For many jambands.com readers, just one of the nine performances featured in the new Imax film All Access, will provide ample reason for attendance. But beyond the Trey Anastasio/ B.B. King/ The Roots interpretation of "Rock Me Baby," which does indeed rip, there are many artists worthy of (re)discovery. The film presents an eclectic range of gifted musicians, including George Clinton with Mary J. Blige, Dave Matthews Band with Al Green, Santana with Rob Thomas, Sting with Cheb Mai, Moby, Macy Gray, Kid Rock and the list goes on. Of course, that diversity reflects the ethos behind the film, which is to "demonstrate the vitality of live music."

The co-producer/musical director of All Access is Wetlands owner Peter Shapiro. For those of you who are unaware, prior to purchasing Wetlands, Shapiro began a career as a filmmaker. His documentary And Miles To Go: On Tour with the Grateful Dead led to a role as associate producer of the film Tie-Dyed (he directed "A Conversation with Ken Kesey" which appears as a postscript). Shapiro's next project, American Road, which screened at the Sundance Film Festival, features footage shot in all of the contiguous United States set to Phish's "You Enjoy Myself." With All Access he continues to draw together his devotion to filmmaking and his passion for live music. The following interview touches on the origins and process involved in completing the Imax film.

Additional information including production notes, interviews and much more is available at the official All Access web site, www.allacess.yahoo.com.

DB- Let's begin with the concept. What led you to decide to try to bring together these artists and make an Imax concert film?

PS- The content of the movie was driven by the format. My brother and I were huge fans of the Imax format but we also thought that the existing films- Dolphins and Into The Deep and Into Space were not fully utilizing the sound system. We feel strongly that half of the Imax experience is the sound system. You often hear people talk about THX and other fancy theatrical sound systems. Well the Imax six channel system is 14,000 watts. It blows away any other sound system. It's the best in the world. So the idea was to use the film format which is ten times the size of a thirty-five millimeter motion picture negative and combine that with this kick-ass sound system. And we felt that the ideal way to do that was through music.

It also came about through making American Road. There are a number of very successful Imax films that are destination films. Imax can take you where you can't go in real life. There have been films on the Grand Canyon and Niagara Falls, and after making American Road I was turned on by the idea of making one about America. That was the initial germ of the idea, to make a film that would use the Imax format to showcase what you would see if you traveled around America. We started making that film in the fall of 1998 and it was all going to be set to music. I was working with Don Was and some other people on it when we realized that there was another opportunity to use this format in a live performance angle. We felt confident that if we used everything that Imax had to offer, bringing together the best audio system in the world with many of the best live music performers in the world, that something special would come out of it. We wanted to make All Access be a film that would portray the magic of live performance and emphasize the majesty of improvisational, spontaneous music. That was why we decided to bring in people who had not performed together before to try to create a concert that you could not see in real life.

DB- What challenges did you initially face in executing that idea after you had nailed down the concept?

PS- A lot of people said you have to be focussed- you have to do a boy-band movie, you have to do a hair-band movie, you have to do a hip-hop movie, you have to do a metal movie. But we wanted to do a little-bit-of-everything movie. One of the ideas was that people who are into Kid Rock might not be into B.B. People who were into Macy might not be into Trey but we felt that all of these performers have a lot of affinities arising from their live shows, and that audiences might be surprised by the results. So far we've found that to be true.

Other people said Universal; could make this movie with Universal acts or Sony could do it with Sony acts but as for the Shapiro brothers, good luck. There are a lot of people who surround musicians whose job it is to say no- managers, agents, lawyers. So it's tough to get a yes. In the end what helped was the format. We were making a movie with this format that had not really been done before. So we told the artists that this film would showcase them for many years around the world and portray the power of live music. That message resonated. It also helps that Carlos Santana was the first artist to sign off. Then once we had him we had B.B. King and then we got George Clinton and it was a domino effect.

DB- What about the shoot itself. What was your biggest stumbling block there?

PS- The best thing about the film is the format and the biggest challenge is the format. We only had these artists for a couple of hours. The Dave Matthews/Al Green thing at Soldier's Field had to be nailed down then and there. The negatives are ten times the size of traditional negatives and you only have three minute (camera) loads so there are lot of challenges inherent in the format.

DB- Well ultimately you circumvented those. I'm curious, what were some of your personal highlights along the way?

PS- The moment that Carlos came to film, which took place the day after he won eight Grammys. I was standing with him on stage and the crowd going nuts after he had played a wild performance and the energy in the room was super high.

Of course, working with Trey was a highlight as well. He came aboard at the last minute and after years of seeing him perform and being a fan of Phish, to be standing on-stage with him all of a sudden and talking about how we're going to do the arrangements on "Rock Me Baby" was pretty wild. So was standing in that trailer the first time introducing B.B., Trey and the Roots.

DB- Did everyone know each other's work?

PS- The Roots and Trey knew B.B. but I don't think B.B. was all that familiar with Phish. Now he is. There was also a cool moment introducing Trey to George Clinton.

DB- What inspired you to put B.B, Trey and the Roots together?

PS- I think music can be most powerful when it's unexpected. That way we can really demonstrate its ability to transcend any kind of boundaries: cultural, economic, class…And the best way to illustrate that is to take different elements and put them together to see what happens. I guess my first bite of that was when we did Bob Weir and Hanson together at Wetlands. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't but fortunately these worked out. I'll tell you though, with regards to B.B. for instance, there were a lot of people in his camp who were not sure about this whole idea. But I knew the Roots from Wetlands and I knew Trey and realized that he'd excel at trading licks with B.B

So we picked a song, "Rock Me Baby," and started off with a version B.B. did with Eric Clapton. Trey and the Roots rehearsed that afternoon in L.A. and then B.B. met them at the set that evening and they all started rehearsing. Usually we'd do a rehearsal and then break for a while to come back and shoot but we let the crowd come in during the rehearsal because everybody was so on. They just got into this groove and it never really stopped. They started rehearsing and did this thirty minute jam and then they stopped and we said, "Okay, let's film this."

DB- What led you to work with Martyn Atkins, the director?

PS- He's got a great background in documentary stuff. He did a documentary called 400 Days where he traveled with Tom Petty. He did a great Johnny Cash concert film, Live at Manhattan Center. We're big fans of his style- for instance he does multi-panels which we like and he used in the opening. It was great to work with him.

I do want to say though that the Imax format relies on a whole team. The cinematographer is very important, the production design guy was key, the sound engineer was obviously very important…The engineer was Elliott Scheiner who was the sound engineer on the recent Steely Dan record that won the Grammy. He's one of the premiere live music engineers for live recording. Anthony Decurtis, who conducted the artist interviews was key as well.

DB- One question that I know people are asking is whether there will be a soundtrack.

PS- We're working on it. Given the artists and labels involved it's quite a challenge. Right now though we're just hoping that people will come out and see the film.

DB- Have you though ahead to what sort of film you might do next?

PS- Hopefully people like this one, that's most important. I want to finish the Imax American Road, that will be a long term project. And maybe we'll do a follow-up to All Access, approaching it from a different perspective.