Jay Lane Reveals New Band Jayski And The Dawn

Jay Lane announced his new band, Jayski and the Dawn, which will make its official debut on Friday, November 20 at Great American Music Hall in San Francisco. Lane will be joined by longtime collaborator Dave Ellis and additional Bay Area musicians whose identities have not been announced.

Jayski and the Dawn will focus on funk interpretations of songs from the Grateful Dead and Bob Weir’s solo catalogs. Organizers also teased appearances from unspecified special guests.

Lane previewed Jayski and the Dawn on July 10 at the Oregon Country Fair’s late-night Hoarse Chorale stage. The drummer shared footage from the performance on his official Instagram and Facebook pages.

The Oregon Country Fair configuration featured Lane on drums and vocals, Ellis on saxophone and vocals, bassist Miles Blackwell, trombonist Oliver Tuttle, keyboardist Jordan Feinstein and guitarist Dan “Lebo” Lebowitz. Feinstein and Lebowitz also contributed vocals. There is no confirmation that the same lineup will appear at the official debut in San Francisco.

Lane revealed that the preview included a mashup pairing Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy” with “Big River,” the Johnny Cash-penned song that became a staple of the Grateful Dead’s live repertoire. He also teased additional mashups and original material.

Lane and Ellis’ friendship dates back to their teenage years at Northern California’s Cazadero Music Camp. They later played together in the Charlie Hunter Trio and RatDog, with Ellis serving as a member of the Weir-led band during the late 1990s.

Lane’s musical partnership with Weir began in the mid-1990s with Weir and bassist Rob Wasserman, a collaboration that developed into RatDog. The drummer went on to perform with Weir in Scaring the Children, Furthur and Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros. Lane also participated in an all-star tribute to Weir at the Oregon Country Fair in July.

After substituting for Bill Kreutzmann at select Dead & Company concerts in 2021 and 2022, Lane joined the band for its 2023 final tour. He subsequently performed at all of Dead & Company’s Sphere concerts in Las Vegas and the band’s three Grateful Dead 60th-anniversary shows at Golden Gate Park in August 2025.

Ellis was a member of the 1998 edition of The Other Ones, the post-Grateful Dead ensemble featuring Weir, Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart and Bruce Hornsby. Lane’s extensive résumé outside the Grateful Dead orbit includes multiple projects with Les Claypool. He briefly played with Primus in 1988, returned from 2010 through 2013 and also performed with Sausage and Colonel Claypool’s Fearless Flying Frog Brigade.

Tickets for the official debut of Jayski and the Dawn at Great American Music Hall are on sale now.