@skr213 said:

I'm just going to say it, because I know there are people out there who agree, even though most disagree: the Tahoe Tweezer was long and great, but there were a number of shorter jams that went better places. <now commence the plethora of thumbs-down votes to this scribe>

Here's my response (to which I imagine the most that disagreed with you will agree with):

There are shorter jams that may have gone to better places *in particular segments* than the Tahoe Tweezer went to *in particular segments*. The first Type II sequence in the MPP Stash, for instance, is as good as anything in that Tahoe Tweezer. What I would suggest makes the Tahoe Tweezer stand out is that they played at a level of excellence at or near the best of what was played this year, for a protracted period of time, over several different segments that were played at said level of excellence at or near the best of what was played this year, without flagging or becoming rote or uninteresting. This is not an easy thing to do. I'm never going to penalize the band for playing 15 minute jams if those 15 minute jams are awesome (or even 10 minute jams if those 10 minute jams are awesome - again, the Alpharetta Chalk Dust), but I can't see how a 36 minute jam that never fails to delight for all 36 minutes shouldn't get *some* kind of bonus. I wouldn't give that bonus to every other 30+ (or 20+) minute jam, that is for sure.

I take deep umbrage with the folks above saying nothing else this year is in the same league of the Tahoe Tweezer - the PNC Crosseyed, BGCA Jim, and MPP Light and Stash (at the *very least*) approach the Tahoe Tweezer. But when you take in the way that several marvelous jam sequences were so seamlessly molded together into one tremendous jam...I just don't see how the question of jam of the year can have any other answer. And, frankly, the fact that there *are* people that disagree (sometimes vociferously so) that the Tahoe Tweezer is the jam of the year tells me everything I need to know about the quality of 2013.