The Original Wetlands DeadCenter All-Stars

“DeadCenter" was synonymous with Tuesday nights at the Wetlands Preserve club in NYC, when the program was, um, “Dedicated” to bands performing music of The Grateful Dead and related styles. DeadCenter All Stars was an idea born of this Wetlands tradition when club music director Chris Zahn and guitarist Rob Wolfson came up with the idea of periodically putting together combinations of outstanding musicians from the DeadCenter bands to experiment with varieties of musical chemistries, true to the spirit of Grateful Dead music.


After a couple of years of successful All Stars shows, Wolfson started to branch out the DeadCenter concept with various “All Star” band combinations to play beyond the Wetlands club and so, even when Wetlands closed after the tragic events of 9/11/2001, the spirit of the club continued with the DeadCenter All Stars, at least for a while. The concept of changing up band personnel for its own sake was not unlike what Phil Lesh later did with Phil & Friends and what has always been traditional in Jazz & Blues: get great musicians together, call tunes on the bandstand if necessary and just “let it happen”.