Jay Lane replaced Bill Kreutzmann on drums in 2023.
Fare Thee Well: Celebrating 50 Years of the Grateful Dead is a live album consisting of audio and video recordings from the Fare Thee Well: Celebrating 50 Years of the Grateful Dead concerts. These shows were performed by former Grateful Dead members Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann, and Mickey Hart, along with Trey Anastasio, Bruce Hornsby, and Jeff Chimenti. The album was recorded on July 3, 4, and 5, 2015, at Soldier Field in Chicago, Illinois. The other two Fare Thee Well concerts, played on June 27 and 28 at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California are not included. The album was released on November 20, 2015.
Dave's Picks Volume 31 is a three-CD live album by the rock band the Grateful Dead. It contains the complete concert recorded on December 3, 1979 at the Uptown Theatre in Chicago, Illinois. It was released on July 26, 2019, in a limited edition of 20,000 numbered copies.