Last Dance: Full Audio Of Star-Studded Final Wetlands Show On 9/10/01 Surfaces 20 Years Later [B.Getz on L4LM]

original on Live For Live Music 

In the wee hours of September 11th, 2001 legendary NYC jam hub Wetlands Preserve hosted a monumental superjam featuring DJ Logic’s Project Logic ably assisted by the likes of Mike Gordon, Stanley Jordan, and Warren Haynes. This special session was part of a celebrated closing week at the iconic club, which was shutting down in just a few nights.

Mere hours after the vibrant onstage festivities came to a close, two planes hit the World Trade Center. This fantastic musical journey was the soundtrack to the night before our world changed. Though future shows at Wetlands were planned in the days following, they were canceled in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, leaving the storied Project Logic superjam as the final performance at the venue.

The entire evening’s event was dutifully curated by tastemaker record label Ropeadope. The sights and sounds of this show have popped up randomly in the ensuing two decades by way of incomplete audio recordings (or semi-complete with cuts and drops), and a smattering of fan videos shot on now-archaic technology.

This week, however, a complete, tracked-out version of this show finally materialized on Archive.org. Longtime NYC taper Scott Bernstein unveiled a dynamic matrix recording of this hallowed evening, a gift to the culture and relic to history. It comes as the 223rd release in his seminal BARN series, which chronicles the nascent days of the jam band scene in New York City and beyond.

As Bernstein wrote in a note accompanying the newly uploaded audio,

I finally got around to posting one of the most important recordings I’ve ever made — a DJ Logic show that wound up (due to the events of the following day) being the final show ever at Wetlands Preserve. It took place on 9/10/01 and ended in the wee early hours of 9/11/01. Project Logic with special guests Warren Haynes Stanley Jordan and Mike Gordon. Jason Kibler [DJ Logic] and the band THREW down an epic 3hr 45min show for the occasion (the Wetlands was scheduled to close a few days later after a couple of nights of Bob Weir). Obviously this was an emotional night (and following day) and this was a tape that I filed away and never listened to even once until I transferred it near the start of the COVID pandemic last May. … This truly embodies the spirit of the music that was fostered in this venue from a time that’s now 20 years gone.

This night is historic in many ways – obviously the end of an era in NYC music history, an incredible performance from a musician (DJ Logic) who I’d seen dozens of times at this (and other) venues around town, the guests, oh the guests – Warren Haynes (of Govt Mule and the Allman Brothers Band) + Stanley Jordan (jazz great) on guitar [and one could not ask for 2 more guitarists with different styles to be sharing a stage at the same time] and Mike Gordon (of Phish) on bass.”

Last month, Warren Haynes—who helped tip fans off to the long-awaited surfacing of the recording—penned a lengthy note about his experience that night and in the hours that followed in remembrance of the 20th anniversary of the attacks.

As Haynes explained, “Like it was yesterday, I remember making our way to Wetlands, the cool, environmentally-friendly hippie music club in downtown Manhattan. My wife Stefani and I were going to bid farewell to one of our favorite spots which was closing down after a successful 12-year run as one of the hippest music venues ever. We arrived late at night on the evening of September 10 to a club overly packed as usual bracing ourselves for a long, crazy night! Little did we know.”

“A lot of the night is a bit hazy now—and understandably so—but parts of it stand out in my memory,” Haynes continued. “There was a lot of cool spontaneous music being played over the course of the long night but what stands out to me is the time on stage with myself, Mike Gordon and Stanley Jordan sitting in with DJ Logic and Project Logic. We were just having fun—playing unscripted, unpretentious music for a bunch of music loving hippies at the place that virtually spawned the jam band scene. Aside from the fact that it would be closing a few days later (or so we thought) it was just another night at Wetlands. I had played there dozens of times, with the original Warren Haynes Band and with Gov’t Mule, and had sat in on so many occasions with bands like Blues Traveler, the Spin Doctors, Frogwings and the Dave Matthews Band. Having moved to New York City a decade earlier, Wetlands had become a home away from home. We were all gonna hate to see it go.”

“After playing for a long time we all hung out for a while in celebratory fashion, he added. “It was after 4 am when we finally left to head back to our apartment which was only ten minutes away. Stefani and I stayed up, unwinding, and finally went to bed around 6 am,” around two hours before the first plane hit.

You can read my JamBase coverage from this unforgettable evening twenty years ago—including a recap of the Jamiroquai show at the Hammerstein Ballroom that preceded the Project Logic superjam—here.

For now, however, dive into the full, uncut soundtrack to the final show at Wetlands—the last night before the City and the world changed forever.

Project Logic ft. Warren Haynes, Stanley Jordan, Mike Gordon, More – Wetlands Preserve – 9/10/21 – Full Audio

[Audio: Scott Bernstein]

words: B.Getz