the funky funky System

In which I listen to the five known live Garcia/Saunders performances of Merl Saunders' short-lived tune "The System" and make some long-winded observations. Just what it says on the tin, folks.

Merl, 9/2/74, by Greg Gaar

"The System" was, briefly, one of the Garcia/Saunders band's long jam tunes.  Like Saunders' earlier "Man-Child" and slightly later "Merl's Tune," there are only a few known recordings, but each one is stretched to the limit and provides fertile ground for a lot of improvisation.  It was recorded for the Fire Up! lp by the band (with Tom Fogerty) sometime in Dec 72-Jan 73. The track on the album has lyrics, sung by both Saunders and the Edwin Hawkins Singers, although before the earliest live version you can hear someone in the band refer to it as a new instrumental.

[update: commenter nathan pointed out a dumb mistake I made, which I have fixed. So much for proofreading! thank you nathan!]
The song's structure is a modified blues in Bb with an unusual 20-bar form: eight bars of Bb, four of Eb, four of F, and four of Bb (I am sticking to jazz convention here and calling this 20-bar Bb/Bb/Eb/F/Bb progression a chorus).  The jam does away with the progression and just vamps on Bb with no other chord changes.  On the album, they play one 20-bar chorus instrumental, one chorus with vocals, one chorus of Merl soloing on Hammond (with the Hawkins' vocals coming in midway through), then a brief vamp on Bb with Merl soloing on ARP synthesizer before the fade at just under 4 minutes.  Fire Up! wasn't released until April 1973 (according to the mentions of it that I can find in Billboard), so all but one of these live performances are from before the record came out.  

A note about keyboards: Merl usually played a Hammond organ, an electric piano, and a clavinet. For a brief while he also had an ARP synthesizer (not sure of the model; an ARP Odyssey, I presume?), which he played sparingly, but always on The System.  Two trademark sounds of most of these performances is his electric piano upfront, with a generous helping of wahwah pedal, and his ARP coming in at some later point in the jam.

12/28/72 The Lion's Share

This entire show deserves a full write-up: it's fantastic and there's a lot worth commenting on.  The System, the final tune of the night, is missing from the second of the two circulating filesets, so double-check your copy.  Earlier in the set, Roger "Jellyroll" Troy and guitarist/singer Danny Cox sit in, replacing Kahn and Fogerty, and I am pretty sure they are both still playing on this tune. An unidentified trumpet player also makes an appearance; it's apparently not Mike Price, the previously unidentified trumpeter who sat in with G/S a couple of times in 1973-74, and attendee Dave Tamarkin recalls that the trumpeter "just walked up out of the crowd" to play.

After some off-mic banter about the tune (see below), Jerry kicks it off with a Mr. Charlie-ish riff (all later versions are started by Vitt's drums). This version stays with the 20-bar form of the tune for the longest of any of these versions: the play the full form twice (by "play the form" I mean they're just playing the the song without the lyrics, basically just playing through the changes since there's no instrumental melody to speak of), then solo over the changes: Garcia, Saunders, Garcia, trumpet (for 2 choruses), Saunders, Garcia; he keeps on soloing but @11 they stop making the changes and just stick with Bb for the duration.  As they set sail into open waters, Cox's guitar joins Garcia in the improv; the trumpet sneaks back in @11:50 but doesn't add much, and @12:30 Vitt kicks up the tempo. This is a glorious mess, all that you want from a high-energy, all-in group improv like this.  @14 they ease back and shift gears into a new groove, and it sounds like Garcia is proposing a key change to someplace else; but Troy isn't leaving the Bb vamp, so no dice.  They groove along.  After @16ish, it again sounds like Garcia is thinking of spacier places, and Saunders and Vitt seem like they're there with him.  I detect a thread of proto-Slipknot in the fabric @16:28.  The trumpet reenters quietly while Garcia is tearing it up here. @17:45 Cox and Troy start a Bo Diddley rhythm, but Garcia is still flying high, so they don't push it until he comes back down around 19 min.  Troy steps upfront to play a little lead bass, with that trumpet still quietly percolating away.  @19:45 Saunders starts raining down some cool cosmic-sounding ARP stuff, as Garcia hangs in the back with Troy and Cox. Go Merl!  @21 Troy starts playing a distinctive bassline (he's still in Bb), then starts playing more busy/actively, with Saunders still going crazy on the ARP, and Cox and Garcia both going off (haven't heard the trumpet for a while).  Wow.  @22:30 Jerry starts playing a repeated little melodic fragment that Cox picks up on -- this sounds a little Allmansy or maybe AWBYGN-ish (it's not either) -- it sounds like he's trying to rally everyone and bring this all back to earth?  He and Cox toss this figure back and forth between them as everyone slowly comes in for a landing.  24:10 total.  This jam is bananas and, in many ways, the most exciting of these five performances: lightning strikes and catches fire.  Great, great stuff.

beforehand:
As Troy and Cox come onstage a few songs earlier, it sounds like Cox says "don't play no jazz" and Jerry replies that they'll play some blues.  Before The System, there's an off-mic exchange, of which I could make out the following:

Troy(?): Merl, what do you wanna do, brother? wanna do something? ...let's do one of your instrumentals.
Cox(?): Something not too hard.
?: Let's do that new one... How does that new one go?
Jer: What's that?
? The new one of Merl's.
Jer: the one in - ah, you mean the System? Wanna try that? B flat. The System?
? How does it go?
Jer: It's a B flat (someone else: I-IV-V) Kind of like a boogaloo, like a New Orleans boogaloo, something like that... it goes Bb, then it does it a second time, then a third time, it does the same thing [this doesn't make sense and is barely audible]
?: you mean the 5th comes after the 4th?
Jer: Ask Merl, I don't remember. I remember when I play it. I don't really understand it.

"I remember when I play it. I don't really understand it."  Jerry Garcia, ladies and gentlemen. If you don't know, I-IV-V refers to the chord progression: I-IV-V in the key of Bb is the shorthand way to say that the chords are Bb, Eb (the 4th), and F (the 5th) (edit: thank you again, nathan). This is one of the basic building blocks of most blues and bluegrass music, so I'm not sure why Jerry says, "I don't really understand it" --  or why nobody just says it's basically a blues in Bb, just play the first Bb for an extra 4 bars. But whatever.

Then we have three versions played close together.  Given the patchy documentation of early Garcia/Saunders, it's remarkable that we have five shows from January 1973.  Evidently all of Betty's tapes from this month are labeled the "Merl Saunders Experience," which could just be a short lived in-joke, or could signify something else -- I won't speculate here.  Sarah Fulcher was singing with the band for this brief period.

1/19/73 Keystone

I wrote up the full show here, and now have a slightly more charitable opinion of this jam. Bill Vitt's drums kick off this and all subsequent versions, at a slightly brisker tempo than 12/28.  Marty David is playing bass tonight, and after some inaudible off-mic chat about the tune, he picks up on the riff that Garcia is playing and doubles it.  They play the form through once, Saunders solos (2 choruses), Garcia, Fulcher sings (1 chorus; she's not singing anything audibly related to the original lyrics), and then as Garcia starts to solo again they move off into the Bb jam.  The groove is leaner and tighter here.  Garcia solos first, Fulcher sings, @7ish min Saunders moves to the ARP and starts opening the music up underneath her. Marty David holds it down for all it's worth and sounds excellent. Fulcher and Garcia trade the spotlight back and forth and back again.  @15:30 it feels like a change in direction is imminent, but nope, Fulcher moves back in and the jam defaults back to the groove. This happens again around 18 min: Fulcher seems like she's down for where Garcia wants to go, but they never seem to fully detach. The groove is building in intensity, though, working up to a peak @20 min with Garcia trilling a single climatic note. Pretty hot!  Afterwards, Garcia again finds a distinct figure that he repeats a few times to bring everyone back down, and Marty David is right there with him.  But they're not done yet: the two of them hook up for that original bassline/riff as Saunders soloing on wah'ed elec piano - yeah Merl! - this is all pretty nasty funk here.  Fulcher sings over this, and they slowly bring down the intensity while riffing away underneath, and bring things to a gentle stop at 27:43.  Then Fulcher asks for coffee, cream and sugar for Jerry.

1/23/73 The Boarding House (GarciaLive Vol. 12)

This is the first known version with John Kahn back in his regular place.  Immediately a difference is clear: Garcia plays the same funky riff from the other versions, but Kahn's bassline is much simpler and sparser than either Troy's or David's, and leaves a huge amount of space.  This gives Bill Vitt more space to just be the amazing Bill Vitt, and gives Kahn more room/flexibility to ad-lib during the more open jamming; I don't think Kahn's approach is necessarily better or worse than Troy's or David's, but it's a difference.  

They play the form for 2 choruses, Garcia solos, Saunders solo (he's low in the mix!), and then it's off into the Bb vamp.  The tune itself, what little of it there is, seems to be atrophying with each successive version.  Saunders solos first over the vamp, then Garcia steps up.  Kahn is playing a nice rolling, descending bassline in here.  When Saunders moves to the Hammond @6:40 he gets even lower in the mix! What's that about?  Fulcher makes her entrance @7:25 and it seems like everyone makes plenty of room for her.  Speaking of mixes, her vocals are much more present here than 1/19.  Saunders adds a little ARP as she starts singing, similar to the cool descending thing he does on 12/28/72 (@19:50). They turn up the intensity as she sings on.  @10:40 Garcia starts soloing as she continues to bop along, but he backs off quickly and the intensity goes down within a minute.  This seems like the moment in every version when a direction change is being considered.  Fulcher continues free-associating here, Garcia plays a bit more, but the energy feels a little tentative, everyone's waiting for something to launch.  Kahn's playing here is relatively minimal compared with Troy or David.  They don't find a new way to go, so they build the energy back up, Fulcher and Garcia again taking turns leading the band.  After @17 min, the energy changes for real and the vibe gets weirder: Fulcher trucks on, Saunders on ARP, Kahn mostly just sitting on Bb, and Garcia delicately doodling.  And then @18:46 Garcia starts playing, out of the blue, the descending 4-chord progression that we all know as the Mind Left Body Jam.  

Saunders picks up on it quickly, Kahn finds it and perks up (he puts on his Motown hat), and they all start building back up.  The GarciaLive release changes tracks @20:04 when Fulcher starts singing Honey Chile, but everyone else just digs harder into that MLB jam, with Garcia starting to play over this @1:45 (in the Honey Chile track) as he would with the Dead on future MLB jams. Fulcher is singing freely as is her wont, but finds her way back to Honey Chile and @3:40 Garcia makes the shift to the Honey Chile chord progression (which, if I were in charge, is where I would have started the track).

Um, what now?  Where did that come from?  The Dead toyed with this idea a little bit in 1972, but it didn't become a fully-formed thing until fall 1973.  Earlier in the month, Garcia had been in the studio working on Baron Von Tollbooth with Kantner, Slick, et al, but I've never fully invested in the idea that "Your Mind Has Left Your Body" was the primary origin of this jam (more on MLB). A magical little mystery, anyway, and the clear highlight of this jam, which is otherwise the least inspired one so far.  Also, if these tapes were 16-track, why is Saunders mixed so damn low? Fulcher gets more love (mix-wise) on this release than on the older Bettyboards.


1/25/73 The Boarding House

Vitt kicks it off again, but this one is the slowest yet, substantially slower than the previous ones.  There's a cut @1:36 so we can't know how much of the "tune" they play: they all play the form once, then Garcia solos over the form at least one time, but the cut is in the middle of this solo, so it's unclear how much is missing.  After the cut, he wraps up his solo over the form and off into Bb they go.  There's some float time, Garcia solos, Saunders starts on electric piano then moves to Hammond (the stereo image seems reversed on this tape, btw), and Kahn is a little busier compared with 1/23.  The overall feel here is looser, almost laconic, but it's still a groove.  @6:35 Garcia starts cutting the lines and getting a little spacier. Nice mellow flow to all this.  They build it back up, Garcia brings it to a solid peak, then back down into the jazzier/mellower flow.  @10:29 Saunders hits the ARP suddenly with a trumpet-like blast, with some jazzy Garcia comping below.  Nice ARP situation happening here until @12:45ish when Garcia meanders back into the center of things. The tension is slowly building here, but they still stay in that liminal space until @14 min when everything seems to quickly slide downhill into Space and the groove drops out completely.  Spikier, typically "spacey" stuff.  The intensity doesn't hit full-on Tiger or Insect Fear, but goes up and down, up and down, ending with Garcia starting to form some of the Georgia On My Mind chords as everyone splashes about, and @19:13 Garcia nudges them all into Georgia.  Fulcher only comes out now -- she was totally MIA for all of the System.  

That was easily the weirdest and most laid back version so far.  Given the cut, it's hard to say for sure about what's left of the form of the song itself, but I would bet that they took even less time in getting to the Bb vamp on this one.
 

7/5/73 The Lion's Share (GarciaLive Vol. 6) 

One final version pops up five months later (the only one performed after the album was released). Fulcher wasn't at this show, and trumpeter Mike Price sat in for a good part of the night, but not for the System.  Given how the song itself seemed to have been disintegrating throughout January, I wondered what would be left by July.  But Saunders sings his lyrics here!  Pretty tentatively, but there they are.  Another mystery.  His electric piano, which had been a distinctive feature of earlier versions, is missing here completely.  He sings the first chorus, then they play one round of the form, Garcia solos for one round, and then as Saunders takes over they stay on the Bb.  Another big difference here is Bill Vitt: he starts the song off at a peppier tempo than in January, and then keeps turning up the heat, steadily increasing the tempo as they go, from around 80 to almost 100bpm. He's got some fire under him tonight!  Saunders solos for a while, Garcia takes over, the intensity keeps rising, so much so that by @7 min Vitt has doubled up and is playing more of a 4-on-the-floor beat than a funky backbeat. Okay, Bill Vitt, we see you!  @9:15 Saunders cuts some of the heat, and drives for a while on both Hammond and ARP, with a nice airier feel even as Vitt keeps his foot on the gas.  This is pretty cool!  @13:20ish, Garcia steps in to joust with Saunders a bit, and then takes over.  Saunders moves to the clavinet (not something I recall hearing in earlier versions) and @14:35 is playing these chiming whole notes below Garcia, which sounds pretty sweet to me.  As Saunders starts soloing more, he and Garcia find a nice conversational space, both adding equal weight to the jam.  Vitt doesn't let up, Garcia finds a tasty little melodic figure that he locks into, Kahn finds his way into a brief ascending 3-chord progression near the end. At 18 min it comes apart and ends fairly quickly at 18:35.  Wow!  That was an unexpected shot in the arm, but heck yes.  Great stuff.


OK, so what does it all mean?  I guess I can see why the song itself didn't stick: the 20-bar form was a little odd, not rocket science but maybe just odd enough to make it more trouble than it was worth?  Otherwise it's a funky jam on a mostly a one-chord vamp.  The core group, unsurprisingly, seem more comfortable going in different directions, where the first two versions with guests keep it more grounded.  They're all very satisfying performances, the first and last versions sticking with me as particularly inspired, but Garcia/Saunders wasn't lacking for material that could take them to similar places, so maybe this just drifted off the radar.  I dunno.  But this was a fun little rabbit hole to go down. 

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?

12/6/73 at 50: ideal silences

 

There's a quote somewhere (I told the intern to go look it up; dunno where he got to, though) where Jerry says that a song ideally has a moment of pure silence in it. I'm pretty sure he was talking about Stella Blue, but this is a good one to file away next to other nuggets about the musical value of not playing anything.  Silence in Dark Star, or "Space" jams in general, isn't exactly a rare thing, so I don't want to make too much of it: but there are two very small ones in this Dark Star that are perfect, like pinholes into infinity, and I would like to acknowledge them.  It is the 50th anniversary of this behemoth piece of music, and almost 15 years ago I banged out an appreciation about it that needs no revision to sum up my feelings -- but in the years that followed, I have come to love one additional specific thing about it.  

In that original write-up, I mentioned a CD copy of this show that I was fortunate to get sometime between 1999-2001 that tracked the "tuning" and "intro" separate from the main Dark Star.  On that copy, Dark Star itself was tracked when Billy slides into his swinging cymbal beat as Jerry trickles in (@3:10 on the current fileset), but the "intro" began at 1:28 -- the moment where, to my ears, the tuning ends and the gentle but wholly intentional playing commences.  This magical little black dot of silence is what always bring to mind Tom Constanten's words about Dark Star being a thing that you enter, not a thing that you start playing.

The instrumental texture of Keith's Fender Rhodes and Phil's bass chord at 2 min is about a warm a sound as I've ever heard from the Dead (or, really, most anything this side of Jaco Pastorius' "Portrait of Tracy" or John Martyn's "Solid Air," but I digress)

If anything, I downplayed just how much Keith is playing in this.  I wouldn't call it overplaying (although it seems like 300% of what he usually plays), since I do feel that he is completely zoned in and doing exactly what ought to be happening.  But Bob seems a bit more reserved in this, and I suspect part of the reason is that Keith was just taking up more space than usual.  But go ahead Keith!  It sounds perfect.  After the scorched earth Phil/Jerry showdown that decimates the second half of this, who's feeling all perky and ready to get back on the road?  Keith is.

Then at 29:13, comes the second great silence: the only sound is Jerry just scraping a string very quietly, and there's another tiny pause -- debatably there are one or two more in the quiet passage that follows over the next minute.  Everyone is listening so hard and the tension is palpable.  And then things get very, very loud indeed.

10/29/73: contrasting modes and keys

10/27/73, dead.net

I had a fine time revisiting 10/29/73 at the Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis, MO this past week.  An investigation into what exactly was going on in a particularly thrilling passage in the Other One exhausted my limited resources, and I had to call in reinforcements.

"Energetic" is always relative when it comes to certain eras of the Dead, but this first set feels a little more energetic than was typical for this period.  A Cold Rain & Snow opener is always a plus, and the whole initial run of songs feels to me like it has that extra something.  Don't Ease Me In, of all things, feels like the moment when the sparks catch.  Garcia is crackling on Mexicali, and Keith Godchaux sounds divine on Rhodes in Black-Throated Wind and on Steinway in The Race Is On.  The corker is a unusually placed Eyes of the World in the end-of-first-set-jam spot where Weather Report Suite or Playin' usually sat.  It's taken at a brisker tempo than most, and they hit it with a full tank of gas, taking every tight turn with precision.

The second set begins with a less remarkable stretch of music, though heads up for a white-hot Greatest Story and a spot-on Brokedown Palace before the main event.  Truckin' glides along with hints of the Other One, but they turn a corner around 8:30 and lands in a spacious "here comes Dark Star" kind of zone.  But then both Garcia and Weir take a break, leaving the rhythm section to explore for a bit.  Rather than one of those noodly Phil solos, however, the bass, piano, and drums explore a musically jazzy space for a few minutes, and when the guitarists return, the vibe is strong enough that they keep going in this direction for a little while longer.  I find this to be totally divine, psychedelic in the gentlest kind of way.  Kreutzmann solos, and then the Other One itself sticks pretty close to its usual path at first.  After the verse, it drops immediately into a long atonal Space that takes its time building up to the Tiger-ish peak. 

Then the second really interesting thing happens.  At around 15 minutes, Garcia seems to push everyone back into the Other One a little forcefully, but Godchaux decides to assert himself as well.  [Warning: music theory as described by an untrained musician ahead].  Garcia pulls them back into the Other One theme, zipping around (as he typically does) in the Dorian mode.  More or less, of course.  What's unusual here is that Godchaux decides to do something else: rather than follow and complement what Garcia is doing (i.e. playing pretty typical Other One stuff), Godchaux pushes in a different direction, playing in a very different mode.  What does that mean if you're not a musicologist?  It means that Godchaux is playing quite a bit that is further away from the usual Other One stuff that Garcia is playing, sounding a lot more "major," and although what they're doing is different enough to sound unusual, it's not so different that it sounds "wrong."  There certainly are other jams where Godchaux is at forefront, but I cannot think of another one where he is asserting his own contrasting harmonic ideas as strongly as he is here.  And it's not a fleeting moment: they keep this tension going for almost six minutes, until they finally get back in the same lane for the second verse. 

If you're an actual musician and are slapping your forehead at me, here's how my pal John explained it to me [Warning: music theory as described by an actual trained musician ahead]:

me: Talk to me about what Keith is playing relative to the key/mode Jerry is in.
JT: Major, then Phyrgian.  But Jerry’s in dorian.  It’s bi-modal at least, sometimes bi-tonal, but mainly in E.  At times Jerry was in E dorian, and Keith (et al.) were in E Ionian (major).
me: They’re playing in separate modes, but mainly in the same key?
JT: I’d say that’s fairly common that they did the bi-modal thing (combining both thirds and/or sevenths, for example, happened all the time and gives you Mixolydian and Dorian) ...but that this is an extremely outlier example; I can’t recall them playing in such widely contrasting modes before, and/or duking it out between them for so long.

And then John was nice enough to expand further:

For me, the most interesting harmonic stuff is in the first minute. At around 15:00, we emerge from the atonal space into an implied E Dorian (Jerry, playing TOO theme), but this conflicts with the E Ionian/Mixolydian and then Phrygian that Keith layers in. Jerry sounds like he jumps into Phrygian pretty quickly (15:20), and he remains there ca. 15:37 while Keith has shifted to A Ionian/Mixolydian. Phil goes there too, so for a while the band is in A while Jerry’s crunching along in a contrasting mode and key. At ca. 16:04, Keith begins planning (basically moving step-wise up or down; Debussy does this a lot in his piano music, and the technique was adopted by later pianists (I’m thinking of like My Favorite Things-era Tyner [hey now]) who wrote in fourths and who obscured conventional key centers). This recalls Phrygian and leads us by 16:10 to (what sounds like) Keith playing mostly in G and Jerry in E Aeolian/natural minor. By 16:30, everyone has recoalesced around E dorian and we have some “standard” TOO-type playing for a minute+.

By 18:02, Jerry’s playing a pedal point high E while Keith et al. seem to be in A below him. It’s just pretty.

One take away I had hearing this again: Jerry really remains locked into E Dorian then Phrygian then Dorian; even while the others are altering the modes and key centers around/under him, he doesn’t venture too far harmonically from where we end up landing on when the more conventional TOO-type jamming resumes

Or, if now you're just scratching your head, just take Dick Latvala's word for it:

On 10/29/73, there is a pretty long jam that is concerned with The Other One... the playing is spectacular.  The jam from the 10/29 show has simply outstanding jamming around the songs and the songs themselves are examples of the 'best versions' category, especially The Other One..."

Jerry Hahn, Moses, and Merl

courtesy discogs

Jerry Hahn was a guitarist who was active in the 60's San Francisco jazz scene.  His first big gig was with saxophonist John Handy's group (perhaps not well-known to many casual jazz fans today, but Handy was big at the time, having been signed to Columbia by John Hammond), and then with rising star Gary Burton.  Hahn's own debut (Are-Be-In, 1967, for Arhoolie) touched on the same jazz-raga-rock vibe as stuff like Butterfield's East-West, Gabor Szabo's Jazz Raga, or Pat Martino's East.  In 1970, he released the cult-classic The Jerry Hahn Brotherhood, by his group of the same name, on Columbia, which to this day has still never been reissued.  The JHB seems to have worked a lot around the Bay Area, and opened for some major acts on the Fillmore circuit, and Hahn also got the call to play on Paul Simon's debut (post-Garfunkel) album.

Three years later, Hahn recorded a 'solo' album, Moses, for Fantasy Records.  The band was his JHB rhythm section -- Mel Graves on bass, George Marsh on drums -- and Merl Saunders as a last-minute addition, on organ and synthesizer.  Moses is a good record, though not one that I personally return to a lot as a whole album.  Stylistically it's a little all-over-the-place: the title cut (which I can listen to all day) is wonderful, a midtempo funky groove with a vibe that would have fit Garcia/Saunders perfectly; ditto the cover of Donovan's "Sunshine Superman."  Hahn's originals have an edgier, fusion/jazz-rock feel; two of them are 'suites' that jump around even more.  Then there are a few 50's-era standards, played well but comparatively straightforward.  It's kind of an odd mix when taken as an entire album, imho.  But all of it is very good.  imho, if they had cut less material and just stretched out more, it might be even better -- most of the tracks are under five minutes.  Like the JHB album before it, Moses has so far never been reissued in any digital form, anywhere.

So what does this have to do with this blog?  I am curious about the brief intersection of Jerry Hahn and Jerry Garcia and am wondering if there was more to it than is generally known.  I am also interested in this album as it relates to Merl Saunders' own involvement with the scene around Fantasy Records.  But there are no concrete conclusions to draw; so for now, consider some inchoate observations:

• per George Marsh: “[Garcia] had his own group and I met him then and I was in the Jerry Hahn Brotherhood and we played [the Matrix] also ... So one of those times, it was set up that Mel Graves, the bassist, and myself and Merl Saunders played with Jerry one of the nights at the Matrix” (here).  He elaborated in an interview with Jake Feinberg that Saunders played on both of these nights: one night with Marsh, Graves, and Hahn, the next night with Marsh, Graves, and Garcia.  The Chicken On a Unicycle list of Matrix shows (which I realize is both outdated and probably incomplete), don't show Hahn and Garcia ever performing on the same night; there's a back-to-back booking in April 1970 (Garcia Monday night jam on 4/20, Hahn on 4/21-22), but I am pretty sure that Saunders wasn't in the mix at that point [can't be 4/20-21-22; Howard Wales is on the bill for 4/20].  Marsh does dimly recall to Feinberg that he jammed with Howard Wales at one point, but the details are lost.  The JHB also played the Matrix a lot -- 26 times in 1970, according to that list -- so it could easily have been some other time.  At one time, Corry Arnold thought that this Garcia-Saunders-Graves-Marsh performance was that December.  Re: this same general time period, Corry has also speculated whether Hahn might be the mystery guitarist who sat in with the Dead for a brief but unique jam at Winterland on 4/15/70.  Hmm.

• We do know for sure, however, that the Jerry Hahn Brotherhood played at Pepperland in San Rafael on 12/21/70, along with the New Riders, the very short-lived Crosby-Garcia-Lesh-Kreutzmann ensemble, and, possibly the acoustic Dead (per Michael Parrish's eyewitness account -- with pictures! -- plus more via jgmf).  So that's at least two Garcia/Hahn connections, albeit fairly minor ones for two guitarists who were both pretty busy.

• The Moses sessions were Jan 8-11, 1973 at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley.  Four sessions seems like a lot of time for an album like this, but what do I know?  Marsh recalls in the Feinberg piece that the group went in as a trio, but recruited Merl in passing to play on the record.  Corry Arnold also relates that "Hahn was set to record at Fantasy as a trio with Marsh and Graves. However, they saw Merl Saunders in the Fantasy cafeteria, and invited him to play on the album," but also that Saunders was recruited by the producer "so that [Hahn] wouldn't go completely off to Mars" -- for what it's worth, however, the back of the record says Hahn produced the album himself -- which may explain why a fairly small-group jazz record took four sessions to record.  

• Is it possible that Garcia was hanging out at any of these Jerry Hahn sessions with Merl at Fantasy Studios?  Garcia was working on Baron Von Tollbooth with Kantner, Slick & co. on Jan 8-9  (thank you jgmf), but is it possible that Merl mentioned these unplanned studio dates to Jerry, and that Jerry swung by to check it out?  Marsh doesn't say anything about it in the Feinberg interview, so I'm inclined to think not -- but then again, he doesn't mention the Pepperland thing, either, so it's not out of the question.  Given that Jerry circa 1973 seems to have rarely spent an idle day doing something non-musical, it seems conceivable.  Or maybe he was pickin' with Grisman and Rowan on his front porch (pretty likely, actually, per Corry's pre-OAITW timeline), or rehearsing the new batch of Wake of the Flood-era tunes with the Dead, or hanging with Healy and the sound crew working out kinks in the Dead's new PA, or something else entirely.  

• Or could it also be possible that maybe Merl invited Jerry Hahn to come to the Keystone where Garcia/Saunders were playing on Jan 12th-13th?  or perhaps to some other gig?  There are a lot of Jan 73 Garcia/Saunders show that are unrepresented by any tape, and personnel was still fairly fluid in that group at this point.  Second guitarist George Tickner was added for a few shows that spring, as was singer Sarah Fulcher.

• update, Dec 2019: speaking of Sarah Fulcher, Jesse Jarnow interviewed her for the release of the 1/23/73 Boarding House show.  She reveals, "me and Merl and John and Bill Vitt did some recording [at Alembic Studios] with another guy playing guitar, and he sounded just like Garcia.  Well, as much as anyone can."  Jarnow adds this note: "My esteemed colleague Corry Arnold suggests this guitarist might be Jerry Hahn, house guitarist for Fantasy Records."  As far as I  know, Hahn isn't credited on any other Fantasy albums besides his own, but I would be very interested in finding out more.  Wouldn't it be fascinating is this is really what happened?  [JGMF, to the rescue yet again, notes that "On 3/13/73, Betty [Cantor-Jackson] did a session noted as Sarah, Merl, Bill Vitt, 16 track playback," as per files in the GD Archive]

• It is worth repeating that Merl Saunders was a total pro and a master musician.  Anyone who knows something about Garcia's life outside of the Dead has some understanding of the profound influence that Merl had on Garcia's development as a musician, but I still don't know that many Garcia/Saunders fans listen all that closely to Merl as a soloist -- I don't see much in the way of comment about him, at any rate.  Merl apparently just walked in and played here.  I'm sure it was no sweat for him to reel off standards like "All Blues" and "Joy Spring," or the funk of "Moses," but some of Hahn's stuff is pretty spiky and Merl adds just what is needed.  It is also worth noting that Merl is playing some synthesizer on Moses.  The Jan 73 G/S shows are, I believe, the only times that we hear Merl playing a synth in performance (allowing, again, there are big gaps in our knowledge of many of these shows).  On stage, the effect was a bit underwhelming, but he sounds far more comfortable with the instrument in the studio. 

So I dunno: some speculation, some more insight into the musical prowess of Merl Saunders, some interesting musical digressions.  Never a bad thing.  I would certainly like to learn more about Merl's relationship with Fantasy Records/Studios and the influence, direct or not, that it had on the Garcia/Saunders band -- starting, I presume, with Tom Fogerty, and extending into the general influence that the label's output had on Reconstruction (more later, someday).  But, for now, it's just another piece of the puzzle. 

6/9-10/73: Dead and Allmans at RFK

update (Jan 2019): Light Into Ashes has updated his in-depth history of the relationship between the Dead and the Allman Brothers.  Frankly, he does a much better job analyzing the Allmans' portions of these RFK shows than I did.  This is a must-read:

http://deadessays.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-dead-and-allmans.html  

6/10(?)/73, courtesy Neil Fitzpatrick: "A humid haze hung over the entire stadium."

 Summer is upon me, and I closed out my school year by splashing around in a weekend of music that the Dead and the Allman Brothers Band played 45 years ago.  Like many other deadheads, I had a nice copy of 6/10/73 from way back when, but unlike many other deadheads (contrarian that I am), something about it has never quite stuck with me.  Great show, yes; long show, yes; but not one that ever got into my head as a masterpiece.  But the upcoming Pacific Northwest boxset has prompted me to happily revisit this corner of 1973, and a particularly monotonous work-related task prompted me recently to binge on the whole, um, 13 hours of tape that have survived the decades (the opening sets by Doug Sahm and Wet Willie surely must be out there, but I don't have 'em).

For some local color, I highly recommend this excellent historical account of the weekend at the WETA (PBS) blog.  Grateful Seconds has a few contemporary reviews and musings.

My one real revelation was just how sweet 6/9/73 was, the Dead's afternoon show from the first day.  It's nothing that stands up against the best of the year, but from the very start the band is completely in the groove and the music pours out like syrup.  A couple relistens did nothing to change this impression, and I was surprised at how immediately this one hit me -- that they sustain this vibe is all the more amazing given that they were facing down a football stadium full of drunken rock fans in the middle of a very hot afternoon, a few of whom seemed to persist in trying to climb up on the stage.  Even without any major jamming tunes, the first set glows golden from start to finish: hard to pick any highlights, but check this Loose Lucy, which grooves away its troubles for longer than you'd think, or this Looks Like Rain, where I swear that Fender Rhodes piano sounds a little like a pedal steel.  The second set doesn't sport any titanic explorations into the unknown, but the band loads up on the crowd pleasers: a China>Rider that simmers with an ideal '73 energy (though also may claim the most subdued "headlight" verse ever), a Greatest Story with an almost St Stephen tease, a fine if standard He's Gone > Truckin' that veers into this show's one surprise: Phil takes a solo and re-routes them into a low-key spacey jam that you can file next to 3/26/73 or 10/23/73 in your mental list of magical unexpected digression jams from 1973 (oh, you keep lists like this, too?  I knew it).  Garcia suggests Here Comes Sunshine, but no one bites, and things segue as smoothly as can be into Playing in the Band.  Divine!  Playin' is maybe business-as-usual for early/mid '73, but the second half attains some real lift-off and I couldn't have wanted anything more from this show.  As a final cherry, they throw in a shorter (11ish min) Eyes of the World that's plenty punchy, smooth, and satisfying.

Dickey Betts, determined to out-do the Dead's wall of amps 

 I was also surprised by how much I enjoyed both Allman Bros shows.  I'm a Duane-era ABB fan and rarely stray from the Fillmore East album and a small handful of other shows, but these performances both won me over.  I can't say whether one is substantially better than the other.  The ABB played last on 6/9, then played in the middle of the day on 6/10, but the 6/10 tape seems has more of an exciting edge to it, though I readily admit that may be the tape mix as much as the actual playing.  HARD RAWK fans probably weren't thrilled about pianist Chuck Leavell's new presence as Dickey Betts' primary instrumental foil, but I love him.  The 6/9 Elizabeth Reed really favors his buttery smooth electric piano, and I made myself a note about how nice he sounds in Trouble No More, but he's smokin' throughout both shows and brings a really nice color to the overall sound.  But otherwise, there's not much variation, even in the big jam tunes which closely follow the same arcs both nights.  Both ABB shows are also two sets each, and after they say good night on 6/9, Sam Cutler returns to introduce the encore jam: "This is where the scene gets a little loose and various people from various well-known and unknown outfits will be joining the folks onstage to play a little."  Rock and roll!! ...and the band plays Whipping Post, no special guests, sounding like probably every other Whipping Post, that Beethoven of classic rock jams.  But then, according the text file, Bob Weir and guitarist Ronnie Montrose come out for Mountain Jam.  It sounds like Weir's on the left side of the stereo mix and not very loud, whereas Montrose shows up around 3 1/2 minutes in on the right side, much louder.  This is pretty good!  There's more interactive jamming and less of the one-solo-after-another that I had expected, and it's a shame that Weir's so buried in the mix, since he sounds like he's really cooking and pushing hard.  It's a smidge under 21 minutes, and no word is said (on tape) about either guest.  On 6/10, the ABB encored again with Whipping Post, but this time the tape cuts after a few minutes, and I assume nothing else followed.

see above... not too often that the Dead's gear wasn't the tallest thing onstage?

The Dead take the final leg of the second night and kick off the festivities with -- after four hours of southern rock, before tens of thousands of rowdies who had been partying in the hot sun for almost two days -- Morning Dew.  Bwahahaha.  The first set rolls on with a lot of music, but, for whatever reason, very little of it finds a place in my heart along with the best of the year, as well played as almost all of it is.  I'm not finding that pure summer sun vibe that 6/9 had in spades.  Hey, it had probably been a long weekend by that point.  The first set wraps up with a fine (but not inspired) Bird Song and another vintage (and Rhodes-heavy) Playin'.  They select another unusual opener for the second, Eyes of the World, and stretch it to double the length of the previous night: the last five or so minutes get looser and more relaxed than the usual Eyes jam (though they do return to that Dm riff one final time before the end), then lead it into Stella Blue.  Here Comes Sunshine, like Bird Song, is a fine specimen but not one to stack up against the greats.  The Dark Stars from June may not reach the heights of the spring or fall versions, but there's a relaxed, lets-see-what-we've-got-here feel that I appreciate about all of them.  This one starts strong but doesn't manage to sustain its initial energy; Lesh attempts his recurring jazz theme, but no one bites (unlike the great jam in the 6/24/73 Star), and he solos with Kreutzmann for a bit before trying again.  This time they seem to lock into a shared energy and, even though they seem to flit from theme to theme, the whole thing catches some air and glides along nicely.  A grinding Tiger meltdown/insect space follows the verse, leading into a divinely drawn-out He's Gone.  Jerry ignores all Truckin' nudges and modulates them into Wharf Rat, perhaps a questionable double slow-song setlist call this late in the day, and without much jamming to elevate it.  Truckin' ends things with a bang and Sugar Magnolia puts it to bed.  An unusual jam there, all the more unusual for the band choosing to mix things up at pretty high-profile show. 

The final big encore jam ("third set" doesn't seem accurate) features Dickey Betts and Butch Trucks, and Merl Saunders has always been noted as also being present, though no organ can be heard at all.  An out-of-left-field, warm-up version of It Takes a Train to Cry may be the only thing to indicate (or infer) that he's there?  Regardless, things get cooking between Betts and Garcia on a simmering That's All Right (Mama, to you), though the real stars of this may be the drummers who swing and sizzle like no tomorrow.  The guitarists occasionally find their way into some seemingly spontaneous trademark Allman unison lines, but otherwise Garcia seems like he's politely deferring to Betts, and Betts seems either not totally comfortable, or just fraying a bit at the end of a long day and a longer party (it was after 1:00 in the morning at this point).  The same goes for the NFA/GDTRFB sandwich, though pay attention to Weir: he's slashing and burning away back there and working double-time to keep this jam moving at optimum speed.  Nice work, Bobby!

Fun stuff, and I'm glad I took the full ride to put this famous show in its context.  The Pacific Northwest shows (and the following three underrated Universal City, CA shows) must have been like a vacation for the band in between this huge weekend and the Watkins Glen and Roosevelt Stadium bashes a few weeks later, and I think that comes through in the recordings we have.  And I cannot, of course, let this end without a mention that Garcia had just come off a little Old & In the Way tour, ending the night before with a little festival gig on a stage set up in Lake Whippoorwill in rural Warrenton, VA, an hour away from the madness at RFK Stadium, where the crew was probably already at work and raising hell, and fans were starting to line up. 

[edit: dunno how I missed this, but OAITW also played the following night, 6/11, at Temple University in Phildelphia, with Doug Sahm opening!]

2/24/73: at long last

poster by S. Ross, courtesy concertposterauction.com

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

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

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

Hells Angels Forever tracks

Saunders and Garcia, 9/5/73

In a fit of obsessive completionism, I took it upon myself to rip the otherwise-uncirculating Garcia music [edit: see below] from a youtube video of the "documentary" Hells Angels Forever.  The movie has little to recommend unless you're already really in love with the Hells Angels, and I won't even begin listing the problems that I have with it.   Garcia was involved in financing it, and a number of familiar names are thanked in the credits (Richard Loren, Steve Parish, Ramrod, Bill "the kid" Kreutzmann), but I don't know the full story other than the fact that the production was apparently a total fiasco, taking ten years and three directors to complete.  But the movie remains precious for preserving a small few minutes of live footage of Garcia, Saunders, Kahn, and Kreutzmann performing outdoors on a boat at a Hells Angels party on 9/5/73 (there's no other known recording; the tape that circulates with this date is bogus, but [edit] according to JGMF there is an uncirculating tape of this show -- see comments).  There is barely any known footage of Garcia performing with Merl Saunders, and this was apparently also Garcia's debut performance on his iconic Wolf guitar. 

Unfortunately, there's not much music to hear, but what is here is interesting in its own way.  There is a small bit of them very quietly playing what sounds like Georgia On My Mind as accompaniment to a Hells Angel wedding during the party (the film is edited to look like it, anyway), and then a truncated version of That's All Right Mama, edited down to a small bit of the tune itself and one shorter Garcia solo.  Then, over the film's closing credits, there's a studio recording of It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry that I've never heard anywhere else, with some prominent piano [edit: the crowd noise beforehand is from the preceding song (by Willie Nelson) that ends the movie and fades into Train to Cry as the credits roll].  The credits list That's All Right and Train to Cry as being performed by the Jerry Garcia Band and, while That's All Right clearly is obviously not the JGB, I wonder if this Train to Cry might be the 1975 JGB with Nicky Hopkins?  It doesn't sound as much like Keith Godchaux to me, but I'm not positive.  The credits list Garcia's involvement as being from 1973-1977, so it's possible -- or maybe it could be a Compliments outtake with session pianist Michael Omartian?  or something else entirely?  It fades out with the end of the film, lopping off the final few seconds.  I'm not sure what to make of it.  The song was barely played live at all by any of the later 70's JGB lineups, and it had already been included on the original Live at Keystone 2LP, so it seems like an unusual choice for a studio recording.  But apparently the JGB did a lot more recording than initially saw the light of day, so who knows if this track was done specifically for the film or was something laying around that Garcia donated to the project. 

Midway through all this, I realized that actually was an official released soundtrack.  Discogs lists an Australian-only(?) RCA Victor LP release with That's All Right Mama and Train to Cry; the track lengths suggest that it's no more than the fragments of music actually used in the film.  I'm not holding my breath that the original tapes will surface, but it would be cool to get the LP to hear these tracks in better quality than VHS>youtube -- until then, though here are the three tracks that I ripped from youtube for you completists (I'm assuming there may be one or two of you).  It sounds like some speed correction wouldn't hurt, but I left it as it was. 

http://www72.zippyshare.com/v/aIpdpEKv/file.html

12/4/73: a little sound and fury

I have been listening to bits of this, a show that's known for (if anything) being the runt of the last leg of the fall '73 tour: 12/4/73 at the Cincinnati Gardens, a shorter show due to the band's lateness and apparently some big dust-up with the local promoters.  Strangely, part of it was released as a bonus disc with the November 73 Winterland box set.  It's not as bad as some reviews indicate, although it's not particularly great.  Abbreviated playing time notwithstanding, Phil seems particularly ornery and really takes it out on his bass (not always bad thing, necessarily), and, as gamely as Garcia tries to soldier through, the rest of the band seems distracted or out of sorts.  The musical standout is a big Eyes of the World that, unusually, wanders out of bounds and into a Phil-led meltdown that's cut from the same cloth as the 12/2 Playing in the Band and the 12/6 Dark Star.   You may have seen this less-than-impressed contemporary review floating around online (thanks gratefulseconds):

Cincinnati Enquirer, 12/6/73

Well.  To be fair, I wouldn't be too enthusiastic about a show either if I had to spend over two hours watching the crew assemble the PA beforehand (on a Tuesday night, no less), but “lots of sound and fury, little else”?  Yow.  How exactly did the manage to be late coming from Boston with a full travel day (12/3) between shows?  Is it a coincidence that the first Boston show a few days prior (11/30) was also delayed and extremely late in getting started?  What was going on with the promoters, who apparently both Bob and/or Phil were griping about onstage (according to some eyewitness reviews)?  5000 people in a place that held 12,500?  Yikes.

What gave me a smile, though, was this glowing piece by the same reporter about a Neil Young concert from earlier that same year (quoted from here -- I'm not finding the original Cincinnati Enquirer piece anywhere easily online)

You couldn't possibly have squeezed one more person into Cincinnati Gardens Wednesday night [Feb 14, 1973]. Not after slightly more than 12,500 had already traffic jammed their way down Seymour Avenue to pack the hall. All that for Neil Young, one of rock's superstars and Linda Ronstadt, who isn't quite a superstar, but ought to be. Ronstadt opened the show with what had to be one of the most thrilling performances in Gardens' history. Such a fantastic, beautiful performer. People may have been their primarily for Neil Young, but Ronstadt gave all the 12,500 their money's worth. And then Neil Young gave them more than their money's worth. Appearing behind a bank of amplifiers and a row of lights (it took three semis and a 22 foot van to get it all there. The van was equipped with a 32 track recording studio and a closed circuit TV system on which the concert was taped). Young began with some of his acoustical stuff, just him and his guitar. It was received madly. Wildly. Lovingly. Young kept his voice quiet, almost folksie and painted a very peaceful picture. With a slight twang, maybe even a slightly nasal quality, he came off quite relaxed. And then came the rock and roll. Neil Young's rock and roll is a carefully blended mixture of country sounds, folk sounds and soft rock sounds. His work comes off very controlled and sophisticated. It's hard to say just how beautiful he was, so thoroughly professional, so completely competent. It's easy to say that in over five years of concert going (that's a lot of concerts), his show was one of the best. Very easy to say it.  - Jim Knippenberg, Cincinnati Enquirer, Feb 15, 1973.

My dorkdom is nowhere near as fine-tuned for Neil Young as it is for the Dead, but I do know that this show is from the middle of Young's three-month tour behind the hit Harvest album when he started breaking down from the ravages of booze, drugs, money squabbles, fame, expectations, pressure, and all that.  The live album from this tour, Time Fades Away, was later nearly disowned by Young (quotes galore here or here), who refused to reissue it for over 40 years.  I love this whole “dark” period of Young's, but I'm not sure by what metric you would call it very controlled and sophisticated, thoroughly professional, or completely competent.  To each his own, of course.  Funny that Knippenberg didn't seem to notice all of the new songs Young was playing that apparently delighted very few in the crowd.  Young did also play some of his hits, at least.

Anyways, apropos of playing time (see last post), another thing strikes me.  12/4/73 is just over two hours of music and seems short only when compared with, um, other Dead shows.  12/2 Boston is about 3 hours 10 min, 12/6 Cleveland is just over 3 hours 20 min, 12/8 Duke is nearly 3 hours 40 min.  There's a low quality aud tape of this Neil Young 2/14/73 Cincinnati Gardens show out there (got mine here, if you really want it).  It's missing a couple of songs from from the electric set, but what's on tape isn't even 70 minutes long -- so figure maybe 90 minutes or so for his whole show, plus another hour maybe for Linda Ronstadt's opening set?  Jeez, even starting 2 1/2 hours late, the Dead still played for over two hours, not counting a (hopefully short) setbreak.  Can’t win ‘em all, I guess.

Bird Song, 1970-1973

OK, so: years ago, I posted a version this on a now-defunct GD forum.  My plan was to create comprehensive overview of Bird Song, as performed from 1971-1995.  Life interfered, and I made it as far as 1988, but I’ve been feeling inspired to revive this dormant project (okay, and a certain all-star GD blogger has been politely reminding me for some time to get back to it), so I will begin by reposting what is already done. 

The idea was just to listen to every single version of Bird Song, take some notes, and make some observations on how the band’s approach to performance seemed to develop over time, with an ear to versions that stood out for whatever reason.  Rather than share all of those notes, I distilled them down into specific overviews for each year.

edit (the first of probably many): lightoashes mentioned this in the comments, but I wanted to put it up top: he recently posted an excellent piece that Hugh Barroll wrote in 1999 (unpublished) for the Taper's Compendium that covers the same ground as this, all the way to 1995.  I intend to get there eventually -- I get the sense that Barroll didn't undertake the fool's errand of relistening to every single version, which is what I'm attempting to do (maybe especially foolish, given that he and I seem to reach many of the same conclusions).  I don't remember ever seeing his piece before, and I'm not going to peek ahead and read his account of the years I haven't reached, but he did an excellent job.  Take a look: http://deadessays.blogspot.com/2017/03/bird-song-guest-post.html

THE BIRD SONG PROJECT, part 1: 1970-1973

1971

7/31/71, courtesy Jim Anderson

Robert Hunter said that Bird Song was written in memory of Janis Joplin (who died Oct 4, 1970), but I don’t know if Jerry had the music worked out before that.  The earliest known recording is the Crosby/Garcia/Lesh/Kreutzmann(?) rehearsal tape that is typically dated 12/15/70 (info).  Among the tunes that the quartet runs through are fifteen minutes of work on the still un-debuted Bertha and three minutes of Bird Song, but neither of these tunes are performed on the group’s one known live recording.  It's tempting to think that Jerry may have messed around with Bird Song some more during Crosby's Planet Earth Rock & Roll Orchestra (PERRO) sessions in Jan 1971, where we hear the earliest versions of Loser, but it’s not on those tapes either.

A rehearsal tape dated Feb 1971 is the first time we hear the the band (or at least Bob and Phil) performing it, apparently still in the process of learning it: they run through the tune a few times and work on its rhythm.  It's particularly cool to hear Jerry explaining to Bob exactly how he wants it to go, then hearing the groove click into place.  Strangely, the drummers don't seem to play on this Bird Song at all, while they do play on all of the other new tunes being rehearsed.
http://archive.org/details/gd1971-02-01.sbd.Studio.Rehearsal.120486.flac16

Bird Song’s live debut was on 2/19/71 amidst a host of other new songs.  I'm not sure what to make of the fact that they didn't play it on 2/18, Mickey's final show -- given how sparse Billy’s part was at first, it's a little hard to imagine how it would have sounded with two drummers -- maybe Mickey would have stuck to light percussion?  The arrangement was still being settled on during the Port Chester run, but the general structure of the tune was an intro (around 30 seconds of strumming and the riff), the full song (two verses and the "don't cry now" bridge), a short jam based on the main riff, a full run-through of the song again, the first verse repeated a third time, and finally a short outro consisting of the riff and minimal jamming.  The debut on 2/19 has nearly no full-band improvisation at all, but they began to invest more and more in the jam as the run progressed, and on the final version on 2/24, Jerry begins extending the outro as well.  These initial versions all range between 6-8 minutes, with later versions stretching towards 9 minutes on the strength of the second outro jam.
https://archive.org/details/gd71-02-19.sbd.orf.1029.sbeok.shnf (also Three From the Vault)
http://archive.org/details/gd1971-02-23.sbd.evans-waddell.GEMS.82755.flac16
http://archive.org/details/gd1971-02-24.sbd.cantor-crouch-diebert-gmb.87570.sbeok.flac16

The overall mood of these early versions is meditative and incantatory, an effect created in part by the repetition of the verses and by Billy's understated, almost solemn drumming, which he restricts mostly to his tom-toms with some light time-keeping on his snare or hi-hat.  He opens up a bit more during the jams, but in general his playing on these early versions feels pretty restrained.  Phil is an active voice from the very start, while Bobby seems a little less certain, shifting between his usual style of chordal rhythm accompaniment and just playing the riff repeatedly, depending on the version.  Pigpen, unfortunately, is usually nowhere to be heard, though we occasionally (2/23, 2/24, 4/17, 4/21) we get hints that doing something quietly at the organ.  Ironically, it’s only on 8/23, the last known version that he played on, where his contribution hints at maybe something more.

Unlike any of the other new songs, Bird Song then disappeared for 16 shows between the Port Chester run and it's next appearance, in the middle of the April east coast tour.  The next two versions, 4/14 and 4/17, introduce a second small jam/interlude in the middle of the song (full song > jam > full song > jam > 1st verse > outro jam), which they played intermittently for the rest of the year, though not always.  4/21 is a particularly confident version that really nails the groove and feel of the song, and it really starts flowering during the last three shows of the April Fillmore East run.  Interestingly, though, it's really the end/outro jam that's flowering -- the mid-song jam is still often a minute or less, while the outro got the extended attention: 4/29's outro is over four minutes long, almost double the length of the song itself!  The Fillmore East versions don't seem to have the same gentle lift-off as some of the earlier ones, though, and Bird Song seems to have gone back to the drawing board again after the April tour.
http://www.archive.org/details/gd71-04-21.sbd.kaplan.8227.sbeok.shnf
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1971-04-29.sbd.multitracks.miller.114350.flac16

Jerry's first solo album was recorded in July 1971 and Bird Song was slightly altered once again.  On the album it begins with a big D7 chord, played loudly on a Hammond B3 (by Jerry) as the other instruments fall into place.  The meditative/drone effect is more pronounced, and Jerry runs through the song and only extends the ending, which slows down with a pronounced decrescendo as it reaches the conclusion.  Bird Song reappeared onstage on 7/31 (out of Dark Star) with elements of this album arrangement -- the opening chord and slowed down ending -- but also with a brisker tempo and a less reserved, brooding feel.  Apparently, though, he still wasn't getting what he wanted out of it, since they only played it live twice more.  8/5 also has elements of the album arrangement, and sounds more assured than 7/31, but then 8/23 disposes both with this newest arrangement and with the original riff altogether!  During the jams, Jerry seems to be heading towards the feel of the ’72 versions, but Billy’s drumming remains primarily heavy on the toms and it still doesn’t quite get there. 

https://archive.org/details/gd1971-07-31.132730.sbd.miller.flac16 (also Road Trips vol 1, no 3)
https://archive.org/details/gd1971-08-05.137288.sbd.miller.flac16
https://archive.org/details/gd1971-08-23.sbd.miller.125886.flac16

Bird Song made one last known appearance in 1971, in rehearsal with Keith, on a tape that circulates dated 9/29.  Keith is barely audible, just unobtrusively accompanying on the Hammond B3, but this is an interesting and promising version since Jerry's playing in the outro jam is opening up in a way that he would expand to greater lengths in 1972 (particularly that descending run he begins at 6:38).  Billy is also playing jazzier stuff on his cymbals, though still committed to that tom-tom groove.  
http://archive.org/details/gd71-09-29.sbd.cousinit.16891.sbeok.shnf

But, unfortunately, nothing would come of it for a while.  Bird Song never made it out of rehearsals and was missing for the next few tours.  Looking back over 1971, it seems evident that they never managed to iron out all the wrinkles in the arrangement and the general groove of the song itself, so maybe they just set it aside to focus on the latest batch of originals being prepared for the fall 71 tour?  Intriguingly, Bird Song did make an isolated cameo before its return, when Phil teased the riff prominently at least twice in depths of the mammoth Dark Star from 5/11/72, though with no results.  At some point, though, Bird Song underwent the necessary surgery, because when it came back that summer, it came back with a vengeance and the band played the hell out of it accordingly.

the list:

Of these early ones, my favorite versions are 2/23, 2/24, 4/21, and 4/29.  2/19 has a breathtaking stillness that I find very attractive, and 8/5 is the best of the final versions. 

2/19: https://archive.org/details/gd71-02-19.sbd.orf.1029.sbeok.shnf (also Three From the Vault)
2/23: http://archive.org/details/gd1971-02-23.sbd.evans-waddell.GEMS.82755.flac16
2/24: http://archive.org/details/gd1971-02-24.sbd.cantor-crouch-diebert-gmb.87570.sbeok.flac16
4/21: http://www.archive.org/details/gd71-04-21.sbd.kaplan.8227.sbeok.shnf
4/29: http://archive.org/details/gd1971-04-29.sbd.multitracks.miller.114350.flac16
8/5: https://archive.org/details/gd1971-08-05.137288.sbd.miller.flac16

1972

8/27/72, Sunshine Daydream still

Bird Song returned to the repertoire on 7/18/72 early in the first set, where it would stay for a while.   It’s an unintentionally poignant moment when, as Jerry begins the introduction of this first performance in 11 months, Bob mentions to the crowd that Pigpen "ain't feeling well."   Some major changes had been made and everyone must have been satisfied because there would be no more tinkering with the arrangement for the next 14 months, and they started performing it with much greater frequency.  The most immediately noticeable difference is in the drumming, which shifts the groove from the solemn tom-heavy beat to an airier, more flowing, jazzy feel ("jazzy" in the sense that Billy is keeping time more on the cymbals than the drums, freeing him to be more rhythmically inventive and responsive to the rest of the band with the rest of his drum kit).  Keith's piano, of course, also adds a new layer, though neither Bobby nor Phil seem to particularly modify their approaches -- rather, Keith seems to find a space in between, providing additional accompaniment and embellishment, which becomes more interesting as the year goes on.

They also simplified the song’s structure, which now remained consistent: a 30-40 intro starting with Jerry lightly strumming the D7 chord and setting the tempo > the introductory riff > the full song > the main jam > the full song again > the outro jam.  The meat of the song is now the mid-song jam, which has a more clearly defined structure and another significant change: the mid-song jam ends with a reprise of the riff (four times), a "false ending" with a long drum fill, then a dramatic return to the jam (usually very brief, without much soloing) and a transition back into the song’s verse -- this whole jam is now typically 3-4 minutes total.  The outro jam initially had the most variation in ’72, ranging variously from fairly perfunctory (under a minute) to quite majestic, sometimes equaling the main jam in scope and power.

Even allowing for the first few versions being somewhat tentatively played, the general quality of these new Bird Songs is very consistent -- and this is true for much of the year -- and what distinguishes a great one from a good one are little particularities, usually Jerry rising above the usual flow of the solo.  The average Bird Song jam could sometimes ease back into a lazy, rolling pattern of Jerry slowly climbing up the neck, making wide bends as he goes.  Other times, he shows more focus and determination, or unleashes a few surprising runs, which gooses the overall intensity of the jam.  Of the summer versions, 8/12 and 8/25 are particularly fine examples, but the famous 8/27 Bird Song really does take it a notch higher, marked by some divinely inspired work with nothing extraneous or uncertain.
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1972-08-12.sbd.smith.gems.105132.flac16
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1972-08-25.sbd.miller.92840.sbeok.flac16
http://archive.org/details/gd72-08-27.sbd.bertha-ashley.21619.sbeok.shnf (also Sunshine Daydream)

Fox Theater, Oct 1972, courtesy Charlotte Lyons

As 1972 went on, they kept a good thing going, really wringing everything the could out of Bird Song.  The famous east coast leg of the fall tour, for example, had a Bird Song every night, save one (9/28).  Timings were still pretty variable, typically in the 10-11 minute range, but ranging from as few as 8 minutes to as many as 13.  But, in a sense, these Bird Songs are all “the same" from a general perspective.  Jerry's approach tends to favor some staple devices (”tricks" maybe seems unfair) to augment his usual flow of melodic improvisation: the huge string bends that he builds on successively to create momentum, and the clipped harmonics he uses to vary the texture.  One interesting feature is that it's not unusual at all for him to find one improvised melody or a run of notes and repeat it a few times, which wasn't a typical feature of his soloing.  He tends to end the jams in three basic ways: logically "coming down" melodically from his solo and taking a pause before playing the riff; or by repeating one melodic phrase multiple times and sliding right into the riff; or by returning to the riff as the climax of his solo. 

Quantity obviously doesn't equal quality, but longer does seem to be better in many cases (barring technical problems), either because the groove seems extra sweet and Jerry seems to want to let it breathe, or because he’s coming up with more and more to say creatively.  It's a good sign when Jerry extends the little instrumental segment after the drum fill, before the second round of verses, and solos a bit more rather than just grooving.  The same goes with longer outro jams -- more is usually better, though occasionally they'll cut a better-than-average version short(er) because someone's gone out of tune (I'm inferring this if they cut the end jam short and Bob or Jerry immediately begin tuning up).

The next major version is 9/10 Hollywood, which captures the dreamy, magical summer night feeling perfectly (ahem)-- and is almost 14 minutes, even with a cut.   10/2 is the other standout of this bunch, with maybe the most altogether satisfying jam segment.  Other noteworthy versions are 9/21, where Jerry breaks a string mid-jam and Keith fills in with a fairly lengthy solo of his own (although Jerry's soloing here isn't particularly remarkable), and 9/26 for being a particularly strong exemplar of Jerry's general creativity.  Dick Latvala singled out 9/17 as another special one, and both Dick and the Taper's Compendium praised 9/19 as being particularly strong, though the horrible aud quality does a lot to deaden the impact (although a sbd is apparently in the Vault, hint hint).  But it's worth stressing how consistently good nearly every version is!
http://www.archive.org/details/gd72-09-10.sbd.patched.greenberg-powell.22793.sbeok.shnf
https://archive.org/details/gd72-09-17.sbd.hamilton.154.sbeok.shnf (also Dick's Picks Vol. 23)
https://archive.org/details/gd72-09-19.aud.cotsman.12075.sbeok.shnf
https://archive.org/details/gd72-09-21.sbd.masse.7296.sbeok.shnf (also Dick's Picks Vol. 36)
http://archive.org/details/gd72-09-26.sbd.wier.19198.sbeok.shnf
http://archive.org/details/gd1972-10-02.sbd.gans.miller.112864.flac16

Tapes from later that fall are problematic because of inconsistent sound quality, missing sbds, and some very off-kilter mixes (possibly feeds from different bandmembers’ monitors).  As far as Bird Song goes, there are currently no recordings at all for 10/27 or 12/10, only auds for 10/24 (so-so) and 10/30 (much better), and some general quality/mix issues (11/12 is the most egregious, with a very imbalanced guitars-only mix).  Since our perspective of the finer details is blurred, it's harder to stack this batch up against September.  On 11/12, for example, it sounds like Jerry's really spitting fire, but the mix has nearly no drums or piano.  10/30 also seems like a cut above, but there is a chunk missing from the main jam.  Nevertheless, as the tour progresses, the overall tone gets a touch more aggressive, which seems to be a general trend for a lot of the jamming in October-November.
http://archive.org/details/gd72-10-30.aud.cotsman.10915.sbeok.shnf
http://archive.org/details/gd72-11-12.sbd.cotsman.9771.sbeok.shnf

Jerry, however, also seemed to find more expressive (and subtle) ways to approach his soloing and became somewhat less reliant on his bag of tricks, namely those gigantic bends and the passages of clipped harmonics that characterize many of the September versions.  The jams don't necessarily become "better" and even become slightly shorter, but it's more of a sign that Jerry was becoming more comfortable in this improvisational space and was developing a larger vocabulary that fit this particular song.  More subjectively, it feels like his playing, at its best, feels more "liquid": 10/21, 11/17, and 11/19 are good examples of every note dripping off the fretboard.
http://archive.org/details/gd1972-10-21.set2-partial.sbd.rbbert.fix-94410.94453.flac16
http://archive.org/details/gd72-11-17.sbd.warner.15982.sbeok.shnf (also Dave’s Picks Vol. 11)
http://archive.org/details/gd1972-11-19.123577.sbd.gans-miller.flac24

Also, starting on 10/24, Keith begins consistently using a wah-wah pedal more prominently -- since joining the group, his only onstage instrument was a Steinway grand piano that had been fit with a pickup, which let him feed the signal through effects pedals.  It's a feature of every version after this one, and sometimes he uses the pedal nearly start-to-finish.  It's a cool sound that sounds very much like an electric piano to my ears (I don’t think Keith began using an additional electric piano until May 1973), but it's impressive how smoothly Keith shifts back and forth between the “pure” and wah'ed piano sounds.
http://archive.org/details/gd1972-10-24.sonyecm250.unknown.miller.97614.sbeok.flac16

the list

These are too similar for me to have a clear order of preference, so here's a roughly-in-order best of for 1972.  Again, bear in mind how reliably consistent they were: there are very few versions from '72 that I wouldn't recommend as being wonderful!
8/27: http://archive.org/details/gd72-08-27.sbd.bertha-ashley.21619.sbeok.shnf (also Sunshine Daydream)
9/10: http://www.archive.org/details/gd72-09-10.sbd.patched.greenberg-powell.22793.sbeok.shnf
10/2: http://archive.org/details/gd1972-10-02.sbd.gans.miller.112864.flac16
10/21: http://archive.org/details/gd1972-10-21.set2-partial.sbd.rbbert.fix-94410.94453.flac16
11/19: http://archive.org/details/gd1972-11-19.123577.sbd.gans-miller.flac24
9/26: http://archive.org/details/gd72-09-26.sbd.wier.19198.sbeok.shnf (yes, imho more than 9/27)
8/12: http://www.archive.org/details/gd1972-08-12.sbd.smith.gems.105132.flac16
8/25: http://www.archive.org/details/gd1972-08-25.sbd.miller.92840.sbeok.flac16

honorable mentions -- sound quality isn't helping matters any, but these are worthy of attention:
9/19: https://archive.org/details/gd72-09-19.aud.cotsman.12075.sbeok.shnf
11/12: http://archive.org/details/gd72-11-12.sbd.cotsman.9771.sbeok.shnf
10/24: http://archive.org/details/gd1972-10-24.sonyecm250.unknown.miller.97614.sbeok.flac16

Also of note, 9/21 and 10/19 both have Keith solos in the main jam (9/21 is the better one), although outside of that fact, neither is a particularly remarkable version.
https://archive.org/details/gd72-09-21.sbd.masse.7296.sbeok.shnf (also Dick's Picks Vol. 36)
https://archive.org/details/gd72-10-19.sbd.des.4506.sbeok.shnf

1973

7/28/73, courtesy Grant Gouldon

1973 didn't initially bring much in the way of structural or textural changes to Bird Song.  Jerry was still primarily playing his Strat and Keith was still only using a grand piano, although the crew were making continual adjustments to the PA system (moving towards the Wall of Sound) and Jerry was no longer playing through a stack of Fender Twin amps, as he was in ’71 and ’72.  While most listeners make a clear distinction between the "72 sound" and the "73 sound," the first Bird Songs of the year don't particularly bear this out.  The Dead scaled back on performances of the song — not surprising, considering that they had added another bushel of originals to the repertoire — but the handful of versions from the spring pick up right where they left off in ’72.  The one substantial difference was that, as Jerry continued to build and develop what he did with the jam, so too did Bob and Keith seem to be pushing in new directions as well and getting more creative with their contributions.  It was nothing strikingly different, but it does feel like the jams became more group efforts and less like Jerry leading and everyone else following.  3/16/73 and 6/10/73 are great examples of this: it's like they're really talking to each other, not just responding to Jerry’s lead.
http://archive.org/details/gd1973-03-16.sbd.miller.79186.sbeok.flac16
http://archive.org/details/gd1973-06-10.sbd.miller.tobin.patched-89730.90979.flac16


Noteworthy variations to consider are 3/30/73, marred by a poor quality aud recording, where Billy opts not to do his drum fill mid-jam, then appears to drop out for a few bars afterwards, giving the jam a spacier feel for a few seconds.  6/10/73 is the only version that starts with the riff itself rather than 15-20 seconds of vamping on the D7 chord.  Like 3/30, this Bird Song also gets particularly loose in the transition from the jam back to the vocals, with the band appearing to have forgotten where they are in the song.  7/27 has the longest Bird Song of the 1971-73 period, pushing 16 1/2 minutes.  Given the informal nature of the performance, it's a little looser and sloppier, but it deserves more praise than it typically gets, living as it does in the shadow of the same night’s famous "soundcheck jam."
http://archive.org/details/gd73-03-30.sbd-aud.cotsman.11616.sbeok.shnf
http://archive.org/details/gd1973-07-27.mtx.seamons.100410.sbeok.flac16


The major change for the year comes with 6/22/73, a popular favorite and rival of 8/27/72 as "the best Bird Song" of the 70's for many, in which Keith’s Fender Rhodes electric piano is featured prominently for the first time.  The new keyboard appeared onstage for the first time in May (no Bird Songs), and the Bird Song on 6/10 features some Rhodes, but was still primarily played on grand piano.  While Keith’s doesn't play anything particularly different with the Rhodes on 6/22, its trademark chiming sound is an ideal fit the airy vibe of the song -- and, at nearly 14 minutes, they make the most of every second.  7/27, for some reason, has Keith back on grand piano exclusively, but the few remaining versions are all mostly performed with the Rhodes.  As a committed Fender Rhodes nut, these are particularly dear to my heart.
http://archive.org/details/gd1973-06-22.sbd.miller.88526.sbeok.flac16

enter the Wolf: 10/30/73, courtesy Larry Kasperek

Bird Song stayed in the rotation throughout a light summer of performances, then the September tour kicked off with a bang as Jerry debuted his new Wolf guitar on 9/7/73, a knock-out show that featured a knock-out Bird Song that stands up to any other version from this period.  imho, it is the single best Bird Song of the 70's, albeit by a very slim margin.
http://archive.org/details/gd73-09-07.sbd.cotsman.19893.sbeok.shnf

9/12 and 9/15 are dreamy, lovely, wholly satisfying versions, and then… nothing.  Bird Song was dropped suddenly in the middle of the tour.  Why?  The vocals were rough and weren't getting any better; I think this at least had to be a factor (ditto with Here Comes Sunshine), particularly given that when they brought in back in 1980, they changed the key to one that everyone could comfortably handle.  Also, I wonder if Bird Song served the same relative "function" as Here Comes Sunshine: a relaxed song with room for extended but not fully open-ended jamming that let them stretch out a bit in the first set without really getting too deep into anything.  HCS was a more complex song that continued to develop and stretch out, whereas Bird Song essentially remained unchanged since its return in July 72.  Perhaps it had simply run its course for the band?

It still seems strange that they would drop a fairly regular song in the middle of a tour, but so it goes.  Here Comes Sunshine stretched itself nearly to its breaking point by the end of the year and was gone after one appearance in 74.  Bird Song wouldn't be heard from again until much further down the road…

the list

My #1 pick would be 9/7/73, which I think smokes even the beloved 6/22 -- and maybe even 8/27/72 -- and showcases Jerry playing with an amazingly high level of invention and precision (like much of the rest of the show).  Like 9/10/72, 6/22/73 is deep in the zone like many others come close to, but never quite equal -- although 7/27 and 9/12 probably come the closest.  8/1/73 stands out for being more energetic than many this year.
9/7: http://archive.org/details/gd73-09-07.sbd.cotsman.19893.sbeok.shnf
6/22: http://archive.org/details/gd1973-06-22.sbd.miller.88526.sbeok.flac16
7/27: http://archive.org/details/gd1973-07-27.mtx.seamons.100410.sbeok.flac16
8/1: http://archive.org/details/gd1973-08-01.sbd.sirmick.patch-12222.92478.sbeok.flac16
9/12: http://archive.org/details/gd1973-09-12.sbd.susan.21618.shnf

the wall goes up: Dec 1973, courtesy WKSU