not to wax nostalgic, but...

...ah what the hell, it's my blog.  I was digging around in the one box of cassette tapes that has survived the decades (snicker if you want, but when you've been carting around a thousands LP's and CD's for half of your life, a box of tapes is easy to throw on the pile and forget about), and this is all that is left of my Dead tape collection:

There were more.  But for reasons both known and unknown, these are what have survived a quarter century, give or take.  At the time (the mid/late 1990's), I was more interested in getting as many Phish tapes as I could, so I never had a particularly enviable Dead collection.  There were, of course, a lot of crummy aud tapes and super hissy incomplete sbds that were given away or taped over, but I did try to save the cream of the crop... and I know that Veneta, Cornell, Freedom Hall, NYE 78 were all complete at one point, but c'est la vie.  10/14/94 was my last Dead show (and a really great Scarlet>Fire, thank you very much).  I have no clue how Garcia/Saunders 6/4/74 found its way to me, since I can't imagine it was a common tape in the pre-shn age.  Note the misdated 10/8/68 Hartbeats tape!  11/8/69 has the irritating clicking noise that Jim Wise painstakingly repaired, manually, click by click, on a home digital workstation (the story), which was the first time I had heard of such a thing being done -- oh brave new world!

Also, let's have a moment of silence for the lost art of tape filler.  The tape formerly known as 5/5/82 had the huge Mystery Train jam from 12/31/75 on the b-side, which made for an incongruous yet inexplicably satisfying juxtaposition.  Ditto 10/16/89 which had just exactly the perfect amount of space to fit the Garcia solo track from Zabriskie Point as filler.  Good filler was always the perfect comedown.  

I wrote a while ago about the GD Hour broadcast of 1/22/78 that basically changed my life, and I am most pleased to find that that one has held on.  But of course all of these were very, very special in their own way.

That's it.  B&P welcome, or your list gets mine.

Legion of Mary: never meant to last? (duh?)

The New York Times reported, on April 4, 1975, on the Legion of Mary's arrival in New York:

[Garcia's and Saunders's] current quintet... is fixed enough to be considered a real unit, Mr. Garcia reported the other day from San Francisco.

Mr. Garcia is very pleased by the quality of the current group. “We're more on the relaxed than the hurried side of the metronome,” he said. “We get a real nice conversational quality in our music.”

The East Coast swing lasts only three weeks, but Mr. Garcia said that Legion of Mary would make a longer tour later on, and that there are “tentative plans” for a record.
 

Almost a year later to the day (April 1, 1976), Garcia gave an interview to The Music Gig magazine:

Garcia's association with Merle Saunders last year [1975] produced many a sloppy concert and severely tested the endurance of the audience. "Yeah, we burned out on it too," he allows. "That was a very weird band it was never meant to go out and tour" [sic].

(note that this 1976 interview is the same one where Garcia praises the JGB's harmonious consonance, as opposed to the Dead's dissonance and divergent viewpoints)

 

No big revelations here, I guess?  The breakup of the Legion of Mary and the larger Garcia/Saunders partnership is still foggy (see JGMF on the precise-ish dating of their split and other thoughts), and it seems likely that the principals wouldn't necessarily agree on the real reason, even if we had firm statements on the record, which we mostly do not.  I don't see any real mystery: it had run its course, and Garcia wasn't interested in moving further with a band that played this particular hodgepodge of music: contemporary soul and funk, extended jazz instrumentals, and Garcia's own bag of favored Americana.  The comment about it being a band that "was never meant to go out and tour" belies his earlier 1975 plug for more touring and a record, but it is still probably true in the grander scheme of things: ultimately, it was the club band that was meant to work late at night in laid back local haunts, not up on big stages to crowds of hollering fans coast to coast.  It seems impossible to overstate the influence that Saunders had on his playing, and Garcia clearly had a great time working out on some unfamiliar material (that eventually became familiar and then, maybe, overfamiliar) in his downtime away from the dissonance of the Grateful Dead.  But that's not the same as making it a thing, as the kids say -- touring around, making records, all the attendant hassles.  Keeping with that old wife/mistress metaphor (used by Garcia himself, somewhere), I wonder if the Legion of Mary wasn't the mistress that started making more serious moves into the master bedroom after the wife left town for a bit.

Obviously Saunders and Fierro wouldn't have seen it that way, and to be honest, one thing I enjoy about all their music from 1974-75 is that Garcia isn't always the most comfortable sounding guy onstage, and that there are times when Fierro and Saunders just smoke him.  But no mystery why Garcia would at some point want to put that down, particularly when it became the Main Event.

But I do have to snicker at the idea that the JGB ca 1976 didn't indulge in a little bit of "severely testing the endurance of the audience" of its own (exhibit A).

Rockwell, John.  "The Pop Life."  The New York Times, April 4, 1975.  Online. 

Weitzman, Steve.  (unknown title).  The Music Gig, Aug 1976.
(clipping saved in Dick Latvala's scrapbook, Book 1, p. 31.  A later revision of this piece -- without this quote -- is at Dead Sources)

improvisational music should not be recorded

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

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

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. 

What good is spilling blood? It will not grow a thing

I would never argue with anyone who says Workingman's or American Beauty, but my favorite Dead studio album for personal listening has always been Blues for Allah.  I feel very at home within the sound of this record.  This afternoon I was feeling at home with it in my Listening Cave (on an LP passed on by a college roommate who did not own a turntable; thanks, Obie) when I noticed that the inner sleeve helpfully provides Arabic, Hebrew, and Persian translations of the title lyric:

Just in case you needed to know. 

Who knows all the lyrics to "Blues For Allah" off the top of their head?  Like nobody, I'll bet.  There are some real Hunter gems are buried in there, though: Let's see with our heart / these things our eyes have seen / and know the truth will still lie / somewhere in between, and so on.

I also had forgotten and/or never knew that the songwriting credits for the instrumental portions of the album are more finely sliced than most heads (or me, at least) probably think:

Every instrumentalist but Mickey got a credit for Slipknot, but it's nice to see that Donna got one for Sand Castles & Glass Camels -- there's a good one for GD Trivia Night.

The thousand stories have / come round to one again.

RIP Robert Hunter

Rest in peace, Robert Hunter.  Right now I can think of no better tribute than this: tonight I sang his words to my kids before they fall asleep, which I have done nearly every night now for over a decade.

to the moon, Jerry!

Hi!  I know, I know.

A good excuse to break the silence is to repost this list, which I'm sure my four devoted readers have seen me post elsewhere.  But in honor of everyone's nerd-buzz around the 50th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing, here is a handy list of Moon Landing Dark Stars.

Apollo 11 launched on 7/16/69 and landed on the Moon on 7/20.  The Dead's closest gig was a few days earlier in New Yor (7/12), where they did play Dark Star, although you may find it a stretch to connect the two events.  However...

Apollo 12 landed on 11/19/69.  The GD nearly played Dark Star at their next show, 11/21, but pulled up short, likely because of time constraints.  They played a full-blown monster version at the following show, 12/4/69.

Apollo 13 lifted off on 4/11/70.  Dark Star was played that night, with the GD in the unenviable position of following Miles Davis.  Sadly, there is no tape.

Apollo 14 landed on 2/5/71.  Dark Star, with the classic "Beautiful Jam," was played at the next GD show, 2/18/71.

Apollo 15 landed on 7/30/71.  Dark Star was played at at the next GD show, 7/31/71.

Apollo 16 landed on 4/21/72.  That night, the GD played an abbreviated set for German television, but played one of the true all-timer Dark Stars at the next proper show on 4/24/72.

Apollo 17, the final manned moon mission, landed on 12/11/72.  Dark Star was played that night.  If you missed it, Lemieux posted the only uncut sbd copy of it at the Taper's Section a few months ago:
https://www.dead.net/features/tapers-section/march-11-17-2019

There you go.  That should make a nice little playlist for you.

"Houston, do we have a setlist from last night yet?"

June '93: this could be the last time (maybe? I don't know?)

I'm on summer hours, once again.  This one has been in the can and just been sitting for a while.

courtesy @fromthelot

Last month, I took it upon myself to listen to all of the Dead's June 1993 tour, which you may understandably think would be a thankless task.  June '93 is occasionally mentioned as being the last consistently "good" Dead tour -- although different folks draw that line in many different places in the 1990's.  While I've heard nearly all of the JGB's 1993 shows, the Dead that year were a mostly blank spot for me, so I figured it would make for an educational contrast, at the very least.  Besides, consistency is ultimately interesting in theory, but what I really want are the best performances and I don't much care if I have to wade through a few middling shows to find the good stuff.  I was surprised, however, that I found plenty of fine performances and that listening to all of these rarely felt like a chore.  Many folks, however, may appreciate some pointers, so here's my take on it.

The specs of the tour have been covered in many other places.  The Modern Deadhead has one good take on what was happening.  But, in brief:

1. This was their second tour with their in-ear monitor system.  The bandmembers were on record as having loved it for providing more detailed, individually tailored, and controlled monitor mixes, and for cutting down a great deal of the noise onstage.  Healy had moved most of their amps under the stage, so nearly all of the sound was coming through the PA system.  The fans were, by most accounts, not as pleased by the change in the sound.

2. Dan Healy was still running their front-of-house sound, but things seem to have come to a head this tour over how he was mixing the opening acts (Sting opened most shows) and, according to the gossip, Bob Weir.  If the circulating sbd tapes reflect Healy's house mix, this doesn't seem particularly to be the case, at least with regard to Weir.  But who knows?  Healy left the band in March 1994.

3. This was Garcia's final tour with his Rosebud guitar (1990?-1993).  The much-maligned Lightning Bolt was introduced in August (see here).

4. Weir's voice was in really rough shape, and he had surgery on his vocal cords not too long after.

5. The other big sticking point for many folks is the raft of new original and cover songs that the band introduced in 1992 and early 1993.  You know 'em, you know how you feel about 'em.  For me, Days Between and Liberty were reliable winners from Garcia, while So Many Roads and Lazy River Road were solid songs that began to feel increasingly over-sentimental every time I heard them.  Eternity and Easy Answers were dinged irreparably by sub-par lyrics, though Easy Answers' groove did begin to grow on me (not an opinion shared by most, I know).  Lesh singing Broken Arrow was charming enough, particularly when it prompted some nice Garcia soloing (see 6/23 for a nice one).


So, children, what does it all mean? 

As much as the narrative of the band's final five years tends to (or used to?) center predominantly on Jerry's health, addictions, and decline, there was surprisingly little of any of that on display here.  For nearly all of this tour, Jerry usually sounded like he was doing just fine.  Comparisons to [insert your favorite era here] inevitably may not hold up to whatever expectations you may have, but you may also be pleasantly surprised: I certainly was not expecting Jerry to sound as good as he did in most of this music. 

As much as that same narrative tends to skewer Vince Welnick, I didn't see much call for that here, either.  Granted, I don't care for his voice, but I can listen around it -- and it's not like anyone else was nailing their vocal parts, either.  Welnick's keyword work, however, was consistently very good, and I heard just as much piano in the mix as his other, more novel MIDI sounds (which, to my ears, were generally no worse than a lot of Brent Mydland's synth patches).  I don't think his playing deserves most of the flack that it gets from critics of this final period.

courtesy Bill Smythe, GDAO

The Jerry was out of it, Vince was no good, therefore the 90's suck line, at least as it relates to these shows, doesn't hold up.  Yet it's hard to deny that this still sounds like a band in the twilight of their greatness, although not quite on their last legs.  Why?  There were a couple factors that get eclipsed by the Jerry/Vince axis of blame, but imho contribute far more to the problematic aspects of these shows than not.  Newer books about the band's last days (David Browne's, Joel Selvin's, Kreutzmann's, and so on) emphasize just how tired of it everyone had become, and also point to the unintended effect of those new ear monitors.  For as much as everyone could fine-tune their personal mixes, they seem to have gone too far in that direction, playing more for their own mix rather than the group dynamic, and further isolating each from the other -- some have claimed that some bandmembers purposefully tuned each other out altogether.  Some listeners put down the "sterile" quality of the sbd recordings, but I didn't find the aud tapes to be all that different, since the band's set-up had become, for all intents and purposes, pretty similar to an actual recording studio: the amps off in isolation and everyone hearing each other through headphones with different personalized mixes.  As a musician, that setup makes it easier to hear what you sound like, but harder to sense what everyone else actually sounds like as an ensemble in real life.  That's what I think was the essence of the problem, moreso than any obvious musical shortcomings.

For my own listening, I went with the sbds, which were generally pretty crisp, pleasant listens.  Again, the general wisdom among some heads is that aud tapes are the way to go for this era, but to my ears the sbds weren't bad at all and reflected the same mix the audience heard (unlike, say, sbds from the early 80's, where a lot of sound from the stage amps didn't make it into the PA mix).  Weir seemed lost in the mix earlier in the tour, but this mostly fixed itself after a few shows and he seemed, if anything, a tad loud for the rest of them (though, to be fair to everyone, I'm sure Weir's style and his various unusual timbres/effects were tricky to mix smoothly with the rest of the band).

The highlights:

6/5, 6/6 - Giants Stadium
https://archive.org/details/gd93-06-05.sbd.wiley.8328.sbeok.shnf
https://archive.org/details/gd1993-06-06.sbd.gustin.tetzeli.fix-34835.100023.flac16

The first two shows were the most uneven of the tour, each with some embarrassing trainwrecks but also one major keeper apiece.  6/5 sports a run-of-the-mill Scarlet with short transition jam into a monster Fire on the Mountain that stands up well in the company of many the better 90's versions.  Garcia drops one verse and only plays two solos, so it clocks in at a shorter 11 min, but both are exciting and dramatic, and exemplify thoughtful 90's Jerry at his best.  [edit: thanks to David Leopold for pointing out that I failed to mention the unique debut of Easy Answers in the middle of Music Never Stopped, a strange but effective move that they pull off pretty well!]
6/6 has patches of uninspired playing, but Garcia incites the band to some old-fashioned fury with a titanic Playing in the Band that showcases their "late" style at its best: rather than piling on the turmoil and dissonance until it explodes, Garcia seems more intent on playing more variably with the density and mood here (one great moment is when things start getting hairy, Garcia turns on the MIDI flute, which is both effective and almost funny) and it ends not with a dramatic meltdown but with an opaque variation on the Playin' riff.  Very interesting and very, very good.

6/8, 6/9 - The Palace, Auburn Hills, MI
https://archive.org/details/gd93-06-08.sbd.stephens.6673.sbeok.shnf
https://archive.org/details/gd93-06-09.sbd.miller.13601.sbeok.shnf

Overall 6/8 is a solid, much tighter show than the prior two.  A big, high-energy Bird Song with a hot climax is worth hearing (although note the contrast with the also-excellent but quite different 6/26 performance).  Garcia's vocals are particularly good at the end of New Speedway Boogie and in He's Gone, and fans of Standing On the Moon (which I am not) have pointed out that this was the first time he extended the vocals at the end.  The guy must have had an extra cup of tea tonight!  6/9 is also consistently good, but really picks up in the final stretch.  The Drums>Space segments from this period are often praised as being the only real deep diving the band did anymore: I found less variation than I expected, though, with both segments following a pretty regular arc from night to night.  6/9, however, stood out as definitely worth hearing: some haunting churchbell sounds in Drums, a stunning transition (Garcia's melodicism is often on full display in some of these moments, this one in particular), and an exciting Space with a near-Tiger jam and some eerie lines from Welnick to bring it down to a close.  Garcia nails a surprisingly wonderful Wharf Rat with some excellent soloing; and then, of all things, Around and Around surprised me with an extended "jazzy" ending without any vocal reprise from Weir.  Goes to show! 

6/11 - Buckeye Lake, Hebron, OH
https://archive.org/details/gd1993-06-11.sdb.tetzeli-fix-19217.34399.shnf

This is likely the best known show of this tour?  It's probably the most consistently good one from start to finish.  I didn't feel like its highlights were quite as good as ones from other more inconsistent shows, but this may be the one to pick for a single smooth listen.  The Jack Straw > Foolish Heart > Same Thing combo that begins the night is a great ride, and the second set is in a groove all the way through -- even Corrina gets a nice jam at the end as they slowly pull away from the sructure -- and the Watchtower > Black Peter are both as hot as you want them to be.

6/13 - Rich Stadium, Buffalo, NY
https://archive.org/details/gd1993-06-13.sbd.miller.105491.flac16

This is one of the clunkers.  Nothing bad happens, but nothing much else happens, either, largely due to an uninspired setlist that is light on the improv.  It occurred to me during the decent Deal jam that Garcia was pushing as hard as he regularly did with the JGB that year, but that the Dead didn't seem willing or able to go there with him.  Days Between always seems to save post-Drumz from mediocrity, as dark and heavy a tune as it was, and this one is a beauty.

6/15, 6/16 - Freedom Hall, Louisville, KY
https://archive.org/details/gd1993-06-15.137334.sbd.miller.flac1648
https://archive.org/details/gd1993-06-16.137335.sbd.miller.flac1648

The first night has a cracklin' Althea that is now on my list of personal favorites, and there's an overall good energy to the 2nd set, although a very gentle, meditative Space and the only Morning Dew of the tour are the only big standouts.  The 16th has another long Foolish Heart that's nearly as good as the more famous one on 6/11, a very hot jam in Saint, and a lovely and focused Stella Blue, but otherwise isn't a remarkable show.

6/18, 6/19 - Soldier Field, Chicago, IL
https://archive.org/details/gd93-06-18.sbd.miller.13784.sbeok.shnf
https://archive.org/details/gd93-06-19.sbd.miller.28298.sbeok.flacf

Both of these were B-level shows for the tour, never rising much above decent.  Still, though, I was impressed how even the most meat-and-potatoes shows were still okay listens, albeit nothing I need to hear again.  6/18 gets the nod for an engaged Playing > Uncle John's and a fine China Doll.

6/21, 6/22, 6/23 - Deer Creek, Noblesville, IN
https://archive.org/details/gd1993-06-21.sbd.miller.108982.flac16
https://archive.org/details/gd1993-06-22.sbd.miller.108983.flac16
https://archive.org/details/gd1993-06-23.sbd.miller.108984.flac16
 
The first night starts off right with a fantastic Jack Straw, definitely one of the best post-Hornsby versions I've heard, then rolls on through a great 1st set, although nothing much happens in the 2nd.  Likewise, 6/22 kicks off with a doozy: a wonderful Help > Slip > Frank with a really fantastic jam in Slipknot -- seriously, that bit from @1:50-2:30 is unlike anything I've heard them do in a Slipknot jam before -- then features a spirited progression of pre-Drums tune, ending with a very long vocal coda to He's Gone (almost 5 min!).  6/23 has the big jam of the tour, at the heart an otherwise so-so show.  Wave to the Wind, not anyone's favorite new tune, is actually done rather well, giving way to a Terrapin that sports a major jam afterwards, with Jerry taking off a jackrabbit and blazing through 12 minutes of some of the best post-Terrapin jamming that they ever did, any era.  A rare mini Dark Star pops up after Space, followed by a lovely Wheel to end a fantastic segment that may be the best place to start if you're skeptical about an endeavor like this.

6/25, 6/26 - RFK Stadium, Washington, DC
https://archive.org/details/gd1993-06-25.fm-monitor.koucky.91249.flac16
https://archive.org/details/gd1993-06-25.sbd.miller.110519.flac16
https://archive.org/details/gd1993-06-26.sbd.miller.110520.flac16

There's a pretty priceless recording of the soundcheck, showing the Dead at their most endearingly dysfunctional: I'll save the blow-by-blow, but it's worth 20 minutes of your day.  Bruce Hornsby sits in for both shows -- on accordion, unfortunately.  I'm an open-minded guy, but the thing seems to clutter up an already full mix and rarely adds much beyond a weezy, monochromatic texture.  6/25 is the better of the two shows.  The 1st set sports fine versions of Half Step, Althea, Cassidy, and Cumberland Blues, and is worth a listen on headphones to hear Garcia's and Hornsby's plainly audible chatter to each other between songs.  Pre-drums is excellent with a smokin' China>Rider, a very hot Saint, a crushing jam in Uncle John's with Garcia taking an extra lap for good measure and then twisting the final riff right into his Corrina lick, which cruises along on the momentum (not often the case), and then Drums sports one of the more titanic Beam segments of the tour.  Whoosh! 

For the last night, Garcia popped in for the end of Sting's set (who had opened most of the shows this tour), sounding off-the-cuff but pretty good, all things considered, with Sting's band making room for him to do his thing.  The show itself is decent, but overall not an inspiring finish.  Feel Like a Stranger, however, may be an all-timer, sans Hornsby and with Garcia playing it to the hilt; dynamic and exciting from start to finish, and Brown-Eyed Women sounds great coming right after.  Bird Song is a more meandering, psychedelic version, a nice ramble through several peaks, valleys, and woods, and Garcia shreds up the ending of Picasso Moon in fine style.  But Hornsby's wheezing around for most of this, and the 2nd set is only saved by a solid Playing jam, slow-burning and pleasantly weird, then a Terrapin that's followed by more of usual hazy, spacey jam with none of the wild energy of 6/23.  Things peter out in the final stretch, and it's all over.


Ups, downs, the Grateful Dead in a nutshell.  Covering whole tours, warts and all, can be a risky undertaking for the burnout factor, and I think it's a testimony to the band that even in the more bland patches, I rarely felt any ennui or boredom.  I may yet work up the energy to give a close listen to the following Aug '93 Eugene shows (yet another "last great Dead shows" dividing line for some), but I left this June '93 tour feeling pretty good about a band that was slowly collapsing offstage and who's end was a scant two years away.

Urobouros Deedni Mublasaron (Jerry Week 2018)

Commence Jerry Week!  I eased into a bleary-eyed morning with 9/11/76 (one of the best later 70's JGB shows), but a moment of satori while listening to this next show inspired me to post:

8/13/75 is my "Barton Hall" show: an early acquisition that's cemented in my mind as the platonic ideal of what the Dead sound like.  Make Believe Ballroom '75 was in the first batch of tapes I owned as a young teenager, full of cuts but magical nevertheless, and One From the Vault was likely the first live release I bought after Live Dead and Europe 72.  I am of the opinion that this is the single best played show the band ever did and, unlike Barton Hall, it's spotless from start to finish.  You probably don't need me to tell you any of this: unlike Barton Hall, I can't recall seeing any argument over the quality of the Great American Music Hall show.

Today it occurred to me that Crazy Fingers from this show is one of the best exemplars of what makes Garcia so special both as a singer and a guitarist.  The whole show, of course, is filled with these, but what stands out about this song in particular is that it's not an expansive, extended improvisation.  His solo here is etched in the purest stone, a perfect jewel of gentle, effortless melodic invention within the four corners of the tune's structure.  The spiraling jam at the end would be taken in different directions in 1976 and beyond, but this one serves more as an extended coda and is a perfect contrast to the solo: Garcia at the center of a kaleidoscopic ensemble wave that could only have been created by the Grateful Dead.

under eternity blue

an unrelated musical event, but a good observation nonetheless

John Barlow RIP

"I can tell by the mark he left you were in his dream." -Cassidy

courtesy Relix

Aside from Owsley, I can't think of another key figure from the Grateful Dead's inner circle that could be remembered to posterity more for his work outside of the music biz than within (and let's face it, whenever someone talks about Owsley's central role in the counterculture spawned by the 60's, the Dead will most likely be mentioned).   John Perry Barlow, the internet thanks you for your service:

https://www.wired.com/2016/02/its-been-20-years-since-this-man-declared-cyberspace-independence/

He did some great work that will continue to touch the lives of those who knew what he did and those who did not -- which, I suppose, is really all a person can hope for.

This isn't a subject I've touched on in this blog, but that Hells Angels post had me thinking about the Dead (mainly Garcia) vis a vis a sense of morality or responsibility.  Maybe I will go into it more someday.  But as I watched last year's mega-documentary on the band, John Barlow's comments weighed on me, particularly this one:

One of the things I don't think people have properly appreciated about the culture of the Grateful Dead is our utter comfort with paradox.  We were never an either/or kind of a culture, we were always both/and.  The deadheads had a very strong sense that there were good guys and bad guys, and they knew who they were.  With us, it wasn't so clear.  We had Hells Angels hanging around for ages, and those are people who don't even try to be good guys.  At one point I complained to Garcia about what I thought was the unnecessary presence of all the Angels thugging it up backstage, making everybody kind of nervous and making it even harder for women in a scene that was already misogynistic to the max.  And he said, "well, y'know, I don't think good means very much without evil."  Which is true, but that doesn't mean you always have to have a seat for evil at the table.

Too much to unpack for now -- not least how this same idea applies to (and informed?) Barlow's notions of how the internet functions -- but cheers to Barlow for laying this out plain and easy, whereas other folks in/close to the band find ways to dance around this basic idea, and for acknowledging the misogyny that went on in spades (more on that, also, maybe, someday).

Rest in peace, Mr. Barlow. You were such a badass, they had to kill you twice.

1/22/78 at 40

1/22/78

I first heard this jam when I was 15 years old.  It was broadcast on the Grateful Dead Hour which, to the extent of my adolescent ability, I think I tried to tape whenever I could (but I don't think I was very good about actually following through with this).  I have a very distinct memory of this one, however: the memory of lying in bed at night, lights out ("you've got school in the morning!"), boombox tapedeck running, headphones on, and having my mind BLOWN WIDE OPEN by this Other One>Close Encounters>St. Stephen>NFA>Around.  I can now see that it was sometime the week of May 2, 1994.  At that point in my nascent deadheaddom (deadheadness?), I was well versed in Live/Dead and Europe '72 and probably One From the Vault and had a shoebox-sized collection with some respectable tapes: but this, my goodness, this was a whole other thing.  I was already on the bus, but this was like finding a few back rows where the cool kids sat.  The excitement of the moment hasn't faded and the rush of feelings are still there on the special occasions when I revisit this show and this jam in particular (gotta start with the Terrapin, though).  Now I'm able to enunciate why: the deliriously intense segue out of Drums, the unusually extended Other One jam, the drippy Garcia solo space that climaxes with the famous Close Encounters quote, the spot-on perfectly timed segue into St. Stephen, that wild 'n wooly early '78 guitar tone, the spotless tape quality -- you know, you've heard it -- but I wasn't hearing any of that when I was 15.  What I was hearing is best summed up by this bit from Nick Paumgarten's 2012 New Yorker article on the band (one of the best single pieces of writing I've read about them), writing about the culture of tape collecting:

"Each [tape] had a character and odor of its own, a terroir. Some combination of the era, the lineup, the set list, the sound system, the recording apparatus, its positioning in the hall, the recorder’s sonic bias, the chain of custody, and, yes, the actual performance would render up a sonic aura that could be unique. Jerry Garcia claimed to be a synesthete—he said that he perceived sound as color. Somehow, I and others came to perceive various recordings, if not as colors, as having distinct odors or auras."

That’s the extra something this show will always have for me.  I can smell it.  I remember exactly what I imagined, laying there in dark, that the stage must have looked like: small stage, band soaked in sweat, air thick with smoke, amps piled high with beer bottles, roaches, cigarette stubs, crowd pressed right up to the band's knees.  I'm sure that is not at all what the stage actually looked like (in hindsight, I'm sure I had no idea that McArthur Court was a college gynanisum), but it's what it sounded like to me.  I had never heard anything so immediately, viscerally transporting.  Or maybe, probably, I had.  I must have.  I remember a lot of musical moments in many songs that made me jump and holler as a younger kid, but none of them stand out as vividly over 20 years later -- I remember that some serious flying leaps used to happen during the Eleven>Lovelight transition on Live/Dead, but I don't have any memory of feeling like I was standing there actually watching it.  Almost exactly six years later, I heard another show from this period for the first time, one that came to nearly equal this one in my personal canon, 2/5/78 (thanks Dick!)  But it didn't have that same terroir. 

May 1994 means that I already actually seen the band in person, once (3/27/94, at Nassau Coliseum).  This departs from all kinds of standard narratives about the band, but I don't remember being moved nearly as much by the show.  It was good, I treasure the memory of it, and I had fun -- I mean it was 1994, but I didn't (and still don't) think it was a bad show, given the circumstances (the Dew, man, the Dew!).  I'm sure I felt lot more strongly about it at the time.  But I was also 15, too dorky to catch more than a contact buzz, I stayed in my seat for most of the show, and I was pretty sleepy by the end of it (and, lest you think I was high out of my mind during that 1/22/78 epiphany: I assure you I was not).  While it seems lame in some regard to have more affinity for hearing a tape than for seeing an actual live performance, that's the way it's sorted itself in my memory. 

Anyways, I know what I'm doing tonight.  I recommend you do the same.

PS. Also, can you think of many post-77 shows where the major heavy-duty jamming all happens after the drum solo?  There are a few, but I can't think of very many.

PPS. The next week’s GDH episode was the Dancin'>Franklin’s from 10/27/79.  That and 1/22/78 made for a 100 min cassette that was pretty potent, to say the least.

June 1974: you busy tonight?

Happy 2018!  While lingering in the wonderful month of June 1974, it occurred to me that... well, see for yourself:

5/30 (Thurs) -- Garcia/Saunders, Great American Music Hall, San Francisco (tape apparently exists, but is not in circulation)
5/31 (Fri) -- “Merl Saunders & Friends” w/Jerry, Inn of the Beginning, Cotati (per jgmf)
6/1 (Sat) “Merl Saunders & Friends” w/Jerry, Inn of the Beginning, Cotati
6/2 (Sun) Grateful Dead: canceled gig at Folsom Field, University of Colorado (per jgmf) 
6/3 (Mon) Merl Saunders group, the Sand Dunes, San Francisco -- possible Jerry sit-in? (see jgmf)
6/4 (Tues) Garcia/Saunders, Lion’s Share, San Anselmo (me)
6/5 (Weds) Garcia/Saunders, Lion’s Share, San Anselmo
6/6 (Thurs) Garcia/Saunders, Keystone, Berkeley
6/7 (Fri)
6/8 (Sat) Grateful Dead, Oakland Stadium (afternoon) -- this lostlivedead post is amazing
6/8 (Sat) Garcia/Saunders, Great American Music Hall (night)
6/9 (Sun)
6/10 (Mon) Merl, the Sand Dunes -- possible Jerry sit-in? (jgmf)
6/11 (Tues) Garcia/Saunders, Keystone (per jgmf
6/12 (Weds) Great American String Band, Lion’s Share, (see jgmf)
6/13 (Thurs) Great American String Band, Keystone
6/14 (Fri) Great American String Band, Keystone
6/15 (Sat)
6/16 (Sun)  Grateful Dead, Des Moines State Fair Grandstand, Des Moines, IA
6/17 (Mon)
6/18 (Tue)  Grateful Dead, Freedom Hall, Louisville, KY
6/19 (Weds)
6/20 (Thu)  Grateful Dead, Omni Coliseum, Atlanta, GA (me)
6/21 (Fri)
6/22 (Sat)  Grateful Dead, Jai Alai Fronton, Miami, FL
6/23 (Sun)  Grateful Dead, Jai Alai Fronton, Miami, FL
6/24 (Mon)
6/25 (Tues)
6/26 (Weds)  Grateful Dead, Providence Civic Center, Providence, RI
6/27 (Thurs)
6/28 (Fri)  Grateful Dead, Boston Garden, Boston, MA
6/29 (Sat)
6/30 (Sun)  Grateful Dead, Springfield Civic Center, Springfield, MA
7/1 (Mon) “Merl Saunders & Friends” (Garcia/Saunders/Kahn/Kreutzmann), Bottom Line, New York, NY
7/2 (Tues) “Merl Saunders & Friends” (Garcia/Saunders/Kahn/Kreutzmann), Bottom Line, New York, NY (me)
7/3 (Weds) “Merl Saunders & Friends” (Garcia/Saunders/Kahn/Kreutzmann), Bottom Line, New York, NY
7/4 (Thurs) canceled: Grateful Dead, University of Wisconsin


Um, yeah.  Dear freakin’ god.

professionalism: solved

Apropos of the last two posts: there's lots to muddle over regarding the Dead and Garcia and notions of professionalism and to what degree they exhibited it.  Mid-muddling, I remembered Neil Gaiman's advice about what artists (including musicians) need in order to find work, keep a gig, whatever (from his popular "Make Good Art" speech)

People keep working [...] because their work is good, and because they are easy to get along with, and because they deliver the work on time.  And you don't even need all three.  Two out of three is fine.  People will tolerate how unpleasant you are if your work is good and you deliver it on time.  They'll forgive the lateness of your work if it's good and if they like you.  And you don't have to be as good as others if you're on time and it's always a pleasure to hear from you.

Sometimes the Dead and Garcia maybe had all three.  But two out of three usually did the trick.

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.

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?

Thelonious Monk centennial

Monk, 1959, by W. Eugene Smith

I'm a few days late (no surprise), but it does seem appropriate that I'm posting on Friday the 13th.

I was a little disappointed that global media wasn't exploding with accolades and tributes for Thelonious Monk's 100th birthday on October 10 (Google's doodle for the day, if that's any indication, was for Fridtjof Nansen), so I'm doing my part in my tiny, barely-functional corner of the internet to salute one of the Giants of 20th century American music.  The influence of jazz on the Dead owes far more to the John Coltrane lineage, which held to a very different set of priorities than Monk's (despite the fact that he spent a few very important months playing in Monk's band), and while I would hope that some or all of the Dead were lovers of Monk's music, I don't know of any direct connections that exist.

My own exposure to Monk came young, courtesy of my father's record collection. His music didn't evoke the same states of heightened emotion inspired by Coltrane, Miles, and Mingus that appealed so much to me as an adolescent, and it took me a while to work out what was so appealing about it.  I am loathe to repeat all of the tired "ugly beauty" cliches about Monk, but there was certainly an element of that.  It wasn't music that I could immediately put my finger on, with its off-kilter rhythms and abrupt melodic about-faces that sounded both slick and archaic at the same time.  It didn't have much in the way of dynamic variety, but I came to really like how it ambled along, seemingly unconcerned with whatever else it could have sounded like.  The "eccentricities" of it -- really, the whole unique architecture of rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic elements -- always informed rather than distracted from every aspect of Monk's music.  Sui generis in the most literal and very best sense of the term.

In that sense, I suppose, maybe the Grateful Dead are kindred spirits.  I have been in a stage of not listening to much Dead or Garcia, but whenever I come back to their music, I'm struck by the ways that it contrasts with anything else I listen to.  The Dead's unique rhythm is, I think, the standout characteristic of their music that goes the least discussed, and it's maybe the most immediate thing that separates them as a band from their contemporaries or followers -- you can imitate Garcia's style, but no one's come close to really imitating the Dead as a unit.  They were a rock band, of course, and so they played with the dynamics and emotional range befitting a rock band, but there was always a kind of clunky element to their rhythm.  I don't mean clunky in a negative way, although I do think it's something that stands out prominently to people who don't like the Dead -- my wife, who prefers the JGB, once commented that the Dead sound like one guitar player and a bunch of drummers, and I've heard the joke more than once that the Mickey and Billy sound like sneakers in a dryer.  Garcia was always the most rhythmically centered of the band -- Phil and Bob, on the other hand, had some real clunk.  I think that the band's change from the rhythmic and sonic density of the "primal Dead" era to the more stripped-down sound of the early 70's made more room for Bob and Phil to develop their own particular kinds of of clunk.  Mickey's return in 1975 served to clunk up the sound even more -- again, something that many deadheads who strongly prefer 1971-74 can't always get down with.  None of this is meant to imply that the Dead didn't groove or swing: they most certainly did, but what reliably makes them recognizably the Dead is that there are always rhythmic hiccups and bumps jutting out at odd angles, that sense of something a little chaotic always churning down in the engine room.

In a direct musical sense, there's nothing particularly Monk-ish about it (and, going back to Coltrane, even Bob's clunk comes partially from McCoy Tyner).  I think it's interesting, however, that both Monk and the Dead were defined in part by their unique approaches to rhythm in their respective musical genres -- both were iconic figures in those genres and both are still, I would argue, relatively misunderstood given how famous their music is.  So many of Monk's songs are deeply embedded in the common repertoire of jazz, but much about his music remains misunderstood and misrepresented.  So too with the Dead, whose music contains dimensions that are misunderstood (or not engaged with?) by so many who claim their influence.   Both carved out paths through the landscape of American music, the kind that makes music better even for those who aren't fans of their music.  So in that sense, Monk and the Dead maybe aren't as far apart as you might think.

Then again, maybe I'm just having fun with this thought exercise.  But that's no reason not to go and listen to some Monk.  If you didn't get to it this week, that's cool: you have all of this centennial year to catch up.

bonus: one of my favorite jazz writers, the pianist Ethan Iverson, posted an unbelievably thorough overview of pretty much all thinks Monk: the recordings, the tunes, the critical writings, major tributes, and more.  Any Monk fan who wants to dig deeper couldn't ask for a better roadmap than this:
https://ethaniverson.com/thelonious-sphere-monk-centennial-primary-and-secondary-documents/

edit: Thanks to lightintoashes for reminding me that Monk did play the Carousel Ballroom in San Francisco on May 3-5, 1968, right in the middle of the short period that the venue was being managed collectively by the Dead and the Jefferson Airplane (I think Ron Rakow was doing the actual managing?).  Columbia Records and Monk’s management were looking to boost Monk’s low sales by courting the white rock market (his then-current album Underground was being heavily marketed accordingly), so Monk was booked to play a hip rock venue in addition to his usual Bay Area club and festival appearances.  Robin D.G. Kelley, author of the definitive Monk bio, has a good piece about this failed crossover bid here.  I wonder why Monk didn’t play the Fillmore for Bill Graham instead — maybe it was too last minute, maybe Monk didn’t want to be an opening act, maybe the Carousel paid better, who knows?  It’s not much of a musical connection, since the Dead were in New York and couldn’t even see Monk play (though lightintoashes points out that Bear did tape the Monk shows), but it’s worth noting.  Maybe someone from the band may fondly remember that their short-lived venture produced this unique Monk gig.

by Rick Shubb, with some info at his website

10/2/77: "I'd be back here talking to the walls"

I was checking out the recording of a backstage “interview” with Garcia from 10/2/77 (Portland, OR), looking for info about his guitar strings, and I wound up listening to the whole thing.  It's about 36 minutes and actually not much of an interview, more like Jerry waiting around and making small talk in his dressing room with a couple of guys and a woman, who sound maybe like they’re music students at Reed College.  They’re all doing coke and swapping stories about cops, travels abroad, food, and so on.  One of the guys wants to book the JGB at Reed but can’t get a hold of Richard Loren, which Garcia doesn’t bat an eye at: “He’s a lot like me, he doesn’t want to know about anything, he doesn’t want to work fundamentally.”  There’s some talk about the upcoming Egypt trip, which at that point sounds far from definite and seems to be kind of a finale to their planned European tour (also, “Bill Graham’s trying to hustle a scene where we’d play for free in Red Square in Moscow”!).  Garcia is dismissive of their rusty playing at Englishtown, but says that the band -- unusually -- loved their performance in Seattle on 9/29.

There were two things really stuck with me, though.  The first is some of the guitar talk.  Garcia says that he's playing his newly-returned Wolf guitar instead of his Travis Bean.  Deadbase notes that the last time Garcia played the TB was on 10/16/77, so I had always assumed that the Wolf came back into action for that final Oct-Nov leg (and may have been a contributing factor to those mostly particularly amazingly hot shows).  But apparently not.

Then they get on the subject of guitar strings.  For a good bit of the conversation, Garcia is restringing and tuning his guitar while he talks.  He tells them he's playing pure steel strings (Vinci’s), so they rust quickly and need to be changed every show, sometimes twice a show.  “Jeez, I hate this,” he gripes. “This is really the most miserable part of music, tuning.“  A few minutes later, while he’s still working at it: “I hate this, this is so fucking boring.”  I’m sure most every guitarist out there would agree with him.  But what rock star of Garcia’s caliber changes his own strings?  Isn’t that what guitar techs or roadies are for?  I’d think that would be the first thing you would hand off to a crewmember, but nope, here’s ol’ Jer twisting away and bitching about what a pain in the neck it is to change your strings.  Hmm.

The other thing is how casual Garcia is about the whole encounter.  Again, I don’t know who these folks were, but Jerry doesn’t seem to know them very well, yet is perfectly happy for the company.  This was a guy who, by all accounts, was pretty constantly swamped by hangers-on, friends-of-friends, and every other character who had something to get off his or her chest or needed something from him (remember the "do you give banjo lessons?" lady).  Eventually he’s summoned for the soundcheck, and his guests take their cue to leave.

JG: This has been great fun.
?: Thank you very much for your time.
JG: Yeah, it’s cool.  My time is not… I mean, y’know, I’d be back here talking to the walls if I wasn’t… you guys don’t have to leave if you don’t want.

He sounds completely genuine, and offers more than once to get all three of them on his guest list so that they can stick around backstage.  Between that and the guitar strings, he really comes across as the antithesis of any kind of celebrity or even professional musician.  That probably comes across as no surprise to anyone reading this blog, but still, it’s intriguing to hear it unfold in real time, particularly given what we know about the nature of band’s behind-the-scenes scene, what it had already resulted in, and where it would all lead him.

edit: jgmf once posted a comment made by Bob Weir about the nature of Garcia's life offstage w/r/t celebrity, ca 1980.  I assume it couldn't have been all that different three years earlier, yet Garcia doesn't seem guarded or even put-out in any way in this (admittedly maybe non-representative?) exchange with some fans.

hirsute heroics

A Monday morning moment of zen, courtesy of an old NYT article (on a free Airplane/Butterfield/Dead show in NYC's Central Park on 5/5/68) that I dug up at lightintoashes' behest.

The other chuckle is that many of the hippies in attendance were apparently throwing "lollipops" onstage to show their appreciation.  Crazy kids.

Kifner, John.  "6,000 in Park Rock to West Coast Sound."  The New York Times, 6 May 1968.  Web.

In hirsute pursuit of virtuosity: at Columbia two days earlier; courtesy Rosie McGee