"Mountain Jam" is an improvised instrumental jam by The Allman Brothers Band, based on Donovan's 1967 hit song "There Is a Mountain". Performed throughout the group's career, "Mountain Jam" was originally released in 1972 on the album Eat a Peach, as recorded at the Fillmore East concert hall in March 1971 (during the same sessions that produced their prior live double album At Fillmore East). It is this rendition, that takes up two sides of that vinyl album,
The Mountain Jam festival, held in Upstate New York beginning in 2005 and at which the Allmans appeared twice, is named after the instrumental.
Evolution
Duane Allman was not a fan of Donovan in particular, but liked the happy-sounding melody and found it a good underpinning for improvisation.
It had joined the group's concert repertoire by May 1969; and David Browne of Rolling Stone says that "only die-hard Allmanites will want to wade through" it at its "forty-four mind-boggling minutes" of length.
Two July 1970 performances of "Mountain Jam" occurred at the 1970 Atlanta International Pop Festival, the first that was interrupted by a rain delay and the second, two days later, with guest musician Johnny Winter joining in. Both performances also featured quasi-member Thom Doucette on harmonica. Writer Thom Jurek considers the second performance to be superior to the Eat a Peach one. In its full band form, "Mountain Jam" can be heard in a 31-minute rendition from the Allman Brothers' regular set during these shows, as captured on the record Fillmore East, February 1970.
Preceding this, the Grateful Dead had briefly referenced "There Is a Mountain," both live and in studio. They can be heard quoting a few bars of it in their song "Alligator" on their 1968 album Anthem of the Sun. An example of the Garcia incorporating the "There Is a Mountain" riff can be heard at the 4:53 mark on the version of "Alligator" they performed at their August 21, 1968, show at the Fillmore West. They also played a 55-second sequence hinting at "There Is a Mountain" to transition between "Going Down the Road Feeling Bad" and "Not Fade Away" on November 6, 1970, at Capitol Theater in Port Chester, New York. It is unclear whether any of these uses were an influence on Duane Allman adopting "There Is a Mountain" for use by the Allman Brothers beginning in 1969.
Conversely, subsequent to the Eat a Peach release, at the conclusion of the Summer Jam at Watkins Glen on July 28, 1973, there was a 22:57 version of "Mountain Jam" performed by members of the Allmans, the Dead, and the third act on the festival bill, The Band. Still another collaboration came at the end of 1973, when Garcia was among those joining the Allmans for "Mountain Jam" at the end of a long, nationally broadcast New Year's Eve show at the Cow Palace in San Francisco.
Eat a Peach structure
Some 33:41 in length in its March 1971 performance that ended up on the 1972 Eat a Peach album, the beginning of it had actually already been heard the year prior, coming immediately out of the conclusion of "Whipping Post", the final track of At Fillmore East, before being faded out.
This quiets down, then, led by Duane's lead guitar,
As with the previous album, no overdubs were made to the Fillmore East recording. Gregg Allman later said that the inclusion of "Mountain Jam" on the next record after At Fillmore East had always been intended, hence the incorporation of its start at the conclusion of "Whipping Post", and that it was not added simply to fill out Eat a Peach after Duane's passing.
The contemporaneous review of Eat a Peach in Rolling Stone by Tony Glover was quite praising of all aspects of "Mountain Jam". Group biographer Alan Paul considers it lacking in some of the immediate urgency that At Fillmore East was known for. although not always as the show closer that it had once been. Indeed, the group unusually opened a show with it in 2000, as a way of introducing their sound with replacement member Jimmy Herring on guitar.
In the group's final show, at the Beacon Theatre in 2014, portions of "Mountain Jam" were again played twice, both early in the first set and toward the end of the third set, the latter with "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" incorporated. This show was later released as the album Final Concert 10-28-14.
In these years, "Mountain Jam" was sometimes the vehicle for band explorations; Several minutes of distorted electronic noises and abstract effects followed. This taking of the number "off the rails" and "to Mars", as Derek Trucks later characterized it, caused Gregg Allman to speak angrily to them after the show.