2/5/74: Martin and Martin?

[addendum, 2024: I'm adding a small further bit of defense for my theory below]

A casual listen to Garcia & Saunders at the Great American Music Hall on 2/5/74, to double-check a comment about a mystery guest saxophonist, yielded (of course) a scad of observations that are not quite as coherently unified as I would like.  But such is the practice of observation, I guess.

2/5/74, courtesy gdsets

The recording of this show:

This show (and its neighbor, 2/9/74 at the Rheem Theatre in Moraga, CA) are unusual for being recorded a by taper, Ed Perlstein, who was able to connect his deck to a feed from the soundboard.  He got unplugged at the Rheem, but taped the full show on 2/5.  One drawback of a straight sbd feed is that it's not meant to be heard in isolation, i.e. at home (which is no fault of Mr. Perlstein's, of course): it's a mix for the room that is supplementing the sound coming from the band's gear onstage, so we get very prominent vocals, kickdrum, and saxophone, a little bit of everything else, and less electric guitar, since Garcia's amps tended to be really loud.  At times, his guitar is almost inaudible on this tape, which is not a point in its favor.  The 2/9/74 tape doesn't suffer from this as badly, but it was also a bigger venue (it held 1000; the GAMH held less than half that, see below).

The show itself:

is enjoyable, but not one for the ages.  To my ears, 1/17/74 at the Keystone is the one great performance from the first half of the year (which got better as it progressed: see the 6/4-6/6 shows, much of August, and Paul Humphrey's run in October-November).  2/5/74 sounds like it was a fun old night at the office for the band, who play nothing wildly inspired, but are in a nice, loose, happy groove.  I am pretty sure that Billy Kreutzmann is on drums, and he gives everything an ideal swing and pop -- it's always worth highlighting what a great drummer he is, even if he rarely stands out like Paul Humphrey or even Ron Tutt would have.  But check his work on Someday Baby, Roadrunner, It's Too Late: all meat 'n potatoes rhythm & blues, but Billy K puts 'em all right where they should be.  In terms of highlights from Garcia, though, there's not a lot that stands out to my ear.  Tunes that blossomed into more extended vehicles elsewhere are relatively restrained here: La-La, My Problems Got Problems, Wondering Why, Are You Lonely For Me, and so on.  My favorite "jam" here is My Funny Valentine, stretching past 20 minutes and worth every second.

Martin Fierro and the mystery saxophone:

Maybe it's my imagination, but Fierro seems to be given more of the spotlight early in the night: he gets the first solo on the first song, Someday Baby (nice touch to hear Garcia call out "Martin!"), and follows it with La-La, his own composition.  One big mystery of this show -- the reason, actually, that I revisited it -- is that a second saxophone is audible for almost the entire second set, starting at the end of The Harder They Come.  A few mystery trumpet players notwithstanding, I think there is only one other recording of a guest saxophonist from this period: 9/2/74, a baritone sax which might be Snookie Flowers.  What stands out about 2/5 is that this second saxophone doesn't take a single solo, as far as I can tell.  Nearly everything he(?) plays are simple unison lines with Fierro, with pretty close harmonies.  At no point does this second saxophone seem to do anything other than mirror what Fierro is doing: there are some very brief moments in My Funny Valentine and Are You Lonely For Me where the two horns are playing lines that are independent, but otherwise they are in lock-step with each other.  The only times that the second sax disappears is during Wondering Why -- where Fierro plays flute -- or when Fierro is taking a proper sax solo of his own (e.g. Think).

So, I wonder, is this actually a second horn player, or is it all Fierro?  It's not an electronic harmony effect (those exist now, but I don't know if they did in 1974, and Fierro doesn't seem to have used any electronic attachments until later that summer, anyway).  Could he have been playing two horns at once, a la Rahsaan Roland Kirk?  In jazz, that technique is associated almost exclusively with Kirk (who could do it with three), and although many surely dismissed it as a gimmick, it was nevertheless done.  To my knowledge, George Braith was Kirk's only contemporary who regularly used the technique on his recordings, but search Youtube for "two saxophones at once" to see more contemporary examples.  Here is Jeff Coffin (of Bela Fleck & the Flecktones and the Dave Matthews Band) demonstrating how it's done (start at 4:30).

Granted, if this is the case, this would be the only Garcia/Saunders recording where he does this, which would also be pretty strange.  But is it as strange as a second saxophonist playing nearly perfect unison parts with Fierro all night -- but never taking a single solo break -- for just this one performance?  Nothing that both horns plays is in any way complex, mostly just little accompaniment riffs, but it seems far too tight to be just an off-the-cuff guest appearance, and I can't imagine that Fierro and another player would have rehearsed for this.  I can far more easily imagine Fierro playing two horns, then never doing it again after a single raised eyebrow from Garcia, or simply because it was a pain in the ass.

Any thoughts?

[edit: I posted more evidence in the comments.  I'm not going to re-edit this post, though, so see below if you're still not buying it]

[addendum Nov 2024; this occurred to me out of the blue today and I wanted to add it here rather than tuck it away down in the comments]

Further thoughts on why Fierro might have done this just once at this one particular show: consider the sense of occasion.  As outlined below, this show established the GAMH as Garcia's San Francisco room of choice for the next year-and-a-half.  I wonder if it also wasn't something of a debut for Fierro?  Granted, he'd already been playing with the band in a more casual capacity -- he plays on 7/19/73 and 10/2/73 (Winterland) which were both unusual shows with added musical guests; he's on two of the four circulating Keystone shows from Oct-Nov 73 -- but there are plenty more known G/S shows with no tape/setlist, so we don't know how regularly Fierro was present.  On the next available tape, 1/17/74 Keystone, someone in the crowd asks who the sax player is and Garcia introduces him by name.  So it seems safe to assume he may not have been established as a band member yet (or maybe he was and that's just some doof asking what many people already knew?).  So now, on 2/5/74, the band is playing a bigger, fancier space than the Keystone, right in the heart of San Francisco. Maybe no one says so, but maybe the feeling is that something a little special is happening, for Fierro at least. As I said above, Fierro seems to be given more of the spotlight early in the night (Garcia calling him out name as he plays the first solo of the night, then playing his own tune next).  Maybe Fierro figures he'll mark the occasion by trying something a little extra, maybe a tip of the hat to the room's jazz pedigree, and he does the two-horns-at-once thing.  I dunno.  That seems like a thin argument, but it does get at the "why this show and not any other show?" question.

Garcia at the Great American Music Hall:

courtesy gdsets; not much rock & roll!

The Keystone in Berkeley is rightfully considered Garcia's homebase in the 70's until the mid-80's, but he also played the Great American Music Hall a lot in 1974.  2/5/74 marks the beginning of a long stretch.  The economic implications of this are more in the JGMF/Lost Live Dead wheelhouse, but it nevertheless strikes me as interesting.  Do we know who was promoting these shows?  I am sure they were happy to fill all those weeknights (see below) with a money maker like Garcia.  The venue was only slightly larger -- 470 vs. 435 at the Keystone -- but the GAMH appears to have been a much classier joint: it also served food, and the decor was a considerable step up from the Keystone, not to mention that it also sported a pretty colorful history.  The club seemed to book the typically eclectic range of local Bay Area and national acts, but not much in the way of rock & roll.  A few major jazz artists recorded live albums there: Sonny Rollins, McCoy Tyner, Carla Bley, Betty Carter, and Carmen McRae, plus acoustic artists like Doc Watson and David Bromberg.  I am surprised that Old & In the Way never played there.

7/19/73 (Thurs) - the first circulating recording of G/S with Martin Fierro; Fierro said that he first played with Garcia at the Matrix with Howard Wales, but afaik no other evidence exists of that. [partial sbd tape]
2/5/74 (Tues) [sbd tape]
2/12/74 (Tues) [uncirculating Bettyboard, partial?]
3/2/74 (Sat)
3/10/74 (Sun) - David Grisman, Richard Greene & Vassar Clements, with Garcia as guest (no tape); see jgmf
5/2/74 (Thurs)
5/20/74 (Thurs) [uncirculating Bettyboard]

6/8/74 (Sat) [this one is in the setlist databases, but per jgmf: "I highly doubt a 6/8/74 gig with Merl. Dan Hicks and Mark Naftalin were billed at the GAMH."]

7/14/74 (Sun) - with Stephen Stills and Jack Cassady as guests - see jgmf
7/23/74 (Tues)
8/7/74 (Weds)
8/15/74 (Thurs) [aud tape]
8/24/74 (Sat) [sbd tape]
8/28/74 (Weds) [8 tunes released on the "9/1/74" Pure Jerry set; see jgmf]
10/6/74 (Sun) - with Jim Nelson, drums [partial sbd tape]
10/30/74 (Weds)
11/28/74 (Thurs) [sbd tape]
12/16/74 (Mon)
2/27,28/75 (Thurs, Fri) - the first time billed as the Legion of Mary? [2/28 partial sbd tape]
5/15/75 (Thurs) [aud tape]
6/18/75 (Fri) - billed as Garcia/Saunders, not Legion of Mary.  fwiw, I am confident that the tape circulating with this date is actually an aud of 7/4/75.
7/4,5/75 (Fri, Sat) [7/4 sbd tape] (ahem)
7/30/75 (Weds) - maybe? as per jgmf
8/13/75 (Weds) - aka the GD's One From the Vault; see Lost Live Dead
8/20,21/75 (Weds, Thurs) - advertised as the Jerry Garcia Band, actually Keith & Donna Band with Jerry as guest [8/20 partial sbd & aud tape]

unknown (blues?) band, courtesy GAMH via 7x7