[nicolasalk]

well as a band i'm inclined to like phish better slightly, however jerry>trey. trey is a very technical guy with the guitar and he's a primarily rymthic player, whereas jerry is an intensely melodic player, and of course the melodic player is going to play with more soul and passion. what trey beats jerry in is exploration, phish songs really can completely change shape and form behind his playing, he's able to mutate songs and jams into different emotions intensely easily, but phish as a band has alot to do with that as the grateful dead as a band has alot to do with really predictable setlists. when you see a dead list you already know which songs will be jams and which will be really DEEP jams (dark star). phish keep their setlists surprising most of the time and thats why i like em better.

sorry for the essay, i should've just wrote jerry is better than trey

Very interesting point of view I agree, exept for that i like more GD

[squire758]

wow trey vs jerry, what a query. well first id have to say i cant go out back and work on the mustangs or bang my girlfriend without hearin a couple sets of phish. trey is just a rediculously great guitar player i dont care what anyone says. i have learned sooo much from him i feel like. but jerry is also the ultimate testament of how purely and fluently a human being can speak the language of music. i love his super melodic playing, intuition, and obviously those beautiful guitars(which i seen at the rock and roll hall of fame and nutted in my pants), i also feel like ive learned a lot from him as well about the construction of music and the science of the jam. id have to say i love em both just the same, its just how i feel that day; its either a dead day or a phish day. and what was said about trey using only the blues scale was just a joke and a half, i mean come on seriously, ill let you find that one out on your own, or maybe it was an honest mistake and all the b5's you keep seeing are from a diminished mode which is understandable respective to your knowledge of scales. trey vs. jerry is a tie, and the other 6 people im with right now certainly agree

[gumbo]

you cant really do that and you cant really say either. You cant even compare the 2. Just like there is no "the best guitar player" or "the best album of all time." Trey and Jerry dont compare. As a person though, and I will say I have never met either (this is just based on what I see and hear), I think jerry was a little more genuine of a person.

[justcoophere]

JERRY for sure.
Not to take anything away from Trey. We are comparing Apples and Oranges here. Thats like comparing Jimi Hendrix to Eddie VanHalen. Both are/were incredible players and both cut new ground. However,in both cases the latter were inspired by the former.

[tigerstrat]

For Dead music, Jerry FOR SURE.

But for Phish music... hmmm... GOTTA go with Trey.

And for any Jimi Hendrix song, JIMI. If it's Police, I'll take Andy Summers no doubt. Yessongs scream for Steve Howe... for VH, its gotta be Eddie... let's see here... and for guitar on Bob Dylan songs- huh... that's weird... better make that one JERRY!

By the way, which one would be calling the other one a junkie?

[shakedown_04092]

And damn, could he use somemore scales besides the blues scale

Huh???? I'm gonna leave that one alone too . But to say it couldn't be further from the truth is an understatement.

As for this question, obviously being on a GD site, Jer is gonna get the overwhelming nod here. But I've gotta side with the folks who say it's a tie, or rather, that you can't compare the two, sans the fact that they both made incredible music and are viewed as not only the "leaders" of their bands but musical icons as well. Let's just leave it at that.

I'm a big a fan as Jerry & Trey as there is, and have learned more from each of them than any other guitarists out there, but I don't think anyone can, in good faith, say that Trey's less of a guitarist than Jerry. And those who are saying that aren't fully informed, IMHO. The 2 are just different, and both equally good in their own right.

Their musical styles differ vastly because of who they were influenced by, but because Trey learned a lot from Jerry, and was quoted saying he wouldn't be where he was today without discovering Jer (his other big guitar influences being Zappa & Hendrix), you're gonna hear some similarities in their playing. But Trey took a lot of his music in a way different direction than Jerry did, and that has proved an invaluable learning tool for myself and my "theory understanding quest". Listen to songs like Divided Sky, Reba, David Bowie, YEM, or Fluffhead and you'll know what I mean. 80-90% of those songs are structured and written out (think: Terrapin on steroids....lots of parts with some free-form jams in there as well) with some CRAZY parts to them that are pure genius and once you can handle following the songs, you start to appreciate the beauty of them. Sort of like Bach or Beethoven when they wrote some of their scores or symphonies years and years ago (you know what I mean).

This may piss some people off, but I've always considered a true Phish fan, especailly one that plays guitar/music, to be a little more, uh....discerning, I guess, when it comes to the ability to follow & understand music as a whole. It's jus that once I understood Phish's music and where they were coming from, it made learning & understanding the Dead soooo much easier. I hesitate to use a phrase like "more intelligent listener" when describing that, because I don't intend for it to come off the wrong way, but, even as many people have stated before on this site (and I'm trying not to stereotype, but typically it's a lot of the older, more traditional 'heads) they just don't "get" Phish or Trey's music, like it's over their head or something. The thing about the Dead's music is that it's "easy listening". Lots of familiar chords, and very much follows the guidlines of "western music" as a whole, and because of that, I think it's easier to understand and attach oneself to (me included!). Now the jams that they get into......those don't apply to that statement as much, but it's all tied together. Phish's music is, for the most part, more complex/structured/symphonic rock, so to speak, and isn't going to make it super easy to understand or latch onto, but once you do "get it", it's true beauty is revealed. Hope that came out right......

My only advice is to listen more. Coming from a tride and true Deadhead, it'll getcha eventually.


But back to the argument at hand: It's kind of like saying that Babe Ruth is the better home run hitter than Hank Aaron, or that Larry Bird was a better basketball player than Oscar Robertson, or that Barry Sanders was a better running back than Jim Brown. It's fun to spark debate and argue the point one way or another, but in the end, it's 2 different parts in history, 2 different subjects & participants (for the most part), and 2 different legacies.

I like 'em both EQUALLY!

[Erictw83]

They each have strengths in different aspects.

Things I like better about Jerry: pure soul, feeling, emotion, expression and emotion that can't be matched both in playing and singing; spacey, flowing jamming style; more country/bluegrass influence; jerry originaly inspired me to pick up guitar (also note I heard phish before dead);

Things I like better about Trey: technically complex song writing; high energy jamming, an the ability to build epic peaks in jams; tone; more funk, latin, jazz influence

It just matters what aspects are most important to you in music. Every few months I switch modes, in the winter/early spring my answer was jerry, this summer trey, and there's a good chance my answer will change again when the peaceful vibe of fall hits me.

On aside note,

songs like Divided Sky, Reba, David Bowie, YEM, or Fluffhead and you'll know what I mean. 80-90% of those songs are structured and written out (think: Terrapin on steroids....lots of parts with some free-form jams in there as well) with some CRAZY parts to them that are pure genius and once you can handle following the songs, you start to appreciate the beauty of them. Sort of like Bach or Beethoven when they wrote some of their scores or symphonies years and years ago (you know what I mean).

I totally agree... some of Trey's songs are techincally brilliant, many orders of magnitude greater in complexity than any dead song. I personly can really dig it.

[spacehead333]

that question is simple, Jerry. Massive inovater in his style. Trey is too, but more people sound like trey . no one sounds like jerry

[Django]

You certainly can compare them. It's personal taste though. I sometimes get tears in my eyes just from a passage in a Jerry solo. That never happens for me with Trey. Nor does that happen for much of any other reason.
It is not an intellectual thing at all. So maybe I feel something deeper and uh, older and more moving then conscience thought process.

[grateful4booze]

In Nigel Tufnel English accent, "Is this a joke?"

[jahozer]

I remember looking for guitar solos in the 80’s when I was learning, and rediscovered Zappa. My cousin had been trying to get me to listen to it, and I guess I just had to mature to a point to where I could accept it. Once I did, though, HOLY FUCKIN SHIT!!!!

Listening to Zappa, however, can turn you into a music theory snob, and as my teen years advanced on, I was very snotty towards the Dead. I liked fusion, prog, space music, and other “worthy” types of music.

I fell in with some friends who loved the dead I went to my first show, and was kinda like, that’s what they call an acid band??? The subtlety was still lost on me. I liked it ok, but was still snooty…

A show or two later, though, and HOLY FUCKIN SHIT!!!
Well anyway I was hooked. We saw tons and tons of shows, and surrendered to the cosmic importance of it all.

Then in 92, the HORDE festival came along. HORDE was really the start of the jam scene. I had been hearing about Phish and was psyched to get to see them… Fuckin blown away! They were the perfect blend of my heroes! ZAPPA meets JERRY!!! Jumped onto Phish right away. They were playing small ampitheaters and ripping it up hard. They were a such nice change of pace to the Behemoth the Dead scene had become.

And the guitar playing!!! If Jerry was God, then Trey was the fuckin DEVIL. They were so good they made me want to stop playing. I was very impressed with the orchestration of it and the musical trickery (I was minoring in music at the time) and the Tension>Release was just right up my alley.
Still liked the Dead better, though. Took it more seriously.

Then when Jerry died, Phish completely blew up. I remember going to a Phish show at the Spectrum and they were all playing each others instruments. For like a half hour. It sounded like shit. I was like, “oh no…this is what’s left?” Saw some great Phish shows since then, and their festivals were a great time, and laid the groundwork for the modern festival today.

But After hearing all those intricately composed songs over and over, it began to seem really contrived and I got bored. And obviously so did they and brought the loops, the funk, and their own 2 chord songs. 35 minute Gotta Jiboo?!. Their songwriting went way down hill, and for me, I was getting older, and never took Phish as seriously as the Dead. It wasn’t that sense of true Americana, or the psychedellia. It just wasn’t as important, and the band and the fans seemed to be trying too hard. And most of all, there was no flow to the shows. They were all pointy, and seemed like Trey wanted to see how many times he could make you sit down, then stand up, then sit down...me, I went and got a beer.

People knock Jerry for going downhill from the drugs, but really it was his health that held him back. I mean, he was high for years and other than obvious moments of ill health, his playing was fairly consistant. Trey on the other hand, was way more fucked up from the drugs. His playing over the past few years has been terrible, or at least sloppy and very very spotty. ( I did like him as a friend with Phil, though.) Even to the point that HE BROKE UP HIS BAND!!!!

Anyway, what I am trying to say is that its Jerry hands down. Trey was and can be again a great player and innovator. But for consistency, and most of all subtlety and the art of understatement, Jerry wins the day. There is a maturity in his playing that so many other players just dont get.

[jahozer]

Wow, that was long^^^^ sorry about that. Killing time on a Friday...

[shakedown_04092]

Jahozer, that was really well put (your first post, not the 2nd!)

EDIT: But that Spectrum show you speak of I think was 12/29/96, no? That "rotation" jam you speak of wasn't something they did on a regular basis, it was kind of a goof thing, so to comment to yourself "is this what's left?" is kind of not the point, you know? No, it was mos def not what it had come to. I dunno, as a fan of them, it might not be the sickest jam, or version of a song, or even something you wanted to hear, but consider the fact that you got to see a rare and unusual event in Phish history, fwiw.

[gumbo]

Maybe its because I cant take Trey seriously, I mean, he's so damn comical!!!

[ronster]

Listen to the P&F shows with Trey and Kimock playing guitar with him. While Trey is playing most of the leads, Kimock blows him away as far putting out a lead that just moves you. Trey plays alot notes and you think it must have been good because it sounded kinda difficult but in the end it never takes me any place special. So the question should not be be Trey or Jerry but Steve or Jerry because they are the two guitarst that can bring me to that special place.
Aside from that it appears that people who put Trey right up there or past Jerry don't have a shift key on there keypads.