Going Live With My Morning Jacket

There were other significant changes: the addition of an outside producer, John Leckie, and the use of a professional studio, Allaire, in New York's Catskills. Leckie was an assistant producer at Abbey Road Studios in the late '60s and went on to produce Radiohead, the Verve and XTC.

"It's something that I just let go of with the last record," James says of his penchant for having "total control over everything that happens with the band. It has helped me to work with somebody like John, to start listening more to what other people have to say. It's hard for me to trust somebody unless I have built a long relationship with them. We'd never worked with a producer before because I never felt awe-struck by the people who'd approached us, but his résumé spoke for itself, the records he'd worked on, and that opened me up a little more to trust what he had to say."

Songs from "Z" make up the bulk of the "Okonokos" album and DVD, with many of its best moments -- the opening "Wordless Chorus," the propulsive "Run Thru" and "One Big Holiday," the searing "What a Wonderful Man" and melancholy "Dondante" -- benefiting from expanded arrangements.

"We wanted the live record to be really long, as long as it could," James enthuses (a limited-edition vinyl box-set version includes an extra side of music). And, he adds, "we always wanted to make a live record that will stand the test of time, because nobody lives forever. I'm so glad that lots of my favorite artists made live records that documented what they were all about at certain ages and points in their careers. Once people are gone, those things are so valuable."

For instance, there's the Band, who recorded one of the great live albums, "Rock of Ages," and inspired one of the great concert films, Martin Scorsese's "The Last Waltz."

Is the Band both a model and an inspiration?

"Absolutely," James says. MMJ recently went back to the Catskills to Band drummer Levon Helm's Woodstock studio to record "It Makes No Difference" for a star-studded Band tribute album that will be released in January.

"We're wary of covers, but we like to do them here and there," James says. "I don't ever want to have a hit single with a cover or be known for one cover. But recording in Levon Helm's studio was a thrill. The Band are one of the biggest influences on us. To every musician, they're a symbol of playing music for the right reasons."

In "Wordless Chorus," the song that opens "Z" and both versions of "Okonokos," James implores, "Tell me, spirit, what has not been done / I'll rush out and do it / or are we doing it now?" Another lyric bite -- "We are the innovators / they are the imitators" -- sounds as if it might be a mission statement, but James points out that "oftentimes when I write lyrics like those, it's not necessarily talking about me or us."

"I know that we're trying as hard as we can [to be innovative]," he says. "I feel I'm inspired more from the past than I am from the present, but there's also a lot of inspiring stuff happening now. Sometimes I question what is really true innovation, but I'm really proud of what we've done -- I feel like we're trying as much as we can," he adds with a laugh.

My Morning Jacket and the Slip Appearing Monday and Tuesday at the 9:30 club Sounds like: Tender one moment, roiling the next, with a majestic sweep that can transport a listener in much the same manner it does the musicians.