Medeski Martin & Wood, photo by Dave Vann

Jam Cruise 22 continued on Monday with another outstanding cast of the most acclaimed and innovative performers in improvisational rock and its many splinter styles. After a port stop in Grand Turk, the floating festival packed its third evening with acts that defy tidy categorization, from the innovators who paved the way for the scene’s broad scope to the newcomers carving out new sounds from its farthest frontiers.

Day three’s musical festivities commenced in the early evening as the MSC Divina cast off from its first port. Against a dusky sky, attendees gathered by the Pool Deck main stage for the historic return of Medeski Martin & Wood, whose kickoff set arrived as the legendary trio’s first performance since September 2022.

John Medeski, Billy Martin and Chris Wood are all storied artists independently, and in countless other side configurations, but there’s something singularly enthralling about the fusion of their talents in the project that’s redefined avant-garde jazz with a groove-based sensibility since 1991. Between rollicking organ surges, lumbering walking basslines and subtle drum patterns ornamented by scattered cymbal splashes and stripped to quiet hand percussion, the trio troubled deep-pocketed fluttering funk with looming dissonance. On classics like “Last Chance To Dance Trance (Perhaps),” “Start-Stop” and their wild combination of Thelonious Monk’s “Bemsha Swing” and Bob Marley’s “Lively Up Yourself,” they pushed the pairing up to and past its breaking point to riveting effect.

Immediately after MMW, the Disco Biscuits’ keyboardist Aron Magner delivered a solo piano set on the intimate Atrium stage, which featured a tribute to the late Bob Weir on “Looks Like Rain” with special guest Kanika Moore and a later sit-in from his bandmate Marc Brownstein. In the Pantheon Theater, fans were treated to a rare performance from GeoLeo, the duo of George Porter Jr. and Leo Nocentelli. Accompanied by Ivan Neville and Stanton Moore, with a guest spot from The Horn Section on “Just Kissed My Baby,” the original Meters bandmates explored their sprawling catalog with towering swells and crashing releases of intensity. Porter stirred up a rumbling low-end under Nocentelli’s quick guitar heroics, and the duo beamed as they guided revivals of old favorites like “Cissy Strut,” “Look-Ka Py Py” and the closer of “Ain’t No Use.”

Monday’s first act in the Black & White Lounge was Australian singer-songwriter Lachy Doley. Armed with and attacking the whammy clavinet, Doley and his rhythm section combined hard blues-rock and funk for originals like “Give It (But You Just Can’t Take It)” and the Bootsy Collins collaboration “Get Out Your Ear’s Way,” then turned Bill Withers’ “Use Me” into a sludgy, howling stomper. Up on the Brews at Sea Stage, livetronica trio Octave Cat showed off their fusion roots with a race-pace cover of Joe Jackson’s “Steppin’ Out,” expanded with support from The Horn Section.

Back in the Pantheon, Lettuce whipped up a heaping helping of funk, heavy on hits from their 2025 studio album, Cook; the ensemble traded solos on “Rising to the Top,” with guitarist Adam “Shmeeans” Smirnoff closing the cycle with a lyrical, intentional run that ascended into Nigel Hall’s soaring vocals at the last chorus. On the Pool Deck, listeners encountered another rare avant-jazz set from the recently revived Jazz Mandolin Project, featuring Jon Fishman, Jamie Masefield, Danton Boller and Michael “Mad Dog” Mavridoglou. The acoustic quartet bent folk and jazz with slyly elaborate time signatures and alternately fierce and delicate interplay, cultivating trance states heavy with intention and at times even mournfully emotive. From those soul-stirring pits, later lightness felt well-earned and was nurtured into a properly blissful groove.

As midnight came and went, the close-quarters Black & White Lounge was swarmed with a testament to the powerful collaborative spirit of the jam community and its roots in a shared lineage. Grateful at Sea attracted artists from across the week’s bill to pay tribute to the Grateful Dead with expansive treatments of their beloved songbook. Dan “Lebo” Lebowitz and Magner stayed for the full set, while those who passed through included Sarah Elaz, Peter Levin, Tim Palmieri, Matt Butler, all four members of Eggy, Tony Hall, George Porter Jr., Jon Gutwillig, Taylor Galbraith, Mihali, Jake Simpson and more.

Stay tuned for another dispatch from Jam Cruise 22 tomorrow, and get an inside look at Monday’s show in the photo gallery below.