2/24/73: at long last

poster by S. Ross, courtesy concertposterauction.com

The aud tape for 2/24/73 Iowa City is finally circulating!  Can I tell you how happy this makes me?  I'm really happy that the aud tape for 2/24/73 is finally circulating!  There has always been this mysterious snippet of the tail end of the jam  (/Phil>Feelin' Groovy) which, despite many folks' ravings (including Lavala's) was always hard for me to genuinely enjoy, given what was missing from the front end of it.  Dead.net posted that same fragment plus the Sugar Magnolia closer as part of one of their 30 Days of Dead series.  There's a second sbd fragment from the first set (with a killer Playin', at least), but for a long time that was the most of it.  Frustratingly, there was a gushing review of the whole jam in the first Taper's Compendium, published 20 years ago almost to the day before this aud tape finally reached general digital circulation.  No matter now.  It's here!  Listen!

God, this is good.  They blaze through Truckin' and a nicely developed Nobody's Fault But Mine instrumental/jam, then spiral off towards the Other One.  It seems like they're nearing escape velocity, but right at the moment when it could explode, it implodes instead and they peel back the surface to see the space within.  "Dark Star," says the taper(?), right on cue, but nope: they explore a sparse, darkly melodic space that sounds like it could be a prelude for Stella Blue, if that song existed yet (edit: duh), and Garcia and Lesh spin out one of the most beautiful duets they ever played, Lesh's harmonics pinging out around the arena, while Garcia plays longingly and mournful -- I may be imagining things -- almost maybe like he was thinking about Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground?  (could it be? two tributes to Blind Willie Johnson in the same show!?)  Wishful thinking, I'm sure.  Then a wonderfully timed blast of feedback (Phil?) and it eases itself right into Eyes of the World.  It's almost alarming how tight and fully-formed some of these earliest versions were, and they bite down hard on this one at first.  As they glide into the post-verse jam, Garcia abandons the changes and veers into a spacey tailspin.  There's a small cut at 9:50, the taper reckons this "could be the Other One" (fair enough), but Lesh steps to the fore and starts playing along with Garcia, who backs off and lets him have the wheel.  Lesh solos for a few minutes (our commentator's assessment @12:29: "really hardcore"), and Garcia returns to usher in an utterly joyful Feelin' Groovy jam and a final slam through Sugar Magnolia (always a thing of beauty on an aud tape) which clips unceremoniously a second before the end.

If you're not satiated, then perhaps another listen to 2/19/73 might be in order, another show that belies the expectations you may have for a 'typical' 1973 Truckin>Other One jam.  There are plenty of exciting cat 'n mouse games turn unexpected corners into explosive passages, but none of the brooding melodic spaces of this one.  A very potent pairing.

Aug 93: JGB up north and at home

all stubs courtesy gdsets.com

Here are three JGB shows that are worth a look from the summer of 1993; all are pretty overlooked (afaik), but one of them is one of the best shows of the year.  I have some semi-inchoate thoughts on what it means to listen to Garcia in '93, which can wait for now -- but, in short, I think '93 was a great year for the JGB.  Not consistently great, but the great shows are, for me, some really great examples of late-era Jerry at his best, with an incandescence and thoughtfulness to his playing that's not always there in earlier years when he was ostensibly in "better" shape.  I think anyone with an interest in the full scope of his career owes it to themselves to hear the best of these '93 shows.

For now, though: in August '93, the JGB and the Dead had an unusual piggybacking schedule: the JGB played a weekend in the Pacific northwest on Aug 7-8, then at Shoreline on the 14th, and the Dead played Autzen Stadium in Eugene on Aug 21-22 and Shoreline on Aug 25-27.  Garcia had all of July off, so maybe he was well rested and in relatively good shape.  He also had a new axe to test drive: Blair Jackson's GD Gear book (265) reports that his final guitar, the Cripe "lightning bolt," was debuted at Shoreline this month.  But it looks like Garcia was playing it at the GD Eugene shows, so I assume this means the 8/14 JGB show?  The Cripe’s clean, upper-midrange, almost acoustic-sounding tone was and continues to be controversial among many heads (see this blog, however, for an interesting defense), but for whatever reason, Garcia didn't opt to use this tone for any of these JGB shows, nor any from the fall.

8/22/93 with Cripe, courtesy dead.net

8/14/93 Shoreline

Two runs at Shoreline, to start and end the summer, were a GD tradition from 1989-95 (Shoreline in Oct '95 seems to have been the final booked GD show), but the JGB only played there three times, and one of those was covering for the Dead in 1990, who canceled after Brent Mydland's death.  The '92 JGB show was part of a 6-day California tour, but 8/14/93 was a standalone, preceding the Dead's August shows by a week.  Although the ticket stub indicates this show was part of the very un-Jerry sounding "Pepsi Music Festival," maybe an ulterior motive of this gig was to test-drive the new guitar?  Part of me wonders if it actually was debuted the week before (see below), but judging from Garcia's playing tonight, he was definitely having fun putting his new axe through its paces.  Everything is unusually well played, with that extra burst of feeling that puts a knowing grin on your face.  '93 JGB shows sometimes either take a minute to get rolling, or fade a bit on the last lap, but tonight is a strong one from start to finish.  Forever Young is a powerhouse version with some outstanding solo work, as is Like a Road, and Strugglin' Man and Money Honey are firing on all cylinders.  But the real surprise is the closer: Lay Down Sally was a rare choice for a set-closer, and Garcia makes the most of it here.  With all due respect to 11/12/93, this is my favorite JGB performance of this tune: unlike most versions that are content to groove along in 2nd gear, this one has an arc to it that really takes off around @6:20 when Garcia stomps on his wahwah pedal (plus some other effect?) and gets pretty cosmic for the JGB.  Yeah!  The old man's still got it, kids.

The Shining Star singalongs seem to have been, not surprisingly, an east coast phenomenon (based on the tapes anyway), so there's no sea of voices here, but this one is elevated again by some particularly thoughtful, lyrical, and assertive soloing.  Garcia could be inclined to wax rhapsodic on this tune (I believe that the longest ever Garcia guitar solo ever, over 10 minutes, is in one of these 93 Shining Stars), but this one is punchy and focused.  Typical throwaways like You Never Can Tell and Wonderful World sparkle like small jewels, The Maker is a typically strong reading, and then comes the real litmus test.  This Don't Let Go delivers, and then some.  Given that this was the signature JGB "jam tune," it's hard for me not to feel a little let down that most 90's versions don't actually vary all that much, save for how much energy is behind Garcia's attack.  Every once in a while, though, Garcia would push the jam off its well-beaten path into woolier deep space, a place he rarely went with the JGB after 1978.  Tonight's one of those nights: space, noise, and feedback (no new-fangled MIDI bassoons here!).  I am a happy man.  The vocal reprise is skipped as he steers on into a truly titanic Lucky Old Sun; what distinguishes one version from the other, for me, is usually the quality of his vocals, but tonight he leans into those solos a little harder than usual and the effect is tremendous.  Midnight Moonlight is what it is, but coming at the end of all that, it's more of a celebratory stomp than a "drink up and go home, folks" last call.

The aud tape is a fine pull by Larry Gindoff, the only source in circulation and a great listen.  I don't know why this show doesn't seem to have gathered the accolades of other great shows of this period, but, imho, you owe it to yourself to check it out.

8/7 Seattle, 8/8 Portland

Neither of these shows hits me like Shoreline does, but they are not without their own highlights.  Given that the JGB hadn't been to the northwest since 1984 and that the Dead's planned 20th-anniversary-of-Veneta shows the year before had been canceled because of Garcia's health scare, I can imagine that the general mood at these two open air afternoon shows must have been as festive as could be.  A dance party with the Jerry Garcia Band!?  Well shucks.

Seattle is strong all around and Garcia sounds like he's in good spirits.  He even introduces the band!  A rare first set Maker is fantastic, Like a Road is another stunning version, and Lay Down Sally is an above-average chooglin' version, but not in the same league as Shoreline.  Shining Star, like Shoreline's, is a really commanding version that belts it out, and Garcia sounds like he's pushing himself on Don't Let Go tonight; there's no spacey digression or anything too out of the ordinary, but it's satisfying nevertheless!  Overall not an outstanding night, but a very good show.

Portland, however, has higher highs and lower lows (in the vocal dept, anyway).  Unusually for the JGB, Garcia is noodling extra hard tonight between songs, lots of futzing and adjusting, which makes me wonder if maybe the new guitar was actually being roadtested tonight.  His playing is really energized, but his voice is in noticeably worse shape than the night before, and it continues to deteriorate throughout.  The first set is excellent.  A totally in-the-groove Cats-Mission opener and some extra soloing in TWLWMYD all bode well, but check out the second solo in Stoned Me and the first solo in The Maker!  So good.  But the usual penultimate Sisters & Brothers ushers in... the end of the set.  Hmm.  The second set sounds like Garcia's spirit was still willing, but the flesh was crapping out: things seem a little shorter than usual, and his voice remains ragged and worn.  TWYDTTYD sports a particularly fine jam (sidenote: '93 versions of this song deserve a separate post), and then things settle into a fun but unremarkable groove until rallying at the end for a powerhouse Dixie Down and a very nice Tangled.  Not a top tier '93 show, but a satisfying complement to the Shoreline show, and the highlights would make for an excellent 'bonus disc' to Shoreline's official release (I'm not holding my breath).  Kudos, too, to Mark Severson who pulled off an excellent recording with some extra flavor between songs courtesy of his buddies, who all seem to be having a fine time.

At some point, it would be fun to do an overview of the fall '93 tour, but who knows when that will happen.  There is one lesser-known show, however, that tops 8/14 Shoreline as my personal favorite, and deserves a post's worth of ravings...

10/3/80: sing along if you know this one

https://archive.org/details/gd1980-10-03.acoustic.mtx.seamons.94131.flac16

Going through all the Oct 80 acoustic/electric shows is not a project I will undertake, but I do occasionally enjoy dipping in to see what might be hiding in there.  Tonight, as they start Ripple, Jerry announces "you can sing along with this one if you'd like," and Bob adds, "Jerry wrote this one for his mom."  Ok!  Not things I'd expect to hear from either of them, but there you go.  During the final round of da-da-dada's, someone onstage (one of the drummers?) hollers "sing!" and Bob retorts, "sing, don't howl."  On this aud, however, it doesn't sound like a lot of the crowd took them up on the offer.  C'mon, deadheads!  How many times did Jerry invite you to sing along?  Sheesh.

Otherwise, it's the usual straightforward acoustic set.  Phil seems unusually present in the mix (On the Road Again!), and I always forget what an interesting anomaly these instrumental performances of Heaven Help the Fool were (sans rhythm section).  The only other real noteworthy point, however, is when Mickey can be heard during the lull before Bird Song offering to sing Fire On the Mountain.  Another opportunity lost, I suppose. 

Onto the electric sets.  Excelsior.

11/12/93: David Murray's blues

by Joe Ryan, via GDAO

This started out as a comment to JGMF's write-up of this show, but it ballooned into a full post's worth of ramblings (lucky you!).  The JGB show on 11/12/93 at Madison Square Garden featuring jazz great David Murray is a popular (or at least very well-known) show, but, while it's historically significant, I don't think it's mostly very good.  While his first time with the Dead two months earlier was outstanding (the Bird Song! the Estimated!) and his 1995 return isn't bad either, this JGB show is redeemed by one out-of-left-field standout performance that belongs on a list of highlights from the year.  Otherwise, this show overshadows some much better but lesser-known performances from '93 while prompting the question of what exactly was going on.

From the start, Murray is playing a lot of saxophone.  A lot.  During Garcia's vocals, during Garcia's solos, just all over the place.  To my ears, How Sweet It Is is a near-trainwreck and Strugglin' Man is the low point, with an unbelievable amount of crossed wires.  What the hell was going on?  Could they hear each other?  TLEO, Forever Young, and Money Honey at least start to get their ducks in a row, but Murray's playing is way over on the abstract side of things and, while the audience cheers every one of his big screaming high-note climaxes, the effect is almost surreal.  But, after strangely starting and stopping Everybody Needs Somebody (the only time I can recall hearing him do that), Garcia cranks up Lay Down Sally and the whole room lifts off -- Murray gets his blows in first, but clears the way for Garcia to take the jam way further than usual.  This is one of the most exciting performances of this tune, and definitely one of the longest.  Um, okay then!  Read into it what you will, but it's a pretty sweet note to end on after a sour first set.  I don't get any sense, however, that Murray "cut Garcia to shreds" (see below) or that Garcia was responding competitively -- rather, it's more like Murray either couldn't hear him for most of the set, or was just going for it without much care, and Garcia kind of shrugged his shoulders and let it roll, before finally belting it out at the very end.  But of course I have no idea what was really going on.

The second set is better overall, but at times it's in more of a relieved okay, things finally are starting to go right kind of way.  Depending on your tolerance for Murray's style, Shining Star is or is not kind of a mess, but there's an interesting moment when Murray's solo gets increasingly hairy and Garcia jumps in with some flurrying, high energy stuff to complement what he's doing (this starts around @7:45).  It's a neat moment where Garcia seems to be trying to make something out of a situation that has gone off into uncharted waters, but it's also one of the only moments they seem to actually be engaging with each other.  Maybe Garcia was just out of sorts: his vocals sound completely out of synch with the band on You Never Can Tell, not the first time that night he flubbed his singing, and I wonder if he wasn't also having a bit of an off-night, regardless of Murray's presence.  Murray sits out for The Maker, which provides a bit of a breath of fresh air, although it's not a particularly strong version on its own merits (they were really nailing this tune on this tour).  And then comes the moment that should have attained some real lift-off, Don't Let Go.  Modal vamps!  Open-ended spacey jamming!  Jaaazz!  Murray gets out his bass clarinet and things are sounding pretty sweet.  Garcia hoots and hollers the final round of "hold me tight and don't let go's" and stomps on his wahwah pedal right out of the gate.  The stars are aligning!  But... I dunno, it's a fine jam, but Garcia and Murray seem to just play through each other rather than with each other.  Again, I'm wondering more about the sound onstage and whether they weren't able to hook it up for more mundane reasons.  Murray drops out for a minute to switch back to his tenor sax, but Garcia skips the chance to go off into deep space and returns to the vocals instead, and I can't help thinking it was a missed opportunity all around.  Rats.  Fortunately, someone seems to have finally tapped Murray on the shoulder, because his contribution to That Lucky Old Sun is much more fitting, and he actually keeps it relatively within the lines and even plays some suitable horn riffs in the closing Tangled Up in Blue.  Garcia, again, delivers the goods at the last minute, belting out a powerful final Tangled jam that builds to a solid fanning climax that I'm sure left everyone smiling after a pretty perplexing show.

JGMF quotes Gary Lambert in his piece, who relays that no one from Garcia's camp actually told Murray what kind of music the JGB played or what the expectations were.  I can certainly believe it, but I give Murray a lot more credit than that: musicians sit in with other musicians without much advance preparation all the time, and good musicians adjust on the fly -- especially good jazz musicians, who (should) have the ears to pick up on song forms and harmonic patterns relatively quickly and improvise over them.  I don't doubt for a second that David Murray is such a musician.  Jim Powell says Murray cut Garcia to shreds that night, but I don't think so.  Murray plays and plays and plays and, well, he overplays, and imho very little of it sounds "better" than Garcia or even on the same page.  To be fair, Murray seems like he's mixed low for much of the night -- to give soundman John Cutler the benefit of the doubt, I'm sure it was a struggle working with Murray's wider dynamic range (on an acoustic instrument, in a basketball arena) and maybe Murray didn't have much monitor support... but it's also possible that Cutler was mixing him down for other reasons.  I don't know if he had played with singers or pop musicians like Branford Marsalis did, but it seems weird to me that a musician of Murray's stature and experience wouldn't have eased off the gas a bit (see this interview, particularly comment #5, for a number of things Marsalis did that Murray doesn't seem to do).  I don't think that's just because no one bothered to tell him that the JGB were essentially a rhythm & blues band.

And, lest you think I'm just not a fan of David Murray: while I can't say I've heard a lot of his work, I have several albums of his that I think are incredible (1980's Ming would be the starter) and I very much like his 1997 Dark Star album.  If you're not familiar with him outside of the Dead, Murray is one of the major jazz saxophonists of the 80's/90's, and was part of a generation of post-loft NYC avant-gardists who made the innovations of Albert Ayler and Coltrane coexist with "the tradition" that so much of the post-Coltrane players had rejected.  Like a lot of those musicians (Henry Threadgill and Arthur Blythe are two contemporaries you may know), Murray was certainly known for a particular sound but could play in a variety of styles very effectively.  To give two then-contemporary examples to consider alongside his JGB performance, try Shakill's Warrior (1991),  a "back to the roots" project revisiting the organ/tenor combos of the 50's-60's [interestingly, this band's guitarist, Stan Franks, played a few shows with the earliest Phil & Friends lineup and was originally slated to play lead guitar in the original 1998 lineup of the Other Ones, before he was replaced by Mark Karan and Steve Kimock].  Or try Murray's guest appearance on the Skatalites' recording of his own tune Flowers for Albert (1994; Murray takes the first solo). Neither of these are necessarily representative of his typical sound, but I think they show that Murray could have found something to fit the JGB's sound.  If he had wanted to boot it out like Jr. Walker on How Sweet It Is, I am confident that he could have gone there while still sounding like David Murray.

Coming soon: some of the aforementioned much better but lesser-known performances from 1993.

by Joe Ryan, via GDAO

postscript: Murray's spot with the Dead on 9/22/93 was fantastic, but when the Dead came back to the NYC area in 1994, Murray did not appear with them.  While the Dead were at Nassau Coliseum in March 1994, Murray instead sat in with a Dead cover band, the Zen Tricksters, at the Wetlands Preserve in lower Manhattan (a funny-shaped bar down by the Holland Tunnel that was the NYC jamband scene's headquarters, if you never went there) for a full 3+ hour show.  It's hard not to wonder what Murray thought about that, but I don't remember anything being wrong with the music at all.  I had the tapes way back when, and I liked them a lot -- but that was over 20 years ago, so I withhold judgment until they appear digitally at LMA.  I would love to hear that again.

5/8/84: light thickens further in Eugene

In observation of the day, I happily biked home from work for the first this year (it's been a long winter) with 5/8/77 in my headphones, the first time I'd listened to it since, um, last year this time.  I am pleased to report that my commute-by-bike lasts exactly the length of Dancin' in the Streets and Scarlet>Fire.

In the mood for more once I got home, I queued up an older fav that I hadn't heard in even longer: 5/8/84, a show that is emblematic of a shaggy year that has both its fevered supporters and its bemused naysayers.  Much like 1976, there's a lot about 1984 to not like, but hey, if some serious mojo has to come with some serious warts, then so be it.  Garcia's drug abuse and health were the steadily growing elephants in the room, but if you look past the damage he was doing to himself and those around him (and I understand if you can't or won't), there is both a raw ugly beauty and a feverish intensity to the year that I find to be very powerful and exciting indeed.  It's not the effortless grace and execution that the band displayed at their 70's pinnacles; it doesn't even sound like they're necessarily having very much fun -- it's more like a "we've got nothing to lose here" wild-eyed abandon that sometimes fails to hit the mark, but other times hits the bullseye dead-on before shredding through the target.  This show isn't quite an exemplar of this dark mixture at its finest, but it does have one very nice, deep zone right in the middle of it that's about as far from Barton Hall as it gets but delights me all the same.

courtesy deadlists

I remember this whole show being a bit up and down, with Garcia sounding like he was in rough shape.  A week after their east coast spring tour, the band jetted up to Oregon for three shows at the Hult Center's small Silva Concert Hall (capacity 2448) in Eugene, produced by the good ol' Springfield Creamery folks (I swear this is a coincidence! inspiration move me blindly?).  The reunion must have been colored, sadly, by the death of Ken Kesey's 20-year-old son Jed in a car accident 4 1/2 months earlier.  Years later when Kesey eulogized Bill Graham during the Dead's final Halloween show in 1991, he mentioned that Graham had given money for a memorial to his son and that the Dead marked the occasion with Brokedown Palace, which would be this show.

The novelty of the Scarlet>Touch of Grey opener notwithstanding, the first sign of something unusual may be up comes after a stately, relaxed Terrapin that is followed by two minutes of Garcia jamming quietly with the drummers (in reverse of the then common practice of Garcia leaving early as various bandmembers jammed in his wake before Drums proper).  It gives way to a lush marimba-led jam, a standard '84 move where the drummers eschewed the typical percussion bombast for something more warm and considered.  Midway through, electronic effects and delay enter the soundfield, but then things seem to slow to a halt.  Rather than a pause for the guitarists' return, however, various Merry Pranksters emerge to wheel out the Thunder Machine (see also 12/31/78) and then the weirdness really begins.  This kind of Dead music is so far out on the thinnest of musical ice that most heads don't bother with it at all, but it is something to be treasured all the same: the closest point of comparison I can think of would be avant-garde "jazz" of the AACM and Art Ensemble of Chicago, or Japanese experimental bands like the Taj Mahal Travelers.  After a few minutes of this garage sale of odd percussive sounds, Garcia and Weir join the fray and the jungle path thickens and gets denser ("light thickens and the crow makes wing to the rooky wood," perhaps): animals cries, disembodied snatches of speech (Ken Babbs maybe? Kesey himself?), industrial scrapes and crashes, general confusion all around, which then seems to be sucked into a vortex of processed effects to become weirder still.  A little mini Acid Test for some dark times?  After the machine rolls on, Garcia, Weir and, eventually, Lesh, play a solemn, slow march through the haze.  Things take a turn towards the Other One, and they toy with the theme for a while, soaking everything in delicious delay, building intensity steadily and thickening the roux until Phil unleases his roll and Garcia slams into a nasty minor chord.  Some grimy stuff in here!  The ensuing ride feels more akin to the hot and relentless 1970 style Other Ones than the more exploratory 1971-73 era trips.

The rest of the set is a fine listen, but nothing nearly as demented.  It's nothing worth skipping, though.  They follow up with a fine Wharf Rat, then an I Need a Miracle that seems to catch Garcia off-guard, and finally a fine Morning Dew that may be an opaque tribute to Jed Kesey -- it sure as heck ain't in the same ballpark as 1977's vintage, but it's fine for what it is.  Bobby thanks the Pranksters before the encore, a rare twofer of Sugar Magnolia with a jam that's preempted by Brokedown Palace, again in tribute to the younger Kesey.

PS.  If you're so inclined, there's a video of this show, shared by the always reliable voodoonola... but it axes the whole post-Terrapin>drums>space>Other One segment!!  what the heck?