The Wall Song: a short history

 

12/21/70, by Michael Parrish

David Crosby's wonderful, eerie tune "The Wall Song" is on my mind because of the forthcoming GarciaLive release of Garcia & Saunders at the Keystone Korner, 5/21/71, which you probably already know does not feature John Kahn or anyone else on bass.  [sorry, but: contrary to Rolling Stone's assessment, this has nothing to do with the freakin' Doors and everything to do with the fact that Saunders was adept at playing jazz basslines with his left hand, an innovation of Jimmy Smith's that was taken up by hundreds of organ players].  The Garcia folks have already shared the Wall Song from this show on Youtube, a surprising and unique performance by Garcia without Crosby.  So here is a stroll through the other known recordings of this song, from the small window of time that Garcia and Crosby were actively collaborating.

In 1989, Crosby recalled to David Gans that, during the 1970 sessions for his solo project If I Could Only Remember My Name (IICORMN), "the only time when we ever really got organized was on 'The Wall Song.' That was pretty organized, 'cause it goes through a lot of changes. And so we learned that and actually played it like an arrangement."  In addition to the changes, the song is structured two parts, the second of which (the "B" section or bridge, I guess) has a more syncopated "stop time" feel where the drums don't keep a steady groove, which probably required a little bit of work to lock into place (see the Matrix rehearsal below).

Like many of the songs on IICORMN, the Wall Song had been in the works for a couple of years already.  Steve Silberman tells of an unreleased solo Crosby session from 1968 that features the Wall Song as well as Tamalpais High, Laughing, and other future Cros classics.  But the IICORMN timeline is a little vague: according to pictures of the master reel boxes shared by Stephen Barncard, much of the material was originally tracked in Aug or Sept 1970, although the official project didn't begin until Nov 1970 (while Barncard was also mixing American Beauty).  It seems to have been wrapped up by December, but Crosby then booked Heider's again in January 1971 for sessions that apparently weren't intended for any album -- I need a citation, but I had the sense this was kind of an extended excuse to stay in the studio and avoid the outside world, since Crosby was still intensely grieving over his girlfriend's death.  These tapes were compiled and circulated in the early 90's, and have have since gone down in history as the PERRO (Planet Earth Rock & Roll Orchestra) tapes, named after a loose aggregation of musicians including the Jefferson Airplane and the Dead (here's one page with history; edit: here's a better one, with Barncard's annotations).  The earliest available Wall Song comes from that circulating PERRO collection.   According to Barncard's annotations, the full-band version on the PERRO tapes is from 12/13/70 -- after, it seems, the IICORMN material was in the can.

Dec 1970 (?) demo, PERRO tapes
The first of two takes on the PERRO set: Crosby alone with a 12-string acoustic and double-tracking his vocal.  Just what it says on the box.

[edit: This demo was released on the IICORMN 50th Anniversary edition; it's the same recording, but the official release fades about 15 seconds earlier than the version from the PERRO set.]
 

12/13/70, PERRO session
The rest of the PERRO material is from Jan 1971, but the date on the tape box for this performance is 12/13/70.  Although that dating doesn't quite jive with the IICORMN material, this track is clearly more than just a studio jam: it sounds like Crosby playing rhythm (right channel), Garcia, Lesh, Kreutzmann, plus what is either another rhythm guitar (or maybe a piano?) in the left channel and a tambourine, and I'll bet some of that is overdubbed.  Garcia doesn't sing harmony vocals, and I don't know if the harmony part here is Nash or Crosby overdubbed [edit: it's Crosby overdubbed].  The song itself ends at 4 minutes and Cros says "okay," and the jam begins.  Garcia gets in some nice licks, but the jam never catches flight and eventually trickles off.  Someone says, "can we do one more?" and another person (Nash?) responds something I can't make out.


12/15/70, The Matrix
If the studio version above is dated correctly, then only a few days later Crosby played the Wall Song live at a gig at the Matrix with Garcia, Lesh, and either Hart or Kreutzmann (I think it's Hart; more on that in a minute).  The tape has been in circulation for ages, but its origins are still murky.  The lineup is often referred to as "David and the Dorks," though it was billed as Jerry Garcia & Friends.  The date has been given variously as 12/15, 12/16, 12/17 (i.e. any of the three nights they were booked at the Matrix) or 12/20 (unlikely).  Lost Live Dead runs down the circumstances that are known.  The first half of the circulating tape is a rehearsal and the second half is live, although it's not clear if the rehearsal is from the same day.   The Wall Song is played twice at the rehearsal and then once at the Matrix performance. 

 
The rehearsal takes are pretty skeletal and it doesn't sound like everyone knows the song yet.  Crosby is heard occasionally giving directions and someone else is counting the time out loud during the stop-time B section.  Garcia now adds some harmony vocals, which he does on every subsequent live version.  He sounds more comfortable in the jam, however, so that indicates that this is later than the PERRO studio version (above) -- but maybe Hart was learning it?  The first version cuts off during the jam at 7:37.  The second rehearsal take has more confident drumming, but someone is still counting the B-section out loud, and Cros is still giving verbal direction.  This jam also peters out when it seems like Garcia isn't sure whether or not to go back to the B-section, then Crosby starts singing wordlessly, and they go over the timing of the B-section again.  Lesh and Hart run through it on their own while Cros & Garcia discuss something else.

The kinks sound like they have been mostly ironed out for the live Matrix performance, and they all attack the jam with a little more feeling at first, and Garcia digs in with a little more bite.  But it seems like they pull back after a bit, sounding unsure about really opening up or not, and the jam only lasts 2 1/2 minutes.  Jerry's last note trails off in a smear of feedback, which is great.  The tempo is still way slow (I don't want to say plodding, but it's laaaid back) -- for what it's worth, I think the circulating tape is actually running too slow here. 

A word about the drummer: I do think it's Mickey Hart, although I think Kreutzmann played on the 12/13/70 recording.  There is photo evidence that Kreutzmann played with Crosby, Garcia, and Lesh on 12/21 at Pepperland (see Michael Parrish's amazing eyewitness account and also JGMF) and this fine Lost Live Dead post has a comment thread surmising that Kreutzmann is the most likely candidate for this Matrix gig.  But occam's razor aside, I still think it's Hart: the drumming is more basic than Kreutzmann's fluid cymbal work and fills, and also more like the drumming on the 8/21/71 jam, which is pretty much certainly also Hart.  Plus, if Kreutzmann had just laid down a serviceable take in the studio, why would they be relearning the song a few days later?  I would speculate that Hart was a last minute fill-in for Kreutzmann for whatever reason (Hart did play on Cowboy Movie on IICORMN, after all)

1/9/71 (?) - Graham Nash & David Crosby album version (uncut)
Crosby, Garcia, Lesh, Kreutzmann, and Graham Nash on piano.  Again, there is some confusion about the dating of this.  This is the full version of the track released on Nash & Crosby's 1972 album; the album cut fades before the jam.  David Gans broadcast this unedited version on the GDH twice (in 1989 and 2001, the latter a fantastic show on the Crosby/Garcia connection co-hosted with Steve Silberman) but gave two different dates, 11/11/71 and 11/9/71.  Other material for Nash/Crosby album (with different musicians) was recorded at a few sessions in Nov 1971, but JGMF thinks the date of this Wall Song is really 1/9/71, which locates it in the middle of the PERRO material.  Which makes sense to me.

From a Garciacentric perspective, I think this is the best performance.  The tempo is noticeably more brisk than the laid back live versions.  I also appreciate that Garcia plays with more interaction with the piano (Nash seems to know one lick, but it works well), whereas on every other version Garcia is pretty much out in the woods by himself.  He's playing his Strat here, so the sound is brighter and twangier.  Crosby's guitar is lower in the mix now.  They find a slightly higher cruising altitude for the jam, with a couple of changes in direction and a Crosby/Garcia driven peak that climaxes the jam before it quickly subsides: really this whole performance feels more like a group "jam" than Garcia soloing over a laid back groove.


5/21/71, Garcia/Saunders at the Keystone Korner 

Back to the slower tempo.  With no Crosby in sight, Garcia sings lead this time!  He's pretty shaky compared with Cros, but soulful nevertheless ("such a great wiiide open door").  Saunders and Vitt sound excellent, as you'd expect, and though I can't imagine they must have rehearsed this much beyond running it down before the gig, both of them nail this.  In his earliest documented appearance with Garcia, Martin Fierro adds almost nothing to the song itself but comes in strong right at the jam and occupies centerstage for much of what follows.  He does get some skronk on, so be warned -- I know there are folks who don't like this side of his playing, and he does go a bit over the top here, but I can dig it.  Free jazz, man.  Garcia takes a short turn, with a nice raw, feedbacky sound.  Vitt and Saunders really give him a nice pocket to work with.  Then Fierro solos again, quoting "A Day in the Life" around 9:18 [thanks, Light Into Ashes]  The groove starts pulling apart and getting freeform around 10 min, then they pull back together and groove on, slowly.  At 11:45 Fierro quotes "A Day in the Life" again.  The jam ends dramatically after around 12 1/2 minutes.


8/21/71, jam at Mickey's barn 

I've already covered some specifics about this tape here.  On The Wall Song, I hear Garcia, Crosby, Lesh, one drummer (Hart, I presume), Ned Lagin on piano, someone else on organ (David Freiberg, I guess, since it seems too basic to be Saunders), and John Cipollina joins halfway through, playing mostly slide (and also wahwah later) but barely takes the spotlight.   This one is over a half hour long and is primarily a jam on the main vamp with occasional drops into the verses, which are mostly instrumental.  Crosby and Garcia sing parts wordlessly (da da da), but do sing bits of the third verse, then eventually circle back around to the first verse much later.  It's all a lazy afternoon jam, man, but unfortunately Garcia never finds much of a thread.  He regularly comes to the forefront with some tasty stuff, but never sustains any ideas into a longer solo.  There's a lot of vamping.  The organ takes a brief solo (about 13:40 on the sbd copy) and Lagin's piano adds some simple but colorful fills throughout.  At the 20 minute mark, the tempo kicks up a bit and they abandon the vamp for a one-chord groove (although nothing too different happens) for about 8 minutes, then return to the tune for the final 5 minutes of the jam.  Crosby cues up the B-section and signals the ending.  As the kids say, this has a vibe.  It seems appropriate that we go out on this lazy, jammy note, with our heroes going down that golden road on a late summer afternoon in the woods up in Marin.  Jerry announces "I gotta go play" (he had a gig that night with the NRPS) and that's that.

I don't know if Crosby played the Wall Song again in this period.  It doesn't seem like Crosby & Nash ever played it in their shows in the mid 70's (it's hard to tell, though, since the network of Crosby setlists is tough to search; I was not super thorough with this, so I hope someone proves me wrong!)

Crosby remained connected to the Dead behind the scenes through 1975.  He participated in Ned Lagin's Seastones project, and joined the Dead at Weir's studio to rehearse Blues for Allah and some of his own tunes for the 3/23/75 SNACK benefit show.  But Crosby missed the show itself for the birth of his daughter (thanks Grateful Seconds).  The last of his informal public collaborations with Garcia was at a Seastones performance on 9/19/75 (per Nedbase).  Then, as far as I know, they didn't cross paths again until Crosby (solo) opened for the Dead on New Years Eve 1986.

Oct 1974 Winterland revisited

 

Recently, I felt the tug to revisit these famous Dead shows, and the anniversary timing is a pleasant coincidence.  The milestone of being their final pre-hiatus performances after a year of larger-than-life technological, financial, and chemical excess probably casts too large a shadow on the performances themselves -- not to mention that they also produced an awful live album and a fantastic, but crushingly expensive, concert film.   One also doesn't typically talk about these shows without some grumbling about the unusual (at times bizarre) audio mix and sound quality of these tapes.  Given those two big "extra-musical" factors, I figured it wouldn't hurt to roll through all five shows and see what happened.

I am sure you know all about the state of the Grateful Dead world in October 1974.  So since these tapes have a unique provenance, I might as well start there:

They used my equipment, but I didn't do [the recording].  They thought I didn't want to do it because I had just had my kid... they took all my gear and Billy Wolfe [sic], who had been on the Rowan Brothers project with which Jerry was involved, recorded it, and it came out very strange.  The tapes were pretty awful.  He used a lot of audience in t.he mix; I don't know why or how he recorded so much leakage  -Betty Cantor-Jackson, Taping Compendium Vol 2

"[Steal Your Face] was made from totally screwed-up master tapes recorded on a 24-track machine, except that the nitwit who was given the  job to put Donna Godchaux's vocal on an onboard Nagra along with a SMPTE sync track driven so hard [saturated] that the vocal was wiped by the leakage.  At the same time, on the 24-track, there was one channel used for an "audience/ambience" mike!
Believe it or not, this continued for the whole run of shows. Weir's guitar mike fell over and the signal was lost during the first set of the first night, and this, too, continued -- not only through the second set, but through the entire run!"  -Bear, Taping Compendium Vol 1

Weir's guitar is more audible than Bear makes it out to be, but no one will disagree that these tapes sound bad, even by the more limited standards of 1974 sbd tapes.  10/16 and 10/17 aren't too bad, but the final three nights get progressively further out in the weeds.  In poor Billy Wolf's defense, it seems that Garcia had the idea of recording the music with an ear to multiple mixes that would emphasize different sound from different audience perspectives (e.g. how it would sound from the hotdog stand out in the hall vs. up close to the stage).  In a bonus feature on the GD Movie DVD, Jeffrey Norman described his work on the master tapes:  

[Garcia and Dan Healy] had some real concepts, some very technical, on why they did what they did.  There's a lot of kind of 'delay sounds,' with the idea that wherever you were in the theater - because remember this was for a theater presentation; the idea of 'in the home' didn't even exist - so for the theater, they wanted everyone to hear all instruments from wherever you were in the house, in the theater. ... now it's not the same at home... you'll hear your front wall and then there's a lot of kind of delays, things kinda moving around. It's cool.

Also, um, Wolf was also apparently dosed to the gills, as was just about everyone else.  In his book Skeleton Key, Steve Silberman recounts that  

Stephen Barncard, the producer of American Beauty, remembers that to get onstage you were encouraged to "lick a puddle of acid off your wrist," dropped there by a member of the road crew. "I was off an on that stage about fifteen times, which would have been OK, but I was smoking the hash oil too, so I was stupid and in outer space. People couldn't figure out why I wasn't saying anything. I couldn't say anything."

Rough mixes from those 24-track tapes have been in circulation, I think, since the mid-70's.  I recall reading once that most of these copies derived from cassettes given to a prominent trader by a nephew of a famous producer at Atlantic Records, but I have no citation for that.  Charlie Miller's transfers source from Rob Eaton's DAT copies of vault reels (although I assume that means a rough mixdown from the multitrack masters for some unknown purpose?)  More recently, copies of Garcia's own work tapes have come into circulation via the GEMS crew.

Given the historical weight and problematic sound quality, the general reception of the music itself seems to be all over the place.  I don't think anyone would stack these up in terms of musical quality against some of the biggies from June 74, but I'm sure that this run carries a lot of extra-musical association that influences many heads' feelings about the music itself.  Here's my own personal spoiler: 10/16 and 10/17 were better than I remembered when heard in contrast with the whole run, and I think both are underrated.  10/18 remains a deep-space favorite.  10/19 was dinged the most in comparison with the other four and didn't hold up as a whole show, and 10/20 remains mostly a big puddle.

10/16/74
https://archive.org/details/gd1974-10-16.sbd.patched.eaton-miller.90145.sbeok.flac16

The first couple songs are only on the aud tape, but once the mix is settled on the sbd tape, things sound pretty good.  The trademark wet thumpy reverb of these shows isn't as present here.  It feels to me like they're getting their space together during this first set, energetic but a little bug-eyed in general.  They finally let it all hang out for a gargantuan 30+ minute Playing in the Band to end.  It never gets too noisy and may feel a little low energy for some, but I like this trip.  This divides neatly into thirds with interesting shifts at around 10 and 20 minutes; Garcia and Godchaux kind of play through each other without much connection at first, but they find their way.  Notice that Garcia cues the ending a couple of times, but no one else is ready to leave the pool.

Phil & Ned generally opt for a gentler, introspective, probing kind of vibe for all five of these nights.  Garcia joins in tonight around 15 1/2 minutes in, and Lagin seems to ease off and let Garcia and Lesh go at it.  Kreutzmann shows up, then Godchaux, and the Jam that follows is less spacey and more like a loose, ambling digression down a few paths: some fragmented funkiness here, more of a vaguely Playin-ish feel there.  Lagin's electric piano is audible in the mix along with Godchaux's.  Weir seems not as involved in this -- but it was his birthday, after all, so there have been more pressing concerns waiting for him in the wings.  A groove begins to slowly solidify, then Lesh and Kreutzmann duet for a bit, then some looser, sparse Space (and impatient audience clapping) and finally Wharf Rat.  That was just 50 minutes of pure improv, folks, 35 of which was with Garcia.  Wharf Rat is maybe a little too placid, but maybe just a good fit for this lazy vibe.  Garcia wanders off the path again on a mostly solo trip, eventually joined by Lesh and Lagin for a very relaxed set up for Eyes of the World.  To me, this is an ideal relaxed pace, laying out a smooth but focused trip through this one (Lagin on electric, Godchaux on grand piano).  Rather than ride the end jam too long, Garcia drifts back into solo space noodling and glides them all back to earth.  Wowza.  

The final stretch feels more like recalibration than rock concert, but they deliver a nice earthy follow-up jam with a longer Truckin' > GDTRFB > Uncle John's Band, a most satisfying end to things.  And Lesh sings happy birthday to Weir.  I've felt that this show was overlooked in the past, and I still feel that: ideal '74 Dead for those who prefer the scenic route.


10/17/74

https://archive.org/details/gd1974-10-17.sbd.smith.gems.99032.flac24
https://archive.org/details/gd1974-10-17.140588.SBD.Gastwirt.Miller.Noel.t-flac1644

It's a toss up between the GEMS and Miller sources: the GEMS sounds brighter (maybe too bright?) vs. Miller's sounds quieter and hissier in spots, but is more complete.

The night kicks off in a big way when the piano lid falls midway through Promised Land -- without any satisfying audible crash, but with a host of buzzy tech issues.  But this first set is my favorite one of the five shows, with a prime selection for my liking and a warm, natural flow.  I really like both this Half Step and China>Rider, and the cowboy tunes are consistently very well-done (a feature of this run that warrants a little shout out, btw).  The Weather Report Suite is spotless and excellent, and right now it feels like it edges out the one from the 18th.  Phil & Ned's set is a compact 10 minutes (on tape, at least), the shortest of the run but also the edgiest and most "challenging."  I also detect a live mic picking up what appears to be a toddler having a temper tantrum (around 4 minutes in).  

The second set opens with the best of the three Scarlet Begonias, featuring a nice Donna "scat" solo in the jam. He's Gone is divine and mellow until Lesh rather abruptly kicks thing up a notch (which he does on 10/19 as well) for the Other One.  Lesh seems ready to rock, but Garcia pulls in a more introspective direction and the jam coalesces after a few minutes into a themeless but driving jam that I associate more with 72-73 era Dark Stars.  Lesh nudges the Other One again, but they fall instead into full Space which they take to a full screeching meltdown (the only one of the run).  The post-space reverie has some tasty Garcia/Godchaux pillowtalk before finally slamming back to the Other One for real.  After the first verse, they veer into a 90 second Spanish Jam digression, a longer Mind Left Body Jam, and then another interesting harmonic tug-of-war slightly akin to 10/29/73.  Garcia has his sights set on Stella Blue, and Godchaux follows his lead but Lesh keeps pushing for the Other One; Garcia responds with Other One-y licks but refuses to leave E major until Weir sets 'em up for the second verse.  A nice moment of pleasant tension!  The promised Stella Blue is a real beauty and a fine bookend for the jam.  '74 wasn't a big year for long-form Other Ones, but this is a quiet sleeper.


10/18/74
https://archive.org/details/gd1974-10-18.111459.gems.BOSWELL-SMITH.flac24
https://archive.org/details/gd1974-10-18.BEAR.gems.110515.flac16
https://archive.org/details/gd1974-10-18.sbd.miller.110771.flac16

The GEMS Boswell/Smith copy is the best one, imho.  Interestingly, there is also a separate GEMS source with the note "recording and mix by Bear" (no other lineage) with a drier mix: less drum reverb and room ambience but with more hum, and a kind of a toss-up for sound quality - and it's also not the complete show.  Wait, Bear also rolled tape at these shows?  I have questions.

This was the one show from the run that I had on cassette as a teenager, but the lure of nostalgia unfortunately isn't working it's magic on the first set, which feels fairly laconic to me.  The country tunes come off as the most energetic and appealing, especially Cumberland Blues.  The Weather Report Suite closer is prime time, however, even though I think I like 10/17 better.

The main event, anyway, is the jam, which is ultimately the most memorable music from this run.  Like 10/16 and 9/11/74, here is a unique blob of acid-saturated '74 Grateful Dead that doesn't have the cocaine-edged sharpness that characterizes a lot of the year's most exciting music.  It may have more longeurs, but I still have a warm spot in my heart for this deep-spelunking expedition.  The Phil & Ned portion seem to go deeper than the rest, and with more patience, although Lagin gets a big LOL for dispersing some impatient clappers with a big synth wash around @8:30.  Garcia becomes audible around 14 minutes in, and the deep spaceship vibes just go on and on and on.  Kreutzmann appears after nearly a half hour and his steady beat changes the course of things.  Kruetzmann and Lesh play together, then just Kruetzmann, until Godchaux makes his return.  The following jam has a jaunty, less spacey feel thanks to Lesh's stop/start bass idea, and it becomes evident that Garcia is heading towards Dark Star.  The pre-verse jam is sparkling and bright, and Godchaux's electric piano adds a lot of nice color to this.  Garcia sings the verse, but rather than pivot to something new, the jam rolls on in the same general direction and works up to a satisfyingly tasty climax around 12:45 on this GEMS copy.  After some sneaky tuning and a change in direction, the following jam feels more directionless and loose to me, with Garcia vanishing for a few brief stretches, though the general flow never gets too far from the standard Dark Star groove.  The last minute is pretty splashy and given mostly to Kruetzmann, until Garcia slowly and quietly starts Morning Dew.  Slow, beautiful, and a classic performance immortalized in the movie.  A glistening set of uninterrupted, totally in-the-zone spacey Grateful Dead magic.

The third set seems a bit obligatory at first, but they rally for a final ride through a solid Not Fade Away (not a barnstormer, but some nice rollicking Godchaux piano) and then GDTRFB from the movie, another classic -- "going where the cliiimate suits my clothes."  


10/19/74
https://archive.org/details/gd1974-10-19.140626.sbd.gastwirt.miller.sirmick.fixed.flac1644
https://archive.org/details/gd1974-10-19.131704.sbd.boswell-smith.flac16
https://archive.org/details/gd1974-10-19.sbd-pset1.bear.gems.stevesw.112791.flac16/


I like the quality on the newest Charlie Miller source, although there is another partial Bear recording that again features a drier, more palatable mix -- but is just part of the first set.  The mix gets wetter, with an overall more reverbed, ambient sound to the drums, and both Lesh and Godchaux quite prominent in the mix.  The first set is very long at 95 minutes, but they sound kinda scattered.  Eyes of the World is the one big exception: it's a popular favorite and one of the best, with crisp and memorable solos and an overall smooth, gliding feel that I enjoy more than some other "grinding" '74 Eyes jams.  Otherwise, I think they excel on the ballads in this set, and not much else.  Phil & Ned starts off unusually with what sounds like a recording of the ocean and a drum machine, before getting into the usual headspace for the second half.  Garcia doesn't join them tonight.

The second set is fine in many ways, but is ultimately unsatisfying to me since there's kind of a hole in the middle of the set where the big jam should be.  A beautiful Uncle John's Band opens (repeating the rare openers on 8/6/74 and 9/18/74, an inspired idea that they almost never did again), followed by a longer run of country-flavored tunes that all sound great to me: I'll forgive the, ah, overenthusiastic vocals on the otherwise delightful Tomorrow is Forever, and Garcia sounds cracklin' on Mexicali and sublime on the slow Dire Wolf.  They bookend the jam with a split Sugar Magnolia (I believe the first they'd ever done this?) (edit: they had done this on 6/28 and 8/6/74 as well; thanks Pat for pointing out my mistake); He's Gone winds into Truckin' as usual, but the intro just grooves on and on for a minute (nothing seems obviously wrong with Weir) until Kreutzmann starts the tangalang cymbal beat that moves them into Caution territory.  Weird; not bad, but not much beyond the initial surprise that they're playing Caution.  Garcia doesn't sound wholly committed to wherever this train is going: he takes flight for a few minutes then sputters out, leaving Lesh and Kruetzmann to plonk around for a bit.  The heart of the jam is 10 minutes of loose, open Space, a lot of which feels like a Garcia/Kreutzmann duet.  They return to the deferred Truckin', which does sound very fine indeed, and then pull out a surprise Black Peter (one of only three that year) that sounds excellent, then wrap it up with Sunshine Daydream.  Not bad at all!  But the real improvisation never seems to take root in anything and consequently is pretty forgettable, more like a surprise digression than a focused exploration.


10/20/74
https://archive.org/details/gd1974-10-20.sbd.alligator.GEMS.94851.flac16
https://archive.org/details/gd1974-10-20.132113.sbd.boswell-smith.flac16

The best circulating digital sources all come from the GEMS crew; the Alligator source has a drier mix than the filesets sourced from Garcia's copy, but ymmv as to what sounds better.  The tape quality is the worst of the five shows, as is the playing.  I am sure it was one hell of a party, but this is a pretty weak overall for '74.  The first set is actually pretty solid.  They up the novelty factor by opening with two rarities -- the first Cold Rain & Snow in a year and another Mama Tried -- and they hit their stride with Jack Straw through a fine China>Rider.  Like 10/19, the Phil & Ned segment starts off with a drum machine and some rhythmic pinging from Lagin (it reminds me a little of Stereolab!) who grooves along until Lesh makes his audible appearance.  A more typical but pretty sparse jam follows, and Garcia joins in for the final 15 minutes.

As you know, the prodigal Mickey Hart appeared backstage during the break and, despite grumping from Kreutzmann, rejoined the band for much of the rest of the show.  Insert requisite cowbell joke here (and he did indeed bring one along).  The second set doesn't ever really get there, as far as I'm concerned, but the mix is so bad that it's hard for me to say for sure. Garcia is low, Weir is practically MIA, Lesh & Godchaux are front and center, and double drum kits means even more thwumpy reverb.  Playing and Not Fade Away are fine enough but stay in the shallow end, and the Other One has more spacey noodling than primal era thunder.  To be fair, I quite liked this Wharf Rat and the jam back into Playing.  They muddle through a surprise (and I would bet unrehearsed) Good Lovin': no one seems sure what to do (Lesh sounds ready to jam it 70-72 style, but Garcia seems to want to follow the changes at first?), and Garcia plays a lot of low-gear slide guitar.  Promised Land is a total mess, and Eyes of the World is pretty tepid and lumbering, although setlist asteriskers do correctly note that Garcia clearly plays the Slipknot! melody at the very end.  At least Stella Blue ends thing on a bright, beautiful note, before Sugar Magnolia stomps it out (with Mickey again joining in) -- for the record, I only hear Mickey (after the jam) on Good Lovin' and Sugar Mags.  Bill Graham pulls the crew onstage, and the second encore is an odd pick of Half Step (but well played) that ends with a perfectly timed drop into And We Bid You Goodnight, a very nice final touch.

Hartbeats update, again

I did another major-ish update to the Mickey Hart & the Hartbeats mega-post (coincidentally timed for their anniversary), mostly concerning two hidden-in-plain-sight sources -- a Rolling Stone article from 1969 and Dick Latvala's recollection of a mysterious setlist for 10/30 -- plus other little doodads.

Will that post ever be complete?  Not likely.  We're just thrown together by fate, so we're playing Fate Music here, folks.

Stay tuned, though, for a reconsideration of the Oct 74 Winterland shows, which I have been revisiting and reevaluating.  One of these days... #gratefuldeadstandardtime

8/22/81 JGB and Phil

First, rest in peace to Jim Vita, taper of many fine GD and JGB shows in the early/mid 80's, including this one.  We all owe him and all tapers a great deal.

So what's the deal with this show?  It sticks out because Phil Lesh is playing bass with the JGB (and a Fender Jazz Bass, at that), which had also happened that June for a small run of shows that John Kahn missed in order to travel Europe with his mother.  JGMF has posts on 6/24/81 and 6/25/81, and Lostlivedead has an eyewitness account of 6/26/81 (also officially released in part).  But Lesh popped up again at this show two months later, in a place Garcia had never played before or again, in the middle of a normal weekend run of Keystone shows where Kahn was otherwise present.  

Why would Kahn play Friday, Saturday, and Monday, but miss the Sunday gig?  My uninformed guess is that it had something to do with the show itself, a benefit for "Fairfax schools" (and a pricey one at that: $15 as compared to $7-10 for the average JGB or Dead show that month).  The venue was the Fairfax Pavilion, a community rec center in the heart of tiny downtown Fairfax, right next to the little league field.  Phil Lesh happened to be a Fairfax resident since 1968 and, at this stage in his life, a regular patron of Fairfax's drinking establishments (although he moved to San Rafael around this time, according to his book, so I don't know if he was still getting mail there or what).  It seems like a strange coincidence that he just happened to play a one-time gig with Garcia at his local community center that was a benefit for a local community interest.  Dave from Grateful Seconds saw this show and remembers knowing in advance that Lesh would be playing, so the "subbing for Kahn" idea seems even less likely.  Does anyone know more about that one?

There are a number of well-circulated Bob Minkin photos from this night (some here) of Garcia beaming at Lesh and both of them looking pretty happy (compared with Minkin's pics of two nights earlier at the Keystone, where Garcia and Kahn both look like overcooked seafood).  Unfortunately, though, according to some attendees, it was a weird night with heavy police presence and a phoned-in death threat (see Jerrybase comments).  And I am sorry to say that musically it isn't great, either.  The brief 38 minute first set is the worse of the two.  Garcia totally loses the changes during his first solo in How Sweet It Is and blows the "open my eyes at night" verse after his second one, neither of which seems like a good sign at all.  Mission in the Rain has some tempo issues at first, but is otherwise decent.  Keyboardist Jimmy Warren is not having a particularly good night either, and fizzles through most of his solos.  Sugaree lifts off a bit during Garcia's second solo.  Tangled Up in Blue has more tempo issues, wobbling from 125 to 135bpm from the beginning to the first solo, more lyric flubs, then Garcia sparks a quick two minute jam before punching out quickly.  The second set (about 45 min) is a bit more together.  I'll Take a Melody isn't bad (I hear some scatting from one of the singers in the jam), but the highlight is The Harder They Come, a tune I usually feel more ambivalent about than not.  As was usual for this lineup, Warren and Melvin Seals lay down a bubbling, interlocking two-keyboard groove for the jam, which Lesh complements with a minimal bass accompaniment (compared with Kahn's typically more bustly part), and Garcia rolls out the carpet over it.  Not bad!  Knockin' sounds fine to me, if a little stiff at first, and Midnight Moonlight finds a solid, steady tempo for itself.

Like the June shows, it's hard to say anything specific about Lesh's bass playing.  You would think he would stick out for his trademark unusual style, but he mostly plays it pretty safe here and (probably wisely) sticks to the parameters of the songs.  Occasionally something pops out as an only Phil would play that moment, but those are few and far between.

Also of note, this weekend were the last shows drummer Daoud Shaw played with the band.  Kreutzmann seems to have filled in for the September gigs (there's a picture of him at the next JGB show on 9/7/81), and then Ron Tutt returned for the November '81 east coast tour (and presumably two Keystone warm-up gigs immediately beforehand, which do not yet circulate on tape).  And Phil Lesh never played with the JGB again after this one strange night in downtown Fairfax.

photo by Bob Minkin

Merl Saunders & Friends 8/23/78

While googling images for the last post, I came across this (from the site of Bolerium Books):

Robert Pruzan, photo & David Wilts, design

I know, I know.  Every time the words "Merl Saunders" and "special guest" appeared together, it was obviously code for only one thing.  Still: just for John Kahn's presence, this is one more piece to add to the pre-Reconstruction puzzle.  The Shady Grove was the club where Garcia joined Saunders & Friends for a benefit (to keep the club opened) on 10/3/78 (edit: also 10/2, which doesn't appear to have been taped).  He hadn't played onstage with Saunders since July 1975, although Saunders apparently did a week of recording with the JGB in Sept 1977, per JGMF (mysterious).

EDIT: commenter David Kramer-Smyth reports being in touch with "one of the partners of the Shady Grove" and reveals that Garcia was actually present!?  Saunders, Kahn, Garcia, plus Maria Muldaur.  Um, wow.

The timeline fits, at least: Garcia doesn't seem to have been doing anything on 8/23/78, except for maybe working with John Kahn on overdubbing and mixing Shakedown Street.  Studio dates at Jerrybase and a Bettyboard studio cassette dated 8/25 (from the ABCD batch) make it seem pretty likely that Garcia was local on 8/23. 

I would love to know what Kahn was up to in 1978 when not playing with the JGB, if anything.  Lostlivedead had a great series of posts (almost 10 years ago) on Kahn's work history, but the last one ended with 1974.

The Shady Grove was (as far as I can tell) the local Haight-Ashbury club and hangout for a time until it closed in 1980.  According to the Facebook page of Leif Grafix,"the Haight Street Fair evolved out of a cooperatively run night club on Haight Street called Shady Grove. Merl Saunders & Friends performed regularly at SG and as the street fair formed they essentially became its house band, performing at every fair for decades."  Robert Hunter played there regularly in 1976 (and later).  And in his book Skeleton Key, Steve Silberman recalled that, circa 1979-80, "Garcia would occasionally be seen at the bar in a Yankees jacket."  Seems like the perfect disguise for an incognito San Francisco rock star.

Le Front Street Sheiks -> Reconstruction

"whaddya think, John, is that a flatted 5th or a raised 4th?"

 

Some inchoate notes on Jerry and jazz circa mid 1978:

Thanks to JGMF, we now have some public documentation of a very brief but very interesting moment in the JGB story, a brief side trip into a parallel universe where Garcia, Kahn, and Godchaux were a jazz piano combo.

JGMF once quoted (edit: here) an interview with John Kahn from 1987 where he casually mentioned the eyebrow-raising fact that, since 4/5 of the JGB lived near each other, they would regularly get together at the Godchauxs' house (mostly without Ron Tutt) and just play:

"We'd go through everything. We had Dylan songbooks and we'd do stuff like play everything from Blonde on Blonde. Then we'd do all sorts of Beatles songs. It was great. Most of it never even got past that room.
"We were real close for a while. We had this trip where we'd call ourselves the Front Street Sheiks and we'd play dumb piano jazz and stuff like that. We did some recording down at the rehearsal place [Front Street in San Rafael] right after they got their 24-track, just to see if the machine worked. We'd be down there every night of the week playing these old songs like "All the Things You Are," "Night in Tunisia," things like that." (Golden Road, Winter 1987, 29-30)

Tantalizing!  Both Kahn and Godchaux had jazz backgrounds, and Garcia of course had dabbled in jazz a bit under the guidance of Merl Saunders.  But now thanks to information that has been shared at the wonderful new Jerrybase site (seriously: it is wonderful), the picture comes slightly more into focus with four documented sessions at Club Front in June 1978 as either "Le Trio Clube" or the "Front Street Sheiks."

 

Repertoire

6/13/78: My Funny Valentine, Satin Doll, Georgia On My Mind

6/14/78: Satin Doll, Georgia On My Mind

6/26/78: Instrumental, Satin Doll

6/27/78: Don't Blame Me

The "repertoire" is made up of some pretty old and conservative standards; Kahn mentioned using songbooks and it's possible that one of them owned a copy of The Real Book (a popular grey market 'fakebook' of common practice jazz tunes). Garcia was already comfortable with "My Funny Valentine" and "Georgia On My Mind" from the Garcia/Saunders days.  "Satin Doll" (Ellington) and "Don't Blame Me" (a 1930's showtune recorded by dozens of singers and instrumentalists) are things that Godchaux would have likely played many times in his pre-Dead life as a cocktail bar pianist. Although Donna Godchaux is not mentioned in the Jerrybase info, Kahn did mention "Keith and Donna were always together, so Donna sang with us, too" and all of these songs were standards for vocalists as well as jazz instrumentalists.  Kahn also mentioned "A Night in Tunisia" and "All the Things You Are," both bebop-era warhorses. That instrumental could be anything. A few months later the JGB played Miles Davis' "So What" live, seemingly out of the blue, but perhaps that was in the mix here as well.

Timeline

Corry and Joe have done the heavy lifting with the late 1978 timeline as it relates to Reconstruction, when a lot was happening on both the GD and JGB fronts. It is worth familiarizing yourself with:
http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2012/11/reconstructing-reconstruction-january.html
http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2014/11/risky-reconstruction.html

But for my own purposes, I will reiterate a bit from their posts:

• Garcia, Kahn, and Godchaux are messing around with jazz standards sometime in June 78 (and possibly earlier?).
• The gear at Front Street is upgraded from a 16-track to a 24-track machine in June 78 (presumably for the Dead to record Shakedown Street there) and GKG take advantage of this to hang out and lay down some of these jazz tunes.
• The Dead then get busy for most of August (recording Shakedown Street, with Kahn pitching in on overdubs and mixing duties) and September (going to Egypt, then canceling shows in London to return home and finish the album).
• Garcia sits in with Merl Saunders' band for a one-off benefit gig at a Haight/Ashbury club on 10/3/78.  afaik, this is mostly still a mystery.  The band's style is fairly similar to Reconstruction (no horns, though), but the setlist includes a somewhat stylistic outlier: "So What."
• The Keith & Donna JGB play their last known gig on 11/3/78 and, for the first known time, play "So What."
• The Dead are on tour in November, Garcia is hospitalized with bronchitis, shows are postponed, and the Dead are back on the road intermittently from mid-December through January.
• Reconstruction debuts with Garcia on 1/30/79, after a week of rehearsal during a break in the Dead's touring schedule.
  

 

So what?

Kahn described Reconstruction as a project he put together in Dec 1978 to play more jazz and to be able to gig when Garcia was on the road with the Dead, but also to potentially include Garcia when he wasn't: "I wasn't really planning on Jerry being in the band originally, and then when he was in the band it sort of changed everything from what the plan was" (Jackson, Garcia, 306).  It must have been an appealing fit for Garcia, who for the first time in eight years had no side-band of his own: the timing was good, the environment was appealing (a no-commitment, no-hassle gig), and the both concept and the material were fresh and challenging.  As the narrative has it, Garcia rose to the occasion for nine months in a final flash of inspired glory, but GD politics pulled him away, and Reconstruction's breakup symbolically marks an end to Garcia really pushing himself musically and settling into a more complacent rut for most of the next decade (see also: heroin; Garcia had moved in Rock Scully in this same period).

Is that narrative this changed by the fact that Garcia was actually "playing jazz" of his own accord six months before Reconstruction began?  It might be, it might not.  Given that Kahn seemed to suggest a lot of Garcia's material (starting with Compliments in 1974), it would make sense that he nudged Garcia this time as well.  Maybe it was just for laughs -- or maybe the idea of a JGB that incorporated jazz tunes (as Garcia/Saunders and Legion of Mary had done) was a viable option in their minds in mid-1978?

Also: I feel like "Russian Lullaby" is always left out of these discussions of Garcia engaging with jazz, but it's a jazz tune by pretty much any metric, and he played it regularly before, during, and after this period.

Also: This "Front Street Shieks" era of jazz is very different from the stripe of jazz that Reconstruction played -- I have more to say at some point re: Reconstruction as a jazz band -- which was different, for that matter, from "So What," and from the slightly earlier 20's-era swing Garcia played in the Great American Music/String Band in 1974 (see here).   And heck, also from some of the other jazz tunes played by the Legion of Mary.  That's a wider range of jazz music than I had expected and may warrant a separate post.

Also: One thing that did also come to mind was a story that drummer David Kemper told about working with Bob Dylan.  Dylan would assemble his band to rehearse for a tour and they would spend days playing in a certain style and carefully learning material that Dylan didn't seem to intend for performance.  Garcia and Kahn playing old jazz chestnuts doesn't seem to quite fit that model, but I don't know.

Or, of course, it's possible that all this timing is a coincidence and that we shouldn't make too much of these few "jazz sessions" in the bigger scheme of things.  But, for now, please to add refutations, corrections, additions, speculations, etc.

8/21/71 setlist clarification

tape box courtesy Ned Lagin

There is a tape labeled 8/21/71 and some variation of "Mickey Hart's barn" that is a recording of an informal jam session that followed a radio (and possibly television) broadcast performance by the New Riders of the Purple Sage and Shanti, an Indian/rock "world music" band featuring Zakir Hussain.  An aud tape has been in circulation for a long time.  The first digital transfer has extensive notes and info, and a more recent transfer purports to be from John Cippolina's own sbd reels ("this comes straight from the John Cipollina's collection, i personally made a copy of his reel and his notes" [sic]), even though it's the same aud tape.  More recently (2018?), Ned Lagin shared a sbd reel of most of the performance on his website and added his recollections about the jam to the NedBase page.  There is considerable overlap, though not exactly, between Ned's tape and the aud tape, and I had patched together a composite for my own listening and shared it in a couple of places, so that may still be floating around out there somewhere.  In the interest of creating a definitive setlist, I am only now getting around to posting this fleshed out version of my notes.  I am not going to even attempt to parse out who is playing what, nor do I have any comments on the music itself.  It's a big ol' jam session -- and, um, Garcia doesn't play for most of it -- so don't go expecting transcendence exactly.  But, y'know, it's got a vibe.  To my ears, the long Wall Song jam is the best thing here, since Gar & Cros already had a really nice hookup happening on this tune (digression: see the Nash/Crosby album outtake version!  the Matrix Dec 1970 performance!  I'm stopping now).

Corry has laid out in depth what is known about the circumstances of the gig here:
http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2012/03/august-21-1971-mickey-harts-ranch.html

And, a few months ago, Sam Cutler shared a 44 second video clip of the NRPS performance, which we can see was on a stage setup outdoors before a small audience of folks relaxing on lawn chairs.  Nice dye, Jerry!  But, according to the taper who recorded the jam,

"When the taping was finished, some musicians meandered into Mickey's barn where he had a modest recording studio set up. When I walked in Jerry Garcia and David Crosby were trying some things out (Fresh Green Grass). I turned on my cassette recorder, lashed my mic to an open mic stand, and sat down to enjoy a remarkable early evening of music."

THE PERSONNEL is all over the place.  To aggregate what is out there: the following folks were pretty definitely involved, based on the Lagin's tape box that was notated by Phil Lesh (which Lagin says is not complete).

Jerry Garcia (partially)
John Cipollina
David Crosby
Phil Lesh
Ned Lagin - piano, organ
Mickey Hart
Robbie Stokes - guitar
David Freiberg - bass, organ

Less certain:

Jorma Kaukonen (Lagin's memory)
Barry Melton (Lagin's memory, though the taper doesn't remember him)
Paul Kantner (Lagin's memory)
Jack Casady (Lagin's memory)
Merl Saunders ("maybe" per Lagin's memory)
Frank Lupica - drums (from Shanti, per the taper's memory)
Spencer Dryden (possibly, per aud tape notes)

It looks like the Airplane was on the road on Aug 21 (there was even a planned Dead/Airplane festival show in St. Paul, MN that day that was canceled); so if that is the case, scratch Kantner, Kaukonen, and Casady... unless the date on the tape is incorrect.  Someone else's ears can determine if they hear Jorma or Jack anywhere in here.  Nicky Hopkins' name has also been attached to this jam, but Lagin doesn't remember him and is doubtful he was there (same with the aud tape notes). 


THE MUSIC on the two recordings overlaps, but not completely.  Here is what was played:

Jam #1 = "Fire On the Mountain theme."  On the aud tape only.  Garcia is present here.

Other One Jam > The Wall Song = The O1 jam is not on the aud tape, but is on Ned's tape.  It sounds like Ned's tapes starts at the beginning of the jam (or very close to) and after 1:50 or so, the jam segues into the Wall Song.  The aud tape cuts in a few minutes after the Wall Song has started (sorry, I don't have an exact time).  The "Cipollina tape" labels this "Wall Song > Fresh Green Grass Jam > Wall Song" but I have no idea what "Fresh Green Grass Jam" is, besides the cryptic reference to it in the taper's recollections (above) -- I don't hear anything in here that would warrant a separate label, fwiw.  Ned's tape has a cut that loses about a minute of music, which can be patched in seamlessly from the aud tape.

[edit: "Fresh green grass" is a line in the Wall Song that Crosby sings at one point (he doesn't sing all the verses here, btw), so that's probably where that comes from.  This mega jam is mostly a long groove on the Wall Song's main vamp, but there is a section where they pick up the tempo and jam on just one chord for a bit, before returning to the Wall Song.  To label this Wall Song > Jam > Wall Song isn't inaccurate, but seems a little overly technical imho]

The music concludes and on Ned's tape, Garcia is heard saying, "I gotta go play."  The NRPS had a gig that night in Cotati, all of 20 miles away.

Jam #2 = this is on Ned's tape just labeled as 'Jam'.  The aud tape supplies the first 2:50, where Ned's tape cuts in.  The jam plays to completion on both the aud and Ned's tape.

"Noodle pt 1-2" = on the aud, but not Ned's tape.  "Pt 1" is 27 secs of guitar, piano, drums before the tape fades, and "Pt 2" continues after the cut for a few more seconds, then the musicians stop playing and other folks to tune up.

Jam #3 = on both aud tape and Ned's tape (apparently labeled "Blooz" on Ned's).  Both aud tape and Ned's tape have the same music here, with nothing missing.

Jam #4 = on both aud tape and Ned's tape (apparently labeled "R&R Jam" on Ned's).  Note that Ned's tape cuts after 5 minutes, while the aud tape contains 7 more minutes of music before fading.

Jam #5 = aud tape only; this cuts in and I think it's the conclusion of Jam #4 (albeit with a fair amount of music lost in the cut).  The music stops around 2:30, then the tape cuts.

Everything else that follows is only on the aud tape.  It's all pretty succinct in comparison with the expansive jams the preceded it.

"Carousel Song" = 44 seconds: this is the same melody as "Be Kind To Your Web Footed Friends" (or whatever it's called) that the Dead would sometimes play between songs, so I presume Bob Weir is to blame.

Ghost Riders in the Sky "Jam" = <3 min of the cowboy/surf standard "Ghost Riders in the Sky" played instrumentally, followed by some applause.

Winin' Boy Blues = the Jelly Roll Morton song (as done by Hot Tuna).  It sounds like Weir sings the vocal (it's not Jorma, another indication that he may not have been here at all).  It's about 3:40 total, and complete.

Bye Bye Blues = a <1 min fragment of a blues instrumental that sounds a lot like Les Paul's recording of "Bye Bye Blues."

Tore Down = a Freddie King tune.  Unknown vocalist, guitars, bass, piano, and drums.  About 6:45 total, and complete.

And then, according to the aud tape notes, that was the end of things.


So, I propose that the official record of this show look like this:

Jam (Fire On the Mountain theme)
Other One Jam >
The Wall Song (Crosby/Garcia vocal)
Jam
Jam ("Blooz")
Jam ("R&R Jam")
Ghost Riders in the Sky
Winin' Boy Blues (Weir vocal)
Bye Bye Blues
Tore Down (unknown vocal)

3/30/76: the first Don't Let Go meets Sugar Magnolia

4/1/76 by Jim Anderson

3/30/76 at the Calderone Concert Hall in Hempstead, NY is a show that probably doesn't get much airtime in our age of digital abundance: the aud tape of the early show is rough quality and the late show is even worse.  It's a little surprising that there is only one recording of a NYC-area Garcia show out there, but it's what we've got for now.  If the reward for braving a poor 76 JGB aud tape is something you need to be convinced of, then I direct you to this Don't Let Go, currently the earliest known performance.  Warning up front: there's a big ol' cut of death that truncates this one mid-jam (judging from later versions from this tour, they still had a while to go).  Blarg.

So why bother?  Because this version is the only time I've heard Garcia do this unusual thing: the jam, like all of them, begins with him grinding around the A blues scale, but at around 7 minutes, he shifts gears into A mixolydian.  For you non-modal types, that's a different scale that he used more frequently in more 'major' sounding jams.  There is plenty of stuff online about the modes and approaches that Garcia tended to favor in his improvisations, and I am not the person to go into depth about it.  But what struck me -- and what may strike you, even if you don't play or usually think about this stuff -- is how Garcia's decision changes the color and direction of the jam, giving it a flavor that sounds a lot like Sugar Magnolia, of all things.  Keith Godchaux picks up on it and, though I wouldn't quite label it a "Sugar Magnolia jam," it does sound like they are both thinking along those same lines.

Later Don't Let Go's made that modal shift a standard thing: versions from the 80's-90's start in the blues scale (or pentatonic, I guess) and then usually shift gears into a "jazzier" jam with Garcia centering on a different mode (paging any more experienced musicians here).  But he never did it like he does here, as far as I know.  All other 1976-78 versions that I know of either stick to that blues feel straight through, or jump ship at some point for freer spacey playing.  Which makes this debut version unique in my book.

The rest of the show is cool, too, if you're inclined to listen through the aud tape realities.  After Midnight has a hot jam, Who Was John is a good time as always, and there is some beautiful Keith/Jerry counterpoint (a 76 hallmark) happening in Sitting in Limbo.  If you're eying the text file suspiciously, fear not: Knockin' is not really 24 minutes, just a glitched file with some cuts and repeated sections (although the climax is excellent).  Plus, this is probably the best they ever pulled off the Stones' Moonlight Mile, with Tutt and Kahn thundering away before a nice vocal climax.  All in all: worth it for all you 76 JGB lovers.  All 11 of you.

improvisational music should not be recorded

Summertime.  Uncertain reassertion of degrees of normalcy in pandemic times.  While pondering my treatise on the merits of the JGB circa 1976, I was distracted by my record collection and, for no reason whatsoever, pulled out Miles Davis' Filles de Kilimanjaro to have a gander at it.  I looked at the liner notes on the back and did a doubletake when I saw that Ralph J. Gleason namechecks Dannie (sic) Rifkin, "longtime student of improvisational music" -- or, to you and I, manager and family member of the Grateful Dead.  Besides Danny Rifkin, Gleason quotes Gil Evans, André Gide, Edgard Varèse, and David LaFlamme in his assessment of Miles' latest directions in music.  I am not sure what to make of that.

Rifkin seems to have been slightly overshadowed by other personalities in the Grateful Dead story, but a cursory look at the literature reminded me that in addition to managing the band on and off through the decades, he was the guy who originally managed the house at 710 Haight-Ashbury, instituted the Dead's mail-order ticket service, and spearheaded the creation of the Rex Foundation.  But a manager of the Grateful Dead saying improvisational music should not be recorded but only heard once?  Say it ain't so.

5/15/75: the soles of my feet / I swear they're burning

Rick Griffin's proposed but unused LOM logo; courtesy WorthPoint

JGMF recently revisited the 5/21-22/75 Keystone tapes, which I had earmarked as some of the best Legion of Mary shows.  But, like him, a cursory relisten left me a little underwhelmed, in spite of the fantastic quality of the recordings.  So I dug into another old favorite, 5/15/75 at the Great American Music Hall, and was happy to hear that it still held up as a contender for some of the best of LOM.*  The aud tape isn't as special as those Keystone recordings, but it's still a very solid pull by Bob Menke and Louis Falanga, "upfront but not onstage."  The sound is muddier, but also features the full band in a more natural balance, with Kahn's bass cutting through quite nicely in particular.

Garcia seems a little more fired up than usual.  I have had the sense while listening to 74-75 era Garcia/Saunders/LOM that Garcia occasionally sounds like he was -- well, I don't want to say along for the ride, but perhaps not quite as committed as Fierro or Saunders.  But that is not the case tonight.  When I Die and Every Word You Say are strong but unremarkable warm-up numbers, and the first song that really finds a groove is I Feel Like Dynamite.  Even though Garcia seems to fudge the bridge more often than not, and there's a bit of trainwreck at the end, the energy during his solo is sizzlin' (nice climax!) and the groove is undeniable.  This Wicked Messenger is a rightfully well-known version and is off the charts: this sounds like it was a beast to sing, but the slowed-down arrangement with that monstrous never-ending riff lets Garcia get really down 'n dirty, and his relentless playing here is as nasty as it gets.  Day By Day from the musical/movie Godspell (and a charting single in 1972) is quite a change in mood; this must be from the Aunt Monk songbook, and Garcia doesn't sound super confident with it (this is the first of three known LOM performances).  It's got a vibe, but to be honest, I am not sorry they didn't develop this one much further.  But it's back to the bakery for a killer Mystery Train, with Tutt* effortlessly nailing down the groove and everyone else in fine style -- they bring the dynamics way down for Garcia's last solo chorus, which is a nice touch.

* big edit: JGMF has raised the question of the drummer's identity, and a minute of reengaging with Mystery Train has me convinced that the drummer tonight is not Ron Tutt.  Tutt always played a very distinctive beat on Mystery Train that emphasized the sixteenth notes on the high-hat (fwiw, this is well-illustrated on 4/6/75, 4/12/75, and 4/20/75, if you'd like to compare), and that is not at all what this drummer is playing.  This drummer also lets Garcia and Kahn establish the tempo and waits a few bars before coming in, which is not what Tutt ever does.  And listen to the "well I went down to the station" breakdown: Tutt always lets the dogs out here, whereas this drummer leaves much more space.  And the documentation supports this: Jerrybase notes that both the advertisements and Betty/Rex's tapes list the band as Garcia & Saunders, not Legion of Mary, which is further indication that Tutt was not present, and was not planning to be.  We now return you to this post:

The second set delivers the goods from top to bottom.  I'll Take a Melody is as good as any of these early versions, and You Can Leave Your Hat On cooks up a voodoo soul stew of the highest order; Saunders and Kahn are stirring up something outrageous under Garcia's solo.  I love this one!  Freddie Hubbard's Little Sunflower gets its first of six known LOM airings (it's also on the Aunt Monk w/Garcia 5/9/75 show as well) and Garcia soars on this one, sounding way more on top of things, and gobbles up his two solos.  Neighbor Neighbor is pumping, and Boogie on Reggae Woman ends the set with Saunders and Fierro showing some signs of a long night's work -- but not Garcia, who still sounds rarin' to go.

So: a top-notch Legion of Mary show.  Melody and Wicked Messenger were released on the patchwork Jerry Garcia Collection, Vol. 1: Legion of Mary set, but the whole show (or 5 reels of it anyway) were part of the "third batch" of Bettyboards returned to the vaults, and I would humbly submit this one to the powers-that-be as a good candidate for a full release.

Interesting/frustrating side note: after this show (a Thursday night) the band spent an unusual out-of-town weekend in St. Louis, MO (Friday) and Austin, TX (Saturday-Sunday)... of which no tapes are known to exist.

 

11/23/86: I know all the words

photographer unknown; I got these from thejerrysite (RIP)

I am doing some spring e-cleaning and found old listening notes for 11/23/86, the "Log Cabin Boys" show that beget the Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band -- it's more just a transcription of whatever conversation I could make out.  Calling it a "show" is a stretch: David Nelson and Sandy Rothman had been playing some music with Garcia as he was in recovery from his coma, and they wound up playing together at the Dead organization's Thanksgiving party (the Sunday before Thanksgiving, actually).  The Dead hadn't played publicly yet, but Garcia had a couple of JGB and Garcia/Kahn gigs under his belt at this point (including a big Halloween show at the Kaiser) and had played a few songs with Weir and Hart at a benefit the night before this (video here).  In 2012, Rothman and Nelson talked about it:

DN: By November, Jerry was getting out and doing stuff again. When it came time for the annual Grateful Dead Thanksgiving party, it was decided to have it at the Log Cabin in San Anselmo, CA. It’s an American Legion hall kind of place, but really nice – designed like a log cabin. And the three of us were the “Log Cabin Boys” for the night.

SR: We were all just sitting around a table with all the other families and people milling around in typical party fashion. Everybody was doing what they were doing and occasionally listening to us. I guess we were providing ambient music in the room, but it wasn’t like a performance – just a lot of fun.

DN: Before the party, Sandy and I were saying to each other, “Jeez – Jerry’s just been to the ends of the universe and back; what’s he going to remember about those old tunes?” So the two of us tried to put our heads together: “Let’s try that song,” and, “I think I remember how that one goes.” By the end of the evening, we realized that Jerry remembered more of the words than we did! But that was the way Jerry always was: listen once; play it.

I pull this recording out maybe once a year and always get sucked into it: if you've never given it a close listen, it's about as fly-on-the-wall as you can possibly get, listening to Garcia sitting in a corner at a party, picking tunes, and shooting the shit.  The performances are all fine, but assessing them is missing the point: they're not really even performances, anyway.  It's amazing that someone even taped it (big thanks to Steve Marcus), but unlike the Garcia/Grisman/Tony Rice "Pizza Tapes" session, there's no audible sense of occasion here, and if Nelson or Rothman had any bigger ideas about the event, they keep it cool.  One big question I do have is about the note in the text file that Dan Healy adds guitar and vocals but "does not play on the last 4 or 5 songs" -- I wonder if it's the other way around (that he shows up for the last 4-5 songs).  He's right there in one of the pictures with a guitar in hand, but I don't hear a trace of him playing at all, and only a snatch of his voice (in conversation, not music) near the end.

Otherwise, I have no comments on the music itself, other than to say that this is a delightful and priceless document of a pivotal moment in Garcia's latter day history.  There are some key pull quotes here, too, if that's your thing (I've put the really good stuff in bold).  Anyway:

d1t01.  The first thing you can hear is Jerry warming up and crowing:
JG: Fuck! So rusty, man!  My fingers, they don't know each other any more.
DN: Let's try a few and then we get in tune as we go.  That's the best way to get in tune, right?
JG: Good idea.  Let's start with something simple, Dave, and then we'll move onto something a little more difficult.
DN: OK, how about Freight Train Boogie?
And off they go.  Nelson sings lead.

They tune and chat for about 5 1/2 min - joking around about tuning up
@5:18-5:25: a really little kid is calling "Garcia!"
DN is taking a while to get in tune, prompting some wisecracks.
JG: Nelson, you're all fucked up!  
DN: Not yet, not yet.  Wait a sec, then I'll be all fucked up.
More joking around about tuning.  DN tells a story about one of Bill Monroe's bass players who would never tune.  Nelson tells a lot of stories over the course of this musical hang.

DN plays Rosalie McFall melody @9:27
JG: Ahh, great song, man. 
SR(?): Me too, that's one of my all time favorites. 
DN: Anybody know the words? 
JG: Sure I know all the words.
SR: You still know 'em? 
JG: I know all the words.  Play that sucker.

d1t02. Rosalie McFall
SR: [asks Jerry something inaudible]
Jerry: No, uh, that's "Little Glass of Wine."  That's also E or D.

d1t03. Little Glass of Wine - they just dive right in!  sweet.
JG: I love that song, I love that friggin' song. 
DN: yeah. 
JG: It's one of the world's greatest tunes. 
DN: It really is, one of the world's greatest tunes.
[they talk about some additional verses, tune some more, inaudible chatter.]
JG: --sing some more tunes if I can remember the words.  I love to sing bluegrass music.  Seems like the only chance to do it (?).  Oh, do "Drifting Too Far from the Shore"?

d1t04. Drifting Too Far From the Shore
They start, then stop to futz with the harmony arrangement, then do it for real.
JG: It's too bad one of us isn't a real tenor.
Someone hollers for "Wild Horses."
JG: I don't know if anybody here knows it.  I don't know the verses.  Pete Rowan knows them.  That's a great song, though.

dt05. Devil in Disguise - DN sings lead.
JG: Who's tune is that? 
DN: Graham Parsons.  I always liked that tune, one of the Burritos' first tunes from when the Burrito Bros first came out.
[inaudible talk about Parsons]
JG: --that motherfucker, boy, hearts would stop in the audience. It was beautiful.
[more talk about Parsons].

d1t06. Two Little Boys
JG: Yeah, that's a great little song. 
DN: Yeah.  Civil War song.
JG: [sings] "Can't you see, Jack, I'm all a-tremble."  That's a great verse.
party-goer: Ah, you guys, give it up! 
JG: Hey, dice(?) buddy! Who asked you?
DN calls Cold Jordan.  They pick a key and work out the harmonies. 

d1t07. Cold Jordan
JG: I love that, that's my favorite.  We need a quartet, not a trio.  We need a bass singer.  That's for Willie Legate.  [inaudible, laughing]
The same party-goer who heckled them before (is that Willie Legate?) comes and talks about the lyrics with them > long semi-audible conversation about Catholicism, Latin mass, other stuff.  Jerry mentions reading in the National Enquirer that Canadians are the dullest white people in the world?  I have no idea.

d1t08. On and On
JG: Boy, it's fun to sing bluegrass.   
DN: Bill Monroe.  Nothing like a good ol' Monroe song.
@3:32 JG: I'm gonna get me a drink, you guys want something to drink?  Just something wet? 

Jerry tells someone they're taking a break and will play more.  In the text file for the circulating fileset, this is noted as a "setbreak," but it's no longer than a lot of the other breaks between songs. 
Jerry comes back. 
JG: What do you wanna bet we could burn out everybody in this place?  No, they're gonna throw us out! 
Chatting about their beers seems to inspire the next tune.  They pick a key.

d1t09. Drink Up and Go Home
JG: I just love that song.  One of my favorite bar songs. 
[they joke around about the "blind man" line].
SR suggests Mystery Train.  They talk about it - inaudible, but they're talking about some particular version.  tuning.

d1t10.
JG: It's like Six White Horses.  -> they ease into Mystery Train
JG sings the verses, DN sings a verse from Six White Horses, JG ends with Mystery Train
JG: That's got a lot of good verses, but I don't remember 'em.
DN: Funny thing about that one is that the bluegrass verses are the same, they're pretty much the same. 
JG: It's all part of that same one song.  That blues song.
DG: Who was it, Clyde Moody? 
SR: I get the verses mixed up with Folsom Prison Blues.
JG: It's the same trip. [...]
DG: Elvis got it from-
JG: He got it from Big Boy Crudup. 
DG: Yeah, and the same words, the very same words come from the bluegrass guy who sang with Bill Monroe, Clyde Moody.  And it's the same thing: the train I ride, sixteen coaches long... 
-> semi-inaudible story that DN tells about a dream he had about Bill Monroe.  JG talks about seeing Bill Monroe on television.
More chatter and tuning for Life's Railway to Heaven: JG is talking about someone and how much he likes his singing and new album(?), they crack some jokes about Marlon Brando, then Jerry talks about what a good singer Robert Duvall is.
DN: I don't really know all the words to Life's Railway to Heaven.
JG: We'll blunder it.

d1t11. Life's Railway to Heaven
JG: I don't know the melody of that, really.
DN tells the story of how he learned Diamond Joe - hard to make out

d1t12. Diamond Joe
JG: Great song.
DN: Yeah, great song.  I love that song.
SR: It just comes out.
Jerry mentions that the New Lost City Ramblers played it.
DN: Let's do, uh--
JG: Remember that, oh jeez, I don't remember that at all.
SR: What were you going to say?
JG: I was thinking of, um, oops.

d1t13. banter
SR suggests a "A Little at a Time" and sings a bit of it.
JG: I remember that, it's cool ... Remember that Buzz Busby tune "Gone, Gone, Gone?" [sings] ...it's just an amazing tune.
SR: Not "Lost"?
JG: Yeah, "Lost."
SR: Oof, that's like as far into it as you can get. 
JG: [sings] "Lost in a world without you."  It's a great fucking song.  Great record, amazing record.  The solo on that is so soulful, it's so great.  Really, one-of-a-kinder. They don't get no better than that. 
SR: Or deeper.  
JG: Yeah, or deeper.
[more talk about Buzz Busby and then someone else]
JG: They're so many great songs, I wish I knew some of 'em. 
They chat about "A Voice From On High."  Jerry's trying to remember another song.
JG: We used to do it, too, as a quartet, you, me, and Weir, and Marmaduke. 
DN: Yeah, Voice From on High and, uh, let's see.
JG: The other ones we did, besides Jordan. 
DN: Yeah, it wasn't "Find Me Lifted Up."
JG: "Find Me Lifted Up" is a nice one, but it's that other one -- Swing Low Sweet Chariot.

d2t01.  Swing Low Sweet Chariot
They talk about other verses and keys. 
David tunes more.  Then not much chatter here.
DN: How about that one, that Willie(?) song.

d2t02.  Drifting with the Tide - DN sings lead. 
JG: That's a really good song.
DN: I love that song.
SR: This one?  You can do it. 
JG: Real high but we can do it. 
SR: Low and loathsome. 
JG: (laughs) Low and loathsome.  That's a great name for a band.  (they all crack up). 
DN: The low loathsome sound.
JG: Well shit, we oughta get together and play some bluegrass sometime. 
DN: I'd love to do that.
SR: Me too. 
DN: I'd find some other guys to--
JG: --sure, that'd be fun.
DN: Yes. I've finally gotten down to learning the words and everything to a bunch of songs.
JG: [sarcastic] I can do that too, Nelson (laughs). 
DN: I used to avoid it like the plague, y'know. 
JG: It's really easy to learn words, shit, I've been learning like pages and reams of words for years, I'm not real good at it.  Bluegrass tunes only have 3 or 4 verses. 
DN: Yeah.  I'm starting to think of pneumonic devices.
JG: I mean, I've just started to understand singing too.  It's like one of those things, if it gets to you late, y'know what I mean.  Singing's one of those things that'll really flash on you [inaudible]
[lots more chatter about learning songs and singing - hard to make out and transcribe]
It's one of those things, you flash on it and all of a sudden it's like Oh Man ... hearing your voice in that context where it sounds good, the room sounds good, the accompaniment sounds good ... it's really a special thing, I mean, the power of the voice... 
[Healy?]  The rooms where voices work make it really easy to do that.
[Nelson starts talking about playing here before?]
JG: We've got to get together and work some bluegrass out ... I would love it.  I love the music, and I hate being rusty.  And it don't take too long, y'know, just one of those things that a couple of times a week [?] and you just have it.  We'd get it, we have enough experience and shit.  ... The whole thing is working up a book, that's the cool thing about bluegrass is-
DN: There's always some version way back there in your head. 
JG: It's amazing, when you get back there, it's like [inaudible] like Little Glass of Wine,  hey it's been like 12 years since I've even thought of that song ... and a lot of them are like that, like imprints.
[inaudible].

Healy (I thinnk?) starts telling a story about a room he plays in, but then it sounds like a woman physically bumps into Jerry and offers him something.
JG: Aw no, you're gonna make me smoke it?
woman: You don't have to.
JG: Yeah, I'd just as soon save it, okay?  You can set my nose on fire.
woman: No, I--
JG: Thanks, actually not.  All right, this is enough.  (laughs)
//tape cuts here.


Hmm.  At the risk of editorializing, this seems like there's a lot you can read into this little exchange.  The burden of being Jerry and all that.



d2t03.  Angel Band - Rothman lead vocals
JG: Yes boys.  That's a great song.
SR: (singing) "oh the cry from the cross"  [sounds of approval]  Nobody knows that.
JG: I know, that's another great song [sings some of it]
SR: Do you know any words to that?
JG: I think I might.
SR: Really? I can follow, I don't know 'em.

d2t04.  The Cry from the Cross
They give the words a shot, then pick a key. Jerry sings lead, they stop and change keys and try again.
JG: That's a great song!  What's that other song, that Stanley Brothers gospel song... 
DN: Yeah, same record, [inaudible]
SR: That's a great song, too.  
DN: It's got Orange Blossom Special on it, and it's got Voice From On High.  [the record he's talking about, fwiw, is Country Pickin' and Singin' from 1958]
JG: Voice From On High.

d2t05.  A Voice From On High
Nelson sings lead
JG: That's a great freakin' song!  Those inversions are a bitch.  Oh shit!  How did they do it all those years?  [sings some of it again].
SR starts playing a mandolin run,
DN: Yeah, play that one.

d2t06.  Shady Grove/In Despair
This is the fast bluegrass version, not the same as Garcia/Grisman's.
Nelson & Garcia swap verses, then forget the words.  SR sings "In Despair" lyrics instead. 
and they segue right into

d2t07.  Love Please Come Home
JG sings first verse, SR sings second, it's too high for DN.
applause after this (for this first time). 
DN: Why thank you everybody. [all laugh]
[DN & SR talk about some tune that Jerry can't remember.]

JG: Hey, I gotta take the gang home ... 
girl: Jerry, I was telling them you were gonna teach me how to play right now.
JG: [laughs] Oh sure, you got five minutes? I'll teach you everything I know.

And the tape ends a few seconds after that.  Time to go sleep off those post-turkey blues!