1/19/73 Jerry wants cream and sugar

I hadn't listened to 1/19/73 at the Keystone in years, but a little discussion about bass players and musicians who subbed with Garcia/Saunders led me to circle back to it, one of the rare recordings of "solo Jerry" without John Kahn.  Bassist Marty David was holding it down tonight instead.  So, here are some listening notes, made with an ear tilted more towards the bass.  I'm sure we'll never know why Kahn missed this particular night, but Marty David does a fantastic job: he seems familiar with nearly every tune, and has a slightly lighter and cleaner touch than Kahn, favoring a slightly busier approach, though never to the point of overdoing it, and it all comes together quite nice.

Sarah Fulcher, by Jim Needham

• I am not weighing in on Sarah Fulcher's contributions to this lineup, and if you are reading this, chances are good that you already have an opinion. Jesse Jarnow's interview explains the situation; in her defense, she says she "did the best I could under pretty much the worst circumstances in the universe" for a singer.  I did notice that, late in the show, a guy in the audience asks who she is and Jerry introduces her; it sounds like the guy yells, "Sarah sings nice!" and Jerry replies, "yeah."
  
• There were several tunes that were practically unique to this lineup, and this show kicks off with the only known recording of a peppy and most certainly off-the-cuff arrangement of King Harvest's fun, goofy 1972 hit Dancing in the Moonlight (written by Sherman Kelly; quite a story), as Betty gets the mix settled. It's a good time!
• Can't ever go wrong with Lonely Avenue.  This one doesn't have the imperial heaviness of 2/6/72 or 5/4/73, but is nevertheless nearly 18 1/2 minutes of Jerry throwing around blues licks and playing some serious guitar.  Notably, this is significantly longer than the versions played on 1/15/73 and 1/25/73, which are each a little over 12 minutes long.  Here my ears perked up around 8:15ish at a flurry of pinched harmonics (ala Roy Buchanan or Robbie Robertson), some Buchanan-esque volume swelling @11:20, and Jer piling on the intensity around 13-14 min for some climactic energy.  Merl gets a little space to say his piece, but this is pretty much all Jerry. It also caught my ear that Merl spends more time on electric piano (heavy wahwah) than Hammond organ here, giving this a more spacious feel, but maybe at the cost of some melodrama.  A couple songs later, Jimmy Reed's It's a Sin gets a similarly fine performance: it was a good blues night for Jerry!
• Expressway - I am hearing Marty David as being a tad more on top of the beat than Kahn usually was, giving this one a nice crisp pop.  Kahn tended to lean back and lumber a bit on this tune.  Sarah sings intermittently, and they've all achieved liftoff by 7 min in -- this is pretty cooking.  During Sarah's "solos," I appreciate how the rest of the band is attentive to slowly bringing up the energy, which then gives Jerry a nice place to blast off from when it's his turn.  I hear a tiny bit of synthesizer from Merl towards the end (17:40ish) and it's all over at just under 20 min. 
• Before The System, it sounds like Jerry is maybe explaining something about the tune to Marty David?  Oh man, Merl's electric piano sounds tasty at the start of this.  This sure is funky, but it's also nearly 28 minutes long, and the jamming is all on one chord -- my only issue with this is that Marty David holds down that bassline for all its worth (completely understandable) and isn't hearing where Jerry or Merl seem like they're ready to cut loose and stretch a little further afield.  A couple times they do slip out of the groove, but never for long.  Merl gets to flex a bit more on all three keyboards, Sarah has a few moments but nothing too intrusive, and Jerry sounds happy to just ride it out.  And so they do.  Afterwards, Sarah asks for a cup of coffee; "oh, two cups of coffee. Jerry wants cream and sugar, and I'd like to have mine with just cream, please."  Priceless.
• I always like hearing them play Honey Chile, and Jerry sounds great, but I couldn't help but feel like they're running that same I-IV-ii-I progression forever.  Gimme a bridge already!  Jer can certainly handle it, but yeah, I can see why he eventually moved away from this being a primary focus of his side projects.  He then announces the break and Betty lets the tape roll for a minute longer, catching some jazz-flutey ambiance from the PA music, always a nice touch.  That was a long set at least an hour 45 minutes!  And pretty damn fine, I would say.

• The second set is shorter (just over an hour) and less remarkable to my ears.  Sarah seems more like the "featured singer" on more material here, which all sounds well done to me.  She steps upfront for two of her original(?) tunes plus Georgia On My Mind, which is a fantastic version.  Someone from the crowd asks Jerry who the chick singer is (groan) and Jerry introduces her just as Sarah.
• Again, Marty David sounds excellent on everything.  Before Soul Roach, it sounds like Jerry asks him if he knows the tune -- which he evidently does, since he's nailing all the hits at the beginning of it.  I wonder if he had also played with Merl before?  And notice him during the closing How Sweet It Is, another fine place to hear how he differs from John Kahn.

So who was Marty David anyway? All I know about him is that he went on to be a session musician, but was working at the time with Van Morrison and Jesse Colin Young. Most immediately relevant to our purposes, he was also in Sarah Fulcher's own local group with Bill Vitt (who had brought her to the Garcia/Saunders group) and future-JGB keyboardist Ozzie Ahlers (per Corry) -- so he was probably the most obvious choice as a sub for this gig. You can also hear him playing on two tracks on Hard Nose the Highway and with Van on 2/15/73 at the Lion's Share (broadcast on KPFA and bootlegged), although not on the subsequent tour that was documented on It's Too Late to Stop Now.  Later that year he also toured with Jesse Colin Young: you can hear 10/?/73 Paul's Mall in Boston (etree), 10/31/73 Portland ME (Wolfgang's), 11/19/73 Ultrasonic Studios in Hempstead, NY (etree),  and 12/15/73 Winterland (video + audio at Wolfgang's) (this was the same show, incidentally, where Jerry sat in with the NRPS on a Telecaster), and also played on Young's 1974 album Light Shine (again with Ozzie Ahlers).  He was from Brownsville in Brooklyn, and had also previously been a New York-based band called Holy Moses!! that released one album in 1971, which provides the one picture of Marty David that I could find:

but which of these men is Marty David?