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?

5/8/82: four ways of looking at a Keystone show

the Keystone faithful, 8/20/81 by Bob Minkin

 

I have riffed on sound quality and terroir and all that before, but man, what a difference a good aud tape make.  It can make enough of a difference that sometimes listening to multiple recordings of the same performance will give it a Rashomon-like quality.  Case in point: 5/8/82 is a show that is right in the armpit of a JGB era that I can usually take or leave.  This particular lineup was well settled in its drug-fuzzed routine, reliable and occasionally scorching hot but not often all that inspired.  This show is on the short side.  It has a Don't Let Go, so I am sure that I'd given it a listen at some point and was evidently left unmoved, since I couldn't remember anything about it.  But I was tempted to listen to this newly circulating recording (note: I wrote this last May and forgot to post it) made by John Anzaldo with a Walkman "three feet from the stage in the center," and I am glad that I did.

#1: the board tape 
To paraphrase JGMF, there are some serious damp, cheap motel towel vibes happening here.  To my ears, most post-Bettyboard 1980's JGB sbd tapes are disappointing listening experiences; this tape is essentially the X-Ray version of the Anzaldo aud that I really came here to talk about.  I think Harry Popick was running sound for the JGB at this time (his gig with the Dead was mixing their onstage monitors, not the front-of-house sound).  Judging from the auds, Popick's house sound was great, whereas the board tape is a straight PA feed (i.e. what wasn't loud enough in the onstage amps and would need to be reinforced in the PA): that means not much guitar, plenty of vocals, plenty of keyboard, plenty of kickdrum, zero room ambience.  So go figure, listening to this tape didn't make much of an impression on me.  No thanks.  Maybe not bad raw material for a new matrix source, though.

#2: Jeff Knudsen's tape
Jeff Knudsen taped a grip of Keystone shows around this time, and I don't think it's unfair to say he was a more casual taper than some of the other regulars.  Most of his recordings circulate with a personal reminiscence of the show, which give a lot of fun color and context to his recordings.  Some of them are surprisingly good, given the circumstances: he found a spot, surreptitiously set up his mics (stuffed in a sock and held in his armpit), and proceeded to have a good time.  This one is decent but sounds a little muffled.  But everyone clearly was having a pretty good time.  Disclaimer: we owe Jeff Knudsen -- and anyone who made the effort and spent the money to run tape at all these taper-unfriendly JGB shows -- a huge debt of gratitude. Thank you, Jeff Knudsen!

#3: Ohr Weinberg's tape 
This one sounds pretty good.  But it's only the second set, because, as Weinberg relates, "we were at a Robert Hunter show in SF and Hunter made a crack about why we weren't at the Jerry show in Berkeley... so we drove down to Berkeley just in time for the second JGB set."  Fortunately the complete source (below) sounds even better.  And, fwiw, the Hunter show does circulate: presumably this is also Weinberg's tape, from Jeff Knudsen's collection.  Double duty!  Thank you, Ohr Weinberg!

#4: John Anzaldo's tape
Back to our man on the front lines, who I imagine was standing right in front of Jerry like one of those dudes in the picture up top, trusty Sony Walkman at the ready (don't be skeptical; there are some Walkman aud tapes from the fall 82 tour that are surprisingly good).  The vocals are low, as is usually the case with tapes recorded this close to the stage.  But that Tiger sounds as rich as can be, and everything else is a little more gentle in the mix, but still well-balanced: drums, bass, Hammond organ, and small but unobtrusive touches of electric piano.  You are right there, shoulder to shoulder with the few, the proud, the yahoos who've been partying since they got on line at 4:00 that afternoon.  I confess that perhaps the recording quality is swaying my opinion, but this show has now come to life for me.  Don't Let Go, unsurprisingly, is one highlight, powered along by Kreutzmann finding new angles throughout the jam while never leaving the waist-deep groove.  I also submit the first chorus of his penultimate solo in Tangled Up in Blue (@5:15, after the "I lived with them on Montague St" verse) as a small shining jewel of Pure Jerry Perfection -- it's not a speaker-shredder like 2/4/81, but more like the epitome of butterflies being let out of a basket.  I am also really feeling his hard dig into Tore Up Over You, although, this being 1982, he loses the thread for his final solo after too much wait-time for the keyboardists to do something interesting (spoiler: nope).  Elsewhere, he's hot to trot and jumps from song to song with very little lag time, including an unusual hustle from Simple Twist into The Harder They Come into Midnight Moonlight to end the night.  Not quite one for the books, but one more Saturday night where everything (mostly) clicks into place.  I would never have known it, though, were it not for this fine aud tape.  Thank you John Anzaldo!

Jan 21-22, 1975 - or, the case of "7/21-22/74"

Some years ago I came to the conclusion that the Garcia/Saunders tapes (er, filesets) labeled as 7/21/74 and 7/22/74 were mixed up and mislabeled -- it was pretty obvious that what circulates as 7/21/74 couldn't be from one show.  I did some close listening to where the tape cuts were and came up with a convincing reassembly of these fragments that made more sense.  I can't think of another way to reassemble these fragments that would work, so I just went ahead and reordered/retagged them and have been listening to my own modified version for a while, so I figured I would expand my usual listening notes with the full argument.  JGMF has covered the unlikeliness of the tapes really being from 7/21 & 7/22/74, and it seems far more likely that the real dates are 1/21 & 1/22/75 at the Keystone in Berkeley.  JGMF has also confirmed that the lineup on these nights was unusual: Tony Saunders on bass (all of 19 years old, I believe) and Gaylord Birch on drums, in addition to Martin Fierro, Merl Saunders, and Jerry Garcia. 

Tony Saunders, from the back cover collage on Merl's s/t 1974 album

The music on these tapes is phenomenal and, in a few instances, utterly unique, and I believe that the confused presentation of these filesets has caused this music to be overlooked by all but the most fervent Garcia fan (no knock on anyone who was part of the distribution chain of these tapes, of course).  Maybe you are someone who hasn't given them close attention for this very reason.  If that describes you, dear reader, then read on and listen anew and be wowed.

In the interest of saving the fine print until the end, I will dive into the music first and assume you're willing to buy my reasoning re: the dating and organizing of this music as closer to what was actually played. 

On a contextual note: it is established that,

• Ron Tutt joined the band in December 1974, prompting the formal name change to Legion of Mary several months later.  Even after LOM was formalized as a band, there were still occasional local listings for "Garcia & Saunders" gigs.  This meant that Tutt was not present for whatever reason (more info; there was no Elvis conflict in Jan 1975, fwiw).
• In 1974-75, Merl Saunders was performing concurrently with his own band, Aunt Monk, including Tony on bass and Martin Fierro on sax.  Garcia would occasionally show up at these shows as well, playing material both familiar and unfamiliar to him from the Garcia/Saunders repertoire (more info).
• Despite being two separate bands, there was the occasional overlapping of personnel between Garcia/Saunders and Saunders' own gigs.  One such overlap were three remarkable shows in June 1974 where Tony replaced John Kahn on bass, which I have covered here.  
• The musicians and repertoire on these tapes in question seem to live right in the middle of the venn diagram of Garcia/Saunders and Aunt Monk.

 courtesy JGMF (surprise!)

 1/21/75


The Harder They Come - very fine, with an excellent groove and feel, especially compared with many 1974-75 performances that I often find more plodding.  Interestingly, it sounds like Fierro is playing his usual tenor with lots of wahwah during the song itself, but soloing on a higher-pitched horn (a soprano maybe?  I am sure it's him and not a guest, and you can hear him fiddling with his tenor again shortly after his solo is over).  After a high energy finish, Jerry announces the set break.

When I Die - the reel cuts in at the beginning.  This is funky!  and arguably one of the best of the versions that we have (at least until the next night!).  Merl & Tony play a cool little rhythmic figure that they keep up throughout most of the solos, and Birch absolutely nails this.  There's a snafu near the end when Merl finishes his solo and Garcia jumps back in, not hearing that Merl has transitioned back into the bridge of the song.  No harm done.  Afterwards, someone (either Tony or Birch?) laughs, "whoo! yeah, Jerry! what's up!"  Garcia noodles around a bit and someone asks,"wanna do it? you gonna do it?" which prompts:

Pennies From Heaven - They shift gears into classic organ combo mode for Garcia to serenade this standard from the 30's that is probably associated with Louis Armstrong as much as anyone else, although Garcia's idol Django Reinhardt is among the many who also recorded it.  There are plenty of examples of Garcia hanging with Saunders on jazz material that was not his typical forte, but it's amazing to hear him taking the lead here in digging into a standard like this!  He's clearly having a blast, even if he's chewing the scenery just a little bit.  Fierro solos next, then another quick chorus from Garcia, then Merl.  Just as his solo is ending, the reel cuts off and cuts back in as they go into the head of the song, with very little missing.  It sounds like folks are patting Garcia on the back when they're done: Merl says, "that's good!" and someone else adds, "that's all right!"   [edit 2025: Legion of Mary also played Pennies From Heaven on 2/28/75! please oh please, someone circulate this tape!]  Then Garcia suggests, "we could do Reggae Woman."

Boogie On Reggae Woman - Excellent again.  At this point, there were only a small number of performances of this on tape (it became a staple for LOM in 1975), but they are all on top of it tonight.  Check out after the last verse how they keep it going a little longer, verrry quietly.  Nice touch!

Some inaudible off-mic talk follows.  After Midnight and Mystery Train are mentioned.  Merl and Tony play with the beginning of Creepin' (Stevie Wonder), until Merl suggests, "why don't we just - you wanna do Wonderin'?  Wonderin' Why?"

Wonderin' Why - sounds wonderful, if not all that different from many other wonderful versions.  Then Garcia counts right into a stompin' How Sweet It Is.  This one is interrupted by another reel flip, missing a bigger chunk of music this time.  He says good night, and the crowd sounds particularly appreciative and vocal with their thanks.

Well then.  This was amazing.  Top drawer Garcia/Saunders, in outstanding Bettyboard sound.  What could be better?  Glad you asked:


1/22/75

After Midnight - this cuts in at the peak of Fierro's solo, so watch your eardrums.  But it's really hot!  High temperature stuff.  Afterwards - Jerry: "You wouldn't happen to have any matches, do you? ... but don't even worry, don't worry about it."   Then, a guy in the crowd: "Jerry, want a hit, man?"  Jerry: "Do I want a hit, man?  No thank you, I just had one."  Classic.  Merl calls the next tune.

When I Die - Betty's mix is a little hot, but so is the playing.  As hot the last version was, this one is even better and also a few minutes longer.  My goodness.  This time, rather than jump right into the bridge out of Merl's final solo, they opt to keep jamming loosely for a little bit before wrapping things up.  What a version!  C'mon, deadheads, you all need to hear this.

You Can Leave Your Hat On - this takes things down a notch, perhaps inevitably given how high energy the first two songs were.  But it ain't bad at all!  There's another small reel flip in this one.  Notice how during Merl's solo (after the flip), Garcia is messing around a bit with playing octaves a la Wes Montgomery, something that he did occasionally in early 75 and another clue as to the dating of this tape.  Afterwards, someone says "we can only do one more" and Garcia counts off

That's What Love Will Make You Do - Birch's beat here is distinctive from other 74-75 versions and this feels a little stiff at first, but they loosen up as the solos gain momentum.  Garcia's guitar volume drops @4:23, and I wonder if he blew a tube or something else, but he plays on without a hiccup.  Nice near miss @11:02 when he catches them by surprise by repeating the "when you speak of beauty" break, but whoa, they all nail it anyway!  Amazing.  "We're gonna take a break, we'll be back pretty soon."

Cucumber Slumber - the first of two tunes unique to this show.  The oft-repeated story behind Weather Report's Cucumber Slumber is that bassist Alphonso Johnson came up with its classic bassline in the studio and the tune was a spontaneous jam (although the album track is actually a second take made after some evident arrangement, including a melody played in unison by the sax and keyboards; lots of info here) .  The song moves back and forth between two distinct sections, one in Db7 (the band is playing this section as the album track fades in) and one in E7 (with Johnson's famous bassline), with a transition between the two.  Weather Report spends more time jamming in the Db7 section, although the E7 section is probably what most listeners remembers about the song.  If you want a more technical explication, see Mark Frandsen's analysis in his dissertation on Weather Report's bass players (which clarified all this info for me).

Tony commented at etree, "that was a song we played with Aunt Monk and Jerry liked it so we played it together."  Their arrangement is looser and emphasizes the E7 section almost entirely, with Tony holding on to that bassline for all its worth.  Like Weather Report, they begin playing in Db7 briefly (it sounds maybe like Fierro is alluding to Weather Report's melody, though they never play it), but once they get into the E7 section, they stay there for a long time: both Fierro and Garcia solo, and when Merl's turn comes, he leads everyone into the Db7 section briefly (this is around 9:15) and then back into E7 for his extended solo, and then another turn for Garcia.  During Garcia's second solo, things get looser and the playing becomes more interactive and "jammy" (Tony abandons the bassline for a little while as well).  They shift back to the Db7 section in the final few minutes, and wrap it up by playing the transition figure at the end.  Wow!  Given that they're mostly jamming out on one chord, everyone has plenty of room to flex and they all sound comfortable digging in. 

The Harder They Come - a little looser in spots, but this is still great and like When I Die from this show, it sounds like they're pushing a bit further than the prior version.  Check out how they get real quiet at 12:16 for the end of Garcia's solo -- he's playing the melody and Martin creates a guitar-like effect by tapping the keys of his horn while working the wahwah, which leads right back into the vocals.  Very cool, and something I don't recalls ever hearing in THTC before.

What's Going On - the second unique song.  I'm sure plenty of folks with gigs like Merl's were playing this tune in the early 70's; one way to approach it was to have everyone solo over the form of the entire song, like this version by organist Johnny Hammond Smith.  But Merl also must have heard Donny Hathaway's incredible live version which features both vocals and a keyboard solo over just the instrumental bridge of the song.  Notably, Hathaway also made a minor but pretty hip adjustment to this part by adding some additional changes (hear it in his solo).  Merl opts to have it both ways: Fierro plays the tune on flute, and then he, Garcia, and Merl take a turn soloing over the entire song form, which imho makes for some unavoidably long-winded solos.  Everything glides along well enough but a bit sloppily, with the tempo wavering and speeding up as it goes.  But after Merl's solo ends (at 16:20 into the song) he shifts gears and solos again, this time just over the instrumental bridge, like in Hathaway's version.  Everyone goes for another round of solos, but now it sounds like they're finally taking flight, since no one has to follow the contours of the actual song and can just dig in and blow.  The cut at the end is negligible, just a fraction of a second.  Wow!  Overall it's a little shaky, but is redeemed by the funkier second half.  And given what a unique performance this is, it's hard to be too critical. 

How Sweet It Is - another high-energy set closer, with no cut this time.  The last 50 seconds of dead air as they break down is a nice touch: "awright, Jerry, cut that shit out!"

I am out of superlatives.   Much like the June 74 shows with Tony, these performances are both unique and, despite a few looser-than-usual moments, feature some incredibly high caliber playing.  Mid 70's solo Jerry doesn't get much better than this, and if you haven't spent time getting up close and personal with these tapes, you really should.


THE RATIONALE

If you've made it this far, I am sure you cannot wait to hear how I came up with this order for the songs.  These are the digital filesets for these tapes as they circulate:

"7/21/74" = jg1974-07-21.jgms.93mins.sbd-Betty.117653.flac1644
"7/22/74" = jg1974-07-22.jgms.146mins.sbd-GMB.86198.flac1644

And if you split the filesets into reels, based on the tape breaks (the tape runs continuously between songs unless noted), you get this:

7/21/74 d1t01 [18:24] Harder They Come > "we're gonna take a break"
7/21/74 d1t02 [13:01] /When I Die
7/21/74 d1t03 [15:56] Pennies From Heaven//

7/21/74 d2t01 [12:32] /After Midnight
7/21/74 d2t02 [18:40] When I Die
7/21/74 d2t03 [11:32] You Can Leave Your Hat On//

7/21/74 d2t04 [3:18] //How Sweet It is > "see y'all later"

7/22/74 d1t01 [3:30] //"instrumental" (actually the ending of Pennies From Heaven)
7/22/74 d1t02 [22:34] Boogie On Reggae Woman
7/22/74 d1t03 [17:21] Wondering Why
7/22/74 d1t04 [5:06] How Sweet It Is//

7/22/74 d1t05 [6:16] //You Can Leave Your Hat On
7/22/74 t1t06 [13:07] That's What Love Will Make You Do > "we're gonna take a break"

7/22/74 d2t01 [21:27] /Cucumber Slumber
7/22/74 d2t02 [19:43] Harder They Come
7/22/74 d2t03 [26:26] What's Going On (tape cuts the last second)

7/22/74 d2t04 [10:32] How Sweet It Is > "thank you, we'll see you all later on."

Then rearrange the reels like this to make the pieces fit together.  I can't think of any other way to arrange the music that makes sense:

"reel #1"
7/21/74 d1t01 [18:24] Harder They Come > "we're gonna take a break"
7/21/74 d1t02 [13:01] /When I Die
7/21/74 d1t03 [15:56] Pennies From Heaven//

"reel #2"
7/22/74 d1t01 [3:30] //"instrumental" (actually the ending of Pennies From Heaven)
7/22/74 d1t02 [22:34] Boogie On Reggae Woman
7/22/74 d1t03 [17:21] Wondering Why
7/22/74 d1t04 [5:06] How Sweet It Is//

"reel #3"
7/21/74 d2t04 [3:18] //How Sweet It is > "see y'all later"

"reel #4"
1st set:
7/21/74 d2t01 [12:32] /After Midnight
7/21/74 d2t02 [18:40] When I Die
7/21/74 d2t03 [11:32] You Can Leave Your Hat On//

"reel #5"
7/22/74 d1t05 [6:16] //You Can Leave Your Hat On > "do one more" 
7/22/74 t1t06 [13:07] That's What Love Will Make You Do > "we're gonna take a break"

"reel #6"
7/22/74 d2t01 [21:27] /Cucumber Slumber
7/22/74 d2t02 [19:43] Harder They Come
7/22/74 d2t03 [26:26] What's Going On (tape cuts the last second)

"reel #7"
7/22/74 d2t04 [10:32] How Sweet It Is > "thank you, we'll see you all later on."


This means that the actual shows would look like this:

one show:
end of 1st set:Harder They Come (7/21) [18:24]
complete 2nd set:When I Die (7/21 d1t02) [13:01]
Pennies From Heaven (7/21 + 7/22) [15:56+3:30]
Boogie On Reggae Woman (7/22) [22:34]
Wondering Why (7/22) [17:21]
How Sweet It Is (7/22 + 7/21) [5:06 + ? + 3:18]


the other show (nearly complete?):
1st set:After Midnight (7/21) [12:32]
When I Die (7/21 d2t02) [18:40]
You Can Leave Your Hat On (7/21+7/22) [11:32+6:16]
That's What Love Will Make You Do (7/22) [13:07]
2nd set:Cucumber Slumber (7/22) [21:27]
Harder They Come (7/22) [19:43]
What's Going On (7/22) [26:26]
How Sweet It Is (7/22) [10:32]


I believe that the two sets from the latter show are from 1/22/75, because these versions of When I Die and The Harder They Come are better than the ones from the other show: both are played longer and with more apparent ease.  They are all more careful when ending When I Die, and THTC has some unusual interplay that seems more likely to have happened when they were more comfortable with the tune and each other.  I know that doesn't prove anything, but that's how I am choosing to label each show. 

Why 1/21 & 1/22/75?  It can't be 7/21-7/22/74, but the provenance of the tapes is pretty good and those dates had to come from somewhere.  I know that when I write 1's, they usually look like 7's [edit: JGMF sent a pic of the tape reel boxes and yup, Rex Jackson wrote 1/22/74].  And I am usually still writing last year's date when it's only three weeks into a new year.   The existence of G/S gigs on those dates plus some stylistic details all point in the same direction. 

edit: Just to make sure I am giving credit where it is due, the understanding that these tapes couldn't be from July 1974 is all JGMF's work and research.  I came to the Jan 75 theory on my own, although I know others have arrived at that same conclusion, likely all stemming from JGMF's blog.  The reel re-ordering was from my own listening.

June 1974: Garcia on acoustic guitar

the Great American String Band, 5/5/74, courtesy jgmf

Even if you're a devoted listener to Garcia's music away from the Dead, I forgive you if you draw a blank on the Great American String Band.  Only a small few recordings circulate and Garcia's involvement didn't last more than a few months.  On paper, they may look a bit like Old & In the Way Mark 2, but the GASB was a wholly different group and differed in many interesting ways; Garcia's role in the latter group is a minor point in the grand scheme of things, but since this brief intersection fits in with the larger narrative of June 1974, I think it's worth dwelling on.  From this Garciacentric perspective, the GASB gives us the change to hear something that Garcia almost never did in the 70's: play some solos on the acoustic guitar.

First, to connect some threads: OAITW, as has been well documented (here or here if you need a primer) grew out of Grisman's, Peter Rowan's, and Garcia's informal jams in late 72-early 73.  Garcia got his banjo chops up to speed, they played around for a few months, did one small tour, attempted a studio album (scrapped), recorded a wonderful live album, and were long gone by the time that album was finally released to considerable success and acclaim.  In early 1974, Garcia began recording Compliments and recruited a number of other musicians for the sessions: in addition to bandmates Merl Saunders and John Kahn, participants included Grisman, Richard Greene, and guitarist David Nichtern, who was then playing in Maria Muldaur's band and enjoying her hit recording of his tune "Midnight at the Oasis" (Muldaur and her ex-husband Geoff were in the mix at this time as well, but that's another post).  Grisman, in the meantime, must have been searching for a new band of his own, and one catalyst seems to have been the rehearsals for a shared gig that Grisman and Greene played in March 1974, which also (partially) included Garcia -- there's no tape, unfortunately, but there are a few minutes of those rehearsals that circulate (info) and Garcia sounds delighted to be playing the music of another idol of his: jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt.

Django et Stephane

Unlike OAITW, the group that grew out of that gig played a more "progressive" amalgamation of styles that was more in line with Grisman's vision of his own music: a mixture of old-time fiddle tunes, bluegrass, and the Swing-era acoustic jazz perfected by Django Reinhardt's and Stephane Grappelli's Quintette du Hot Club de France in the 1930's ("gypsy jazz" or jazz manouche to some) — according to Grisman’s own description of the group, Duke Ellington and Fats Waller were in the mix as well, although no recordings survive of those songs (afaik).  Grisman dubbed it "dawg music" and built his subsequent career around this concept, continuing to join together many different threads of acoustic American music.  Garcia’s involvement time with the group was peripheral: he didn't make every gig they played, but they opened once for the Dead and apparently Owsley Stanley recorded them for a prospective live album (still uncirculating; fingers crossed!).  There are currently only six known recordings of GASB performances with Garcia: four shows plus two shorter festival sets.  Three of those shows were from another mid-week Lion's Share/Keystone run in June 1974, further proof if needed that it was a unusually powerful month of peak creativity.

Discussing these tapes from a Garcia-centric perspective isn't an accurate assessment of them, but that’s what I’m going to do.  I find that his banjo often recedes into the background (and, interestingly, none of Grisman's own later groups featured a banjo), and while his playing is strong, he's not at the same technical level of the other musicians -- one charming but telling moment is when we hear him practicing a particularly fast banjo run a few times right before they begin Limehouse Blues on the 6/13 tape.  What stands out for me isn't his banjo playing, but rather the relatively little-reported fact that he was also playing acoustic guitar during these three June gigs (he doesn't play any guitar on the April recordings; and, to be fair, Blair Jackson does mention that JG played both banjo and guitar with the group in his Garcia bio).  David Nichtern was a fine guitarist and well-suited to this style, so I think the idea of having two guitars was to recreate the distinctive Hot Club sound on a few songs, the relentless chunkchunkchunkchunk swing rhythm that Django's groups achieved using multiple guitars instead of drums.  But Jerry Garcia wasn't going to stand onstage next to a guitar all night without playing a little: he takes a few solos that are worthy of attention, but they may be easy to miss if you just assume it's Nichtern (one close listen should make it clear that it isn't).  Remarkably, I believe these shows are the only recordings of Garcia soloing on an acoustic at all in this golden era of his music: in the decade between the Dead's 1970 and 1980 acoustic performances, Garcia played acoustic in public only one other time, at the one-off benefit gig on 11/17/78.

Much like the Garcia/Saunders gigs the week before, this run started at the small Lion's Share up in San Anselmo, then moved down to the Keystone. 

6/12/74 The Lion's Share (thanks as always to jgmf for determining that this tape has been mislabeled with the wrong venue.)
info: http://db.etree.org/shn/83290
Compared with the following night, this is a funkier quality sbd with a slightly uneven mix, although still a good listen.  Garcia seems to be getting his space together on guitar and working out the kinks on this first night -- he doesn't seem to be mic'ed as well, and his playing has a slightly more forced feel as if he's working harder to come through.  After starting the night on banjo, Garcia first gets on guitar for Lonesome Moonlight Waltz, leaning into it hard and sounding particularly sweet and soulful.  His work on the first Swing '42 (they played it in both sets every night) is a little rougher, especially next to Nichtern who sounds more comfortable and polished with this style.  In the second set, Grisman calls Russian Lullaby and it sounds like Garcia replies, "aw, no, really? aww" (I'm not totally sure of this, though) before setting off on his one vocal of the night.  Unlike all later JGB performances, it's played here in the Hot Club style arrangement used on Compliments (after Oscar Alemán's 1939 recording).  Garcia solos on the intro, and takes one chorus at the top and two more at the end before returning to the head.  He stays on guitar and takes two shorter solos (no Nichtern) on Maiden's Prayer, a lovely fiddle tune that they jokingly refer to as "Virgin's Lament" (it's a Bob Wills song, though Garcia must have also known this gorgeous Buck Owens version with Don Rich).  After another stretch on banjo, Garcia gets back on guitar for Sweet Georgia Brown (Nichtern takes the solo here) and the second Swing '42, with an even shorter solo this time.

courtesy jgmf; note the advertised personnel

6/13/74 Keystone, Berkeley, CA
info: http://db.etree.org/shn/13768 (sbd), http://db.etree.org/shn/110798 (aud)
This is both a more balanced recording and a better place to hear Garcia stretch out, if you only want to hear one of these shows.  The sbd has some cuts and is missing the end of the show, but Robert Castelli's excellent aud tape is complete.  Garcia's guitar is better mic'ed as well, which seems to allow him to play with a bit more sensitivity.  Lonesome Moonlight Waltz and the first Swing '42 sound even better tonight, but the real surprise comes in the second set with Russian Lullaby.  Garcia takes it at a sligher slower tempo and allows himself to really stretch out:

intro/Garcia solo > vocal > Garcia solo (1 chorus) > Grisman (1 chorus) > Garcia (2 choruses, after some uncertainty) > Greene (2 choruses) > Garcia (3 choruses; note the cool effect when the rhythm drops out at end his 2nd chorus) > vocal.

He sounds excellent on the second Swing '42, soloing for longer now, again serving to emphasize the differences between his and Nichtern's approaches.  Garcia then takes up the banjo for his second vocal for Drink Up and Go Home, a bluegrass number he would return to in the 90's with Grisman.  The set closes with Garcia on rhythm guitar for Sweet Georgia Brown, leaving the solo to Nichtern.

[edit: guest Bob Gurland sits in this night on "mouth trumpet," which I didn't realize at first actually meant a trumpet sounds made with your mouth... interestingly, the guy also sat in with the NRPS two months earlier in NYC]


6/14/74 Keystone, Berkeley, CA
info: http://db.etree.org/shn/110664
The only recording is Castelli's excellent aud tape of the 1st set.  Again, Garcia solos on guitar for Moonlight Waltz and Swing '42, and sounds excellent and well-settled in the groove both times, but not substantively better than the night before.

And that was all she wrote: two days later Garcia was on the road with the Dead and wouldn't share a stage with Grisman for another 16 years.  The Great American String/Music Band lasted through a couple more iterations, including Greene finally decamping to tour with Loggins & Messina in 1975.  More musicians came and went, and by the end of 1975 Grisman had met Tony Rice and established the first David Grisman Quintet. 

PS: a quick word is due, too, for bassist Buell Neidlinger ("Flame Bombadine") who sounds fantastic throughout these shows.  I don't know how involved in the group he was (Taj Mahal plays bass on the April tapes,), but Neidlinger does an outstanding job here.  I'm particularly fascinated by the fact that Neidlinger's career at this point already included work with John Cage and several records with avant-garde jazz pianist Cecil Taylor (about as far from dawg music as it gets), and he went on to record and perform with a wide range of musicians -- look at this discography!  and a fine, extended interview is here.  He has impeccable time and a great swing, but also check out the wild bowed bass work in the outro of Maiden's Prayer on the 12th.  Between Neidlinger, Tony Saunders, Kahn, and Phil Lesh, Garcia certainly got to work with a full range of bass players that month!  Is it even possible that Garcia might have mentioned that he played briefly in a band with Neidlinger when Cecil Taylor and Ornette Coleman checked out a Dead concert in 1988?  Probably not, but ya never know.

June 1974 with Tony Saunders

your blogger's old cassette.  Oh, for the halcyon days of tape cuts and mislabeled songs.

Yeah!  Managed to slide in one more before 2018!  JGMF did the work years ago to establish the historical particulars of these gigs, so I won’t rehash those too much: here are his listening notes on 6/4/74, 6/5/74, and 6/6/74.  Notably, all three of these shows feature Merl’s son Tony Saunders on bass instead of John Kahn.  From a historical standpoint, Tony’s presence puts these in a grey area regarding the persnickety issue of “what band is this?,” a question blurred by the fact that Garcia was an apparently frequent guest at Merl’s own gigs around this time.  The particularities probably won’t be teased out any further than JGMF has already teased them.  I’m still tickled, however, by the image of Garcia rolling up to some bar with his guitar and amp in his trunk, then a week later playing at the Oakland Coliseum.

I wish I could find some older pictures of Tony and Merl, btw.  His first paid gigs as a teenager were with Garcia & Saunders.  This little pic of the two at Fantasy Studios is all I could find, from Tony’s site:

Gigs at the Lion’s Share were more laid back and off-the-beaten-path: most tapes of the few circulating shows there all have that flavor, and 6/4/74 may have the most of it, with a rich warm Betty Cantor recording to capture it all.  The uniqueness of some of the material is likely what marks this show for most folks, but the expansive nature of the playing earns its place on the list of the best of Garcia/Saunders 1974 shows.  Darben the Redd Foxx was a tune by saxophonist James Moody that seems to have had some pull with jazz musicians in the 1960’s but nevertheless seems like a totally left-field choice for this band.  They lay down a smooth, straight-down-the-middle midtempo swing that rolls along for 17 luxurious minutes; Garcia understandably sounds a little tentative at first, but he digs in and is on top of things by the time his second solo comes around.  Many heads don’t appreciate Martin Fierro’s playing and while he did have a tendency to overblow theatrically at times (which I imagine was probably much more effective in person than on tape), there’s none of that here: Fierro is totally in his element, unraveling cool, focused lines through his solos.  A very cool and unusual sound for these guys.  Tony and Bill Kreutzmann (I’m pretty sure it’s him) lay down a supremely bouncy groove to start Expressway, but halfway through they all fall into the trap of cycling endlessly through that descending chord progression “jam” with increasingly less and less to say, with Fierro and Garcia repeatedly deferring to the other and noodling around to no great purpose.  The rhythm section wins again, however, on a great Second That Emotion, better than most from this time.   Even better still is the magic they conjure on Merl’s Wonderin’ Why.  I always like the feel of this song, but this one is particularly satisfying as Garcia and Fierro weave circles around each other in the first main jam; their interplay here makes this one of the best versions I know.  A bluesy, blustery Soul Roach ends the first set.

To underscore the jazz club ambience, they pull out another rarity in Miles Davis’ classic All Blues, and Garcia et al follow the form of the tune, each taking a few choruses over the simple, timeless changes, at first resisting the urge to stretch.  But after returning to the melody, Garcia and Fierro start wandering off the page as Merl tries keeping it rooted to the changes, resulting in a gentle freeform tug of war that sounds great.  Martin brings it back home with another blues melody at the end [edit: I think he's playing the the main melody from the tune "One Mint Julep"] -- it’s a neat twist to end another long, relaxed jam that only could have happened at the Lion’s Share.  Local blues guitarist/singer Alice Stuart comes up to sing New York City (an “original” that’s not too far removed from Jimmy Reed) and the band sound great chomping down on a straight 12-bar blues.  The Harder They Come has a choppy, funky groove that works well, and they do better than usual with this one until a little “when/how do we end this?” snafu at the end. Then Dixie Down ends things on a soulful note.  It has its ups and down, but I’ll forgive a show like this its warts: much like 7/5/73, it may not rise to the tighter standard of other ‘best’ shows of the period, but its perfectly realized vibe and groove make it a real stand-out of the year.

City magazine June 1974, courtesy @joyatri_vintage

6/5/74, another fine Bettyboard, is missing its first set (the full tape seems to exist since we have a tantalizing setlist from, I presume, Rob Eaton).  Alice Stuart returns for the second set, this time with her guitar in tow — I wonder if she was the opening act for these two nights?  But, first, things get off to bumpy start: Fierro does no one any favors by test-driving some extreme electric effects on his flute on La-La which is, frankly, unlistenable.  The wahwah pedal was a component of his sound in 1974-75 (he, along with numerous other saxophonists, followed Eddie Harris’ example of using electric effects on their acoustic horn), but the effects really don’t work here.  Ouch.  Stuart evidently arrives onstage midway through Finders Keeepers: you can hear Betty adjust Garcia’s guitar in the mix @6:37 and Stuart takes the final solo.  It’s nothing all that inspired (and probably not what she usually played), but hearing another lead guitarist onstage with Garcia in this era is most unusual -- let alone a female lead guitarist at all -- so this certainly deserves a nod for historical importance.  Stuart doesn’t sound totally familiar with Dixie Down either, but she dishes it out on the blues chestnut Kansas City, adds a nice chicken scratch rhythm and some nice licks to another fine Harder They Come, and is in her element holding her own with Garcia on That’s All Right Mama.  Ultimately this set is more a curiosity than a must-hear, but this must be one of the last times on tape that we hear Garcia casually trading leads with another guitarist like this.  With some big doings on the horizon with that other band of his, Garcia must have been having a blast.

PS: after all this, I realized that there’s a video of Alice Stuart and her band at Winterland from 2/2/74 — haven’t checked it out yet, but I’m looking forward to.
http://www.concertvault.com/alice-stuart-and-snake/video/id-do-it-for-you_-1665489645.html

On 6/6/74 they were back at their homebase in Berkeley, with Tony still subbing for Kahn.  Rather than a Bettyboard, we are most fortunate to have a top-notch Louis Falanga aud recording that’s one of the best he made, with mics set up right by Garcia’s monitor (the soundman’s voice is audible a few times) yet capturing the whole band with a nice balance.  After some atmospheric banter about a buzzing light dimmer, a loose and somewhat sloppy Someday Baby lazily gets thing rolling, and Expressway follows a similar trajectory as 6/4, although Garcia leans into it harder as things start to sag and drives it home with a forceful ending.  From there on, however, it’s all gravy.  He Ain’t Give You None sits happily in a fat, wide groove, and My Funny Valentine (which is prefaced by Garcia, off mic, “we haven’t done that in a little while”) is a picture-perfect textbook version of this band’s signature jazz tune  without a stumble or any hint of dissonance or weirdness — not that I mind it when they took this one outside, but they really seem focused on getting the most from the material here.  A heated Second That Emotion (check Garcia’s final solo!) ends the first set.  The tape cuts back in with some spacey fooling around and Garcia chuckling loudly at Fierro’s noodling before the real bombs drop.  Merl’s My Problems Got Problems, only ever played a handful of times, was never done better than this: the groove is incredible right from the drop, and by 10 minutes it becomes so unmanageably funky and I won’t detail the kind of moves I’m making while I listen.  Talk about a stone cold killer!  21 minutes compared with the puny 8 minute version from a few weeks later.  As they futz around afterwards, Jerry says “oh hey, let’s do that, Tony… let Martin start it” and off they go into Darben the Red Foxx again, but with a different, more march-like, staccato rhythmic feel (more like the arrangement on various jazz records) and a tense, edgier feel overall.  Unlike the more leisurely 6/4 performance, Fierro brings it back to the melody after 11 minutes, then they float off into spacier realms, flirting with all-out dissonance over a terse, sparse groove for another 7-8 minutes before they play the melody again and end it for good.  A hare-brained and high-energy How Sweet It Is rounds out the night.  Incredible!  As tasty as the whole show is, the 40+ minutes of Problems/Darben is some of my favorite playing this band did during that great year.

Then, y’know, like 36 hours later, Garcia was at it again with the Dead throwing down one of the most bananas Playing in the Band jams of all time (and, incredibly, Louis Falanga was on the scene again -- the man deserves a medal!)  But I’ll leave you to peruse that one on your own.  All in a day’s work for 1974!

10/24/78: floundering in the snow

This is a fantastic aud tape of a Keystone show that you could probably get along fine without ever hearing.  Just being honest.  But there are a couple of things:

First, go John Angus and Scott Hart!  They put down a few other JGB shows on tape that month, and this one is a particularly sweet specimen: rich, full, balanced sound with just enough depth and flavor to really please these ears.

Second, the band is actually playing quite well, just content to cruise along in a lower gear.  Keith sounds like he’s in particularly good fettle, foreshadowing the wonderful interplay between him and Jerry in the more well-known 10/28/78 Seattle show.  Everyone sounds fine tonight, locked in and focused, but it's still a mellow, slippers-and-sweatpants kind of show.  There's not really much to review, actually.  Highlights, if you’re looking, would be a surprisingly tasty Love in the Afternoon (surprising since I generally dislike that song), a very nice Mission in the Rain, and the neat curiosity of Lee Oskar blowing some discrete harp on Gomorrah and Midnight Moonlight.

Third, and this is what struck me about the tape, there’s a telling little moment at the end of the first set.  This was a shorty warm-up gig tucked in between the Dead’s big “return from Egypt” Winterland run and a little JGB jaunt up to the Pacific northwest.  After a big Winterland blow-out a few days earlier, I’m guessing that only the most hardcore Keystone Social Club regulars had it in them for another JGB show (the fourth one that month, btw, plus two more in Palo Alto).  Were expectations high?  I really doubt it.  All of those shows had been short, mostly each with well under two hours of actual music, but tonight someone wasn’t having it.  After Jerry announces the break, Angus & Hart let the tape roll for another minute (inadvertently, I assume, since they’re pretty tight with the pause button between songs); someone hollers out, loudly, “You’re floundering in the snow! That was too short!” (at least, I think that’s it), prompting a couple more cries of “too short!” and “play more!”  At least one sage stoner intones, “it’s great, it was perfect, no problem.”  Then side B of Little Feat’s Dixie Chicken comes on the PA (“Fool Yourself”) and I’m wondering who was fooling who.  JGMF has written at length about the economics of Garcia shows w/r/t professionalism and bang-for-your-buck, with some particular attention to some pretty skimpy 1985 shows from a pretty low time in ol’ Jer’s personal life (see here among others).  I was a little surprised, though, to hear someone calling Jerry out on this in 1978.  Then again, though someone calls out “boring!” during a languid Russian Lullaby, so maybe it’s a case of the food was awful and the portions were too small that's at work here. 

Fourth, I’m realizing the the narrative has always put Oct-Nov '78 as a pretty low point for all concerned parties: burned out and tired, the Dead embark on an east coast tour that is cut short when Garcia is hospitalized, the Godchauxs’ marriage implodes, Keith's playing continues to go downhill, and then Keith is apparently fired from the JGB for dipping into Jerry’s stash (per Kahn).  Yet, on paper, a bunch of interesting things were happening: not only does Lee Oskar pop up at a couple of those Winterland shows (plus again on New Years Eve) and at this JGB show, but so apparently does Will Scarlett at two Keystone shows that we don’t have circulating tapes for (see gdsets.com for 10/11 & 12).  Two harmonica players in one month?  Earlier in October, before all this, Garcia reunites with Merl Saunders for a one-off gig with Merl’s band (which, in addition to being apparently a dry-run for Reconstruction, also sports some of the hottest playing Garcia did that whole month).  Then, as I assume you may already know, two of those Pacific northwest shows, 10/26 and 10/28, are among the best of the year and also happened to be shared gigs with Bob Weir’s band, whose keyboardist Brent Mydland was being keenly watched by all concerned parties (meanwhile, with Keith’s playing on 10/28 being widely praised, I wonder if he felt like he was essentially auditioning for his own job?).  And then there's the JGB show on 11/3/78 that's famous for its totally out of left field and out of character performance of Miles Davis’ So What. [edit: also can't forget the first acoustic GD performance in eight years that happened pretty off-the-cuff in Chicago on Nov 17].  That’s a fair bit of extracurricular activity for what I tend to assume must have been a pretty dreary time for all involved parties, but hey, maybe it was that post-Egypt buzz making them all try a little bit harder.

And hey, I’m listening to 10/24 yet again while I type this, and y’know, it’s actually not a bad little show.  Maybe it’ll grow on you.


What the heck does "floundering in the snow?" mean, anyway?