I heard some of Phish’s music and I liked it, and based on a friend’s enthusiasm and proselytizing, they seem to be the exception among jam bands, with strong songwriting and neat concepts underlying all of the chops. He was telling me about the different storylines that tie together some of their different songs, including ones that they never put on an album, like this whole “gamehenge” thing and how it’s this storyline and there are auxillary songs that continue the story and so on. The live jams that he’s played me were pretty interesting - rather than the sort of wanking that I expect from jam bands, there was a real fluidity and intelligence to their improvisation, more akin to a legitimate jazz or improv group rather than a bunch of stoners dicking around. Moreso, their jams seemed to evolve - he played me some early-nineties stuff and their “live one” album, all of which was more Grateful Dead-style jamming, but then some later-nineties stuff was more funky and almost disco and Talking Heads-influenced.
So where do I start with this band? Studio albums, plus recommend some particularly great or representative live shows that I can easily find on the Internet Archive or whatever.