 |
| 10/27/73, dead.net |
I had a fine time revisiting 10/29/73 at the Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis, MO this past week. An investigation into what exactly was going on in a particularly thrilling passage in the Other One exhausted my limited resources, and I had to call in reinforcements.
"Energetic" is always relative when it comes to certain eras of the Dead, but this first set feels a little more energetic than was typical for this period. A Cold Rain & Snow opener is always a plus, and the whole initial run of songs feels to me like it has that extra something. Don't Ease Me In, of all things, feels like the moment when the sparks catch. Garcia is crackling on Mexicali, and Keith Godchaux sounds divine on Rhodes in Black-Throated Wind and on Steinway in The Race Is On. The corker is a unusually placed Eyes of the World in the end-of-first-set-jam spot where Weather Report Suite or Playin' usually sat. It's taken at a brisker tempo than most, and they hit it with a full tank of gas, taking every tight turn with precision.
The second set begins with a less remarkable stretch of music, though heads up for a white-hot Greatest Story and a spot-on Brokedown Palace before the main event. Truckin' glides along with hints of the Other One, but they turn a corner around 8:30 and lands in a spacious "here comes Dark Star" kind of zone. But then both Garcia and Weir take a break, leaving the rhythm section to explore for a bit. Rather than one of those noodly Phil solos, however, the bass, piano, and drums explore a musically jazzy space for a few minutes, and when the guitarists return, the vibe is strong enough that they keep going in this direction for a little while longer. I find this to be totally divine, psychedelic in the gentlest kind of way. Kreutzmann solos, and then the Other One itself sticks pretty close to its usual path at first. After the verse, it drops immediately into a long atonal Space that takes its time building up to the Tiger-ish peak.
Then the second really interesting thing happens. At around 15 minutes, Garcia seems to push everyone back into the Other One a little forcefully, but Godchaux decides to assert himself as well. [Warning: music theory as described by an untrained musician ahead]. Garcia pulls them back into the Other One theme, zipping around (as he typically does) in the Dorian mode. More or less, of course. What's unusual here is that Godchaux decides to do something else: rather than follow and complement what Garcia is doing (i.e. playing pretty typical Other One stuff), Godchaux pushes in a different direction, playing in a very different mode. What does that mean if you're not a musicologist? It means that Godchaux is playing quite a bit that is further away from the usual Other One stuff that Garcia is playing, sounding a lot more "major," and although what they're doing is different enough to sound unusual, it's not so different that it sounds "wrong." There certainly are other jams where Godchaux is at forefront, but I cannot think of another one where he is asserting his own contrasting harmonic ideas as strongly as he is here. And it's not a fleeting moment: they keep this tension going for almost six minutes, until they finally get back in the same lane for the second verse.
If you're an actual musician and are slapping your forehead at me, here's how my pal John explained it to me [Warning: music theory as described by an actual trained musician ahead]:
me: Talk to me about what Keith is playing relative to the key/mode Jerry is in.
JT: Major, then Phyrgian. But Jerry’s in dorian. It’s bi-modal at least, sometimes bi-tonal, but mainly in E. At times Jerry was in E dorian, and Keith (et al.) were in E Ionian (major).
me: They’re playing in separate modes, but mainly in the same key?
JT: I’d say that’s fairly common that they did the bi-modal thing (combining both thirds and/or sevenths, for example, happened all the time and gives you Mixolydian and Dorian) ...but that this is an extremely outlier example; I can’t recall them playing in such widely contrasting modes before, and/or duking it out between them for so long.
And then John was nice enough to expand further:
For me, the most interesting harmonic stuff is in the first minute. At around 15:00, we emerge from the atonal space into an implied E Dorian (Jerry, playing TOO theme), but this conflicts with the E Ionian/Mixolydian and then Phrygian that Keith layers in. Jerry sounds like he jumps into Phrygian pretty quickly (15:20), and he remains there ca. 15:37 while Keith has shifted to A Ionian/Mixolydian. Phil goes there too, so for a while the band is in A while Jerry’s crunching along in a contrasting mode and key. At ca. 16:04, Keith begins planning (basically moving step-wise up or down; Debussy does this a lot in his piano music, and the technique was adopted by later pianists (I’m thinking of like My Favorite Things-era Tyner [hey now]) who wrote in fourths and who obscured conventional key centers). This recalls Phrygian and leads us by 16:10 to (what sounds like) Keith playing mostly in G and Jerry in E Aeolian/natural minor. By 16:30, everyone has recoalesced around E dorian and we have some “standard” TOO-type playing for a minute+.
By 18:02, Jerry’s playing a pedal point high E while Keith et al. seem to be in A below him. It’s just pretty.
One take away I had hearing this again: Jerry really remains locked into E Dorian then Phrygian then Dorian; even while the others are altering the modes and key centers around/under him, he doesn’t venture too far harmonically from where we end up landing on when the more conventional TOO-type jamming resumes
Or, if now you're just scratching your head, just take Dick Latvala's word for it:
On 10/29/73, there is a pretty long jam that is concerned with The Other One... the playing is spectacular. The jam from the 10/29 show has simply outstanding jamming around the songs and the songs themselves are examples of the 'best versions' category, especially The Other One..."
Interesting remarks - I'd never be able to tell what was unusual about this Other One section!
ReplyDeleteIt strikes me that after the Space, Jerry stays locked onto the Other One theme, sticking to it almost nonstop until they finally head back to the verse. You could take this as Jerry being stuck in one pattern, or just wanting to wind up the song and not venture out again. Then again, it could be a deliberate technique of Jerry maintaining a theme while the rest of the band alters around him.
It's obvious from the first second of Truckin' that Keith will be more rambunctious than usual here. Might be useful to find more examples where Keith "duels" with Jerry - usually they were pretty harmonious.
Keith is also adventurous in the Dark Star the following night, 10/30/73, especially the last six minutes - he plays some kind of synth (or Ondes Martenot) in space, then heads on his own path in the very jazzy concluding passage.
Right, I'd love to see a film of this. What were they thinking--Jerry determined to drag them back to the theme? Keith thinking "He never does what I want to do! I'm going to outlast him this time!" and finally giving up? Or one or both of them really high and not noticing (that one admittedly seems the least likely)? Or were they all grinning and egging each other on? Either way, it's one of the greatest passages of Grateful Dead music that exists...
DeleteI like the 10/30 Dark Star, but imho Keith's playing is less assertive and more complementary and textural than the 10/29 Other One. I never knew what to make of the weird "synth" sound, either. I gave it a close relisten and, if I had to bet, I think it's still just his Rhodes piano. On track 18 (the second Dark Star) [https://archive.org/details/gd1973-10-30.sbd.miller.32367.sbeok.flac16], Keith moves from grand piano to Rhodes at 4:05 but doesn't play much at first. Around 5:05 I hear him start to play very quiet volume swells -- I don't know if he's using a volume pedal or just the volume knob on the Rhodes itself. At 5:58 the sound changes: it's more of a warbly "synthesizer" sound, which he plays with until about 7:23. I don't know what it is. Although it could be some other piece of gear, I'm more inclined to think Keith was experimenting with some unusual combination of effects on the Rhodes. I've heard Herbie Hancock (ca 1973) 'bend' pitches using effects on a Rhodes as well, so maybe that could be happening here. Also check out the Playin' jam from 10/30 from around 6:00 onward: Keith is playing Rhodes but using the volume to make that 'swelling' effect + using some other effect as well.
ReplyDeletere the Ondes Martenot suggestion, I would bet anything that can't be it. From what I can tell, those were highly specialized instruments and pretty archaic in 1973. Nothing about what we know of Keith's disposition makes me think he would learn how to play it and then cart it around, but barely use it. Were they even still being made? How would you get someone to service it if it broke on the road? and so on.
Another listener suggested it might be the Ondes Martenot - I have no idea how common or specialized that instrument was, so can only defer to others' knowledge, but that might have been just a wild (or hopeful) guess.
DeleteThe synth sound shows up in the 10/25/73 Dark Star, too - very briefly as they're heading into the freakout, you hear that wobbly Theremin-like whine. Can't say I've heard that coming out of a Rhodes, but other keyboard experts would have to weigh in! But it's interesting Keith used that effect so rarely, and never for long.
No, neither have I -- but I'm trying to think how he could have made that sound with the gear that we know he had, rather than think he was setting up some other instrument that he only wound up playing for a few seconds. Phil also coaxes all kinds of bizarre sounds from his bass, but we don't assume that he's using another instrument.
ReplyDeleteBut then again, the group carted around a Hammond B3 for that tour as well and Keith barely touched it, so I don't know. Another maddening possibility might be that Keith *was* actually playing some kind of synthesizer, but it barely made it into the mix on the recordings we have (a la Ned Lagin in 1974).
It's hilarious to think that Keith might have had a Hammond and a synth at his side through the tour and hardly ever touched either. Imagine the band discussions about that!
DeleteCongratulations to Light Into Ashes for his great liner notes for these two Kiel shows in the new 'Listen to the River' boxset!
ReplyDelete