Europe 72: the jams, pt 2

 

one of the Tivolis

PART 2: DENMARK

4/14/72 Copenhagen, Dark Star #2

The opening Dark Star jam finds everyone staying in their lane and happy to find some magic in a familiar groove. But oh my lord, do they find some magic: absolutely elegant, perfectly balanced, just a divine specimen of what an opening Dark Star jam ought to be. I will say this feels quite different from the acid energy of 4/8: this seems like a more considered approach here, but is no less beautiful for that. Phil takes a stab at the Feelin' Groovy jam around 10 min, but nope. They glide to a total stop around 12 min and open up into another quiet, crystalline space (no drums at all), astonishingly beautiful, birds gliding over the shimmering glassy surface of a mountain lake.  @13 min Jerry suggests a return to Dark Star, but nobody else is ready, and things take a turn for the weirder... it feels to me like Jerry and Keith want to get back to the Dark Star jam while Phil and Bob are staying in the shadows. Jerry builds 'em back into Dark Star and @15:50 the moment when Billy reenters is just incredible... wowowowow.  First verse @17 min, and then there's a flowering of dark clouds, but the sunshine cuts through once again and they pick up the tempo... I am running out of synonyms for beauty, but I am blissing out beyond anything right now.  @22ish min, Phil finally finds his Feelin' Groovy jam and whoa, they just shift into this without a hiccup. I can't handle it. Does it get any better than this?  @25 min things start falling apart, Jer gets on the wahwah, they finally tip over into spookier space and build up to Tiger intensity. As Bob starts up Sugar Magnolia, I love hearing how Jerry slowly weaves his weird thread into the intro. I also appreciate how he's so into the Sugar Mag jam that he's clearly not ready to stop when they cut it off for Sunshine Daydream.

Good Lovin #3 starts immediately afterwards. This one is 29 min total, as long as the Dark Star, and unlike the preceding ones, Pigpen is front and center for almost all of it. There are a few minutes where the boys are cooking away without him, but the majority of this huge version is mostly Pigpen working his "4 day creep" routine into a panorama of depravity. At 18 1/2 min, the boys take it into Caution #2 and jam it for a few minutes, then Pig does his usual Caution thing -- @4:40 he quickly sings the first verse of "Who Do You Love?" -- then brings it way down at the end and lets the boys glide back into Good Lovin -- and Pig's still going! wow.  Titanic version here, one for the books.

4/16/72 Aarhus, Other One #3

Truckin' rocks out on that E7 shuffle for a long while before circling back to the last verse at 10:30, then off into another unique jam.  The box set tracks this separately, right as they slip out of the Truckin' groove: the whole jam that follows basically threads in and out of the Other One, playing cat & mouse without ever really committing to it.  Phil sounds like he's more active and assertive than in some prior jams, soloing more in spots where Jerry makes room for him to lead.  @6 min (in this 'jam' track) they find their way into a moodier kind of groove with an early version of Phil's "jazz theme" (aka the proto-Stronger Than Dirt riff).  A really magical quiet space begins around 8-9 min, no drums, just Phil and Jerry at first, then with Keith -- really sparse and beautiful to begin, slowly building in intensity, never boiling over, but very engaging and cool music.  Jerry eventually threads it back to the Other One and Bob and Billy join back in.  They jam the Other One groove for a few minutes, nothing too heavy (thanks Light Into Ashes for pointing out that Jerry actually vanishes for a few minutes here), then veer into Me & My Uncle, then back for the first verse.  If you're not counting the jam after Truckin, this Other One is actually very short.  As they wind down, Phil briefly takes the lead, but they segue into Not Fade Away instead.

There are some really beautiful moments in here, but the effect of them dancing around the Other One for so long seems like the wind is gone from the sails once they finally get into it for real.  To me this jam felt a little less focused and intense than the preceding ones, but beautiful nevertheless.

bonus track: Good Lovin #4 has another long "4 day creep" rap with many of the same motifs.  @13 min Pig eases off and Garcia steps forward.  The jam that follows seems like it's stretching in new directions -- nothing wild or very long, but now it seems like they have their eye on more expansive horizons, with Phil seeming particularly interested in doing something new; just before 15 min he even gets stuck on a Footprints-ish figure (see 4/11) that he repeats a few times.  Pig returns soon after, but instead of just moving back into the Good Lovin riff they find a different jam under his final rap before moving back into the song proper.  20 min total.  Progress!
 


4/17/72 Copenhagen, Dark Star #3

Maybe it's because this jam starts a 3rd set after two sets that had been filmed (setlist), but this one doesn't take flight like the last two Dark Stars did, although Jerry is is supremely calm melodic form and in no rush whatsoever.  This follows the same "classic" form of a 1970 Dark Star, although perhaps "patient" is the magic word for this one.  Everything before the verse is one relaxed glide down the usual stream of Dark Star waters; Billy pulls the rug out at one point and they spin in a little spacey eddy for a bit, but find their way back for the verse (I do like what Jerry does in the transition).  Afterwards they drift into spacier realms, think about coming back, then get spacey for real, but never get into the thorns: it's like a slow-motion Tiger that never peaks.  This ends and Jerry folksily strums them into a new jam that sounds like to me a lot like a mellow Playin' jam ca 1973, nothing wild, just cruising over the hills.  Nice!  But this Dark Star is nothing life-changing like the last two.  After a dramatic ending, it sounds almost like Jerry's thinking Sing Me Back Home, but Bobby goes for Sugar Mags again.  

Caution #3 is quite the contrast: this is one flying every which way, balls out with no net, frenetic and even messy, but oh so glorious.  Pigpen's rap is pretty strong and consistent, punctuated by periodic shorter instrumental interludes.  Not much to say: they just freakin' go for it (and spoiler: Pigpen's back gets soaking wet).  Garcia plays some messy slide in here.  @18:20 Phil brings them back into Caution itself and they go broke in the final few minutes, then collapse into near silence (no 1969 style Feedback, sadly) as the two keyboards very quietly noodle for a minute (just for the record, that was a 23 1/2 min Caution).  Then Jerry goes for broke and pushes into Johnny B. Goode, the only one of the tour (and not played since 12/5/71), and oh man, they sound done.  But what the hell!  That was fun.

Europe 72: the jams, pt 1

In honor of the 50th anniversary of the Europe '72 tour, I am relistening to every one of the big jams -- if only I were committed enough to do the whole shows -- and I am jotting down impressions and notes as I go.  These aren't exact anniversary celebrations (and yes, I am getting caught up with my posts now), but oh well.  I am posting these grouped by location.  I am also interested in what happens in Good Lovin' over the course of this tour, so those will get some attention as well.  The evolution of Playing in the Band is, however, not under consideration at this time.  I am listening to the recordings from the official box set, so all times an tracking comes from there, but many of these times are approximate.  

Lots and lots and lots has been written about this tour, which produced some the band's (and, therefore, also humanity's) finest music.  The Every Dark Star blog is currently in the middle of this tour as well, and the On the Bus blog also did an extensive overview 10 years ago (!).  [edit: Light Into Ashes has also reposted LMA poster Cliff Hucker's extensive tour overview at Grateful Dead Guide] Heck, someone wrote a whole book about 5/8/77, so where's the Europe '72 book?  I, however, will for once ignore most of the context in favor of just the music.  Pardon my scribblings.

borrowed from Grateful Seconds

 

PART 1: ENGLAND (THE BEGINNING)

4/7/72 London, Other One #1

The Truckin' jam after the final verse (they were still bringing it back around to the "finally going home" verse, which they soon stopped doing) is really just a short Other One prelude.  After Drums, the Other One begins with what strikes me a fairly textbook jam with the usual 1971-72 motions, and I didn't really engage until @4:30 they drift into the quieter spacey-but-melodic jam that was also a fairly regular move during this period -- but I always find these to be strikingly beautiful improvisations.  After 6 min I hear Bobby thinking about the WRS Prelude, if not exactly teasing it.  They circle back to the Other One groove, Bob sings the first verse, then they keep jamming along the same lines until Jerry hits a nice peak @10ish min.  Yeah!  After 12 min, they tilt towards chaos for real, never quite reaching Tiger levels of intensity, but getting close. Jerry scales the side of the skyscraper while Phil and Keith are the metallic winds whipping at his back. But then they veer into an upbeat "country-ish" jam (Phil teases Caution!), consider the Other One again, splash around for a bit, then make a nice smooth move into El Paso, before slamming back into the Other One groove again (fun fact: only 4 Other Ones from this tour do the "Other One>cowboy song>Other One" thing). After 3ish minutes of this O1 jam, they left-turn into an unusual little bonus jam (this doesn't sound familiar? but I quite likes it), then back to the Other One for the last two minutes, the second verse, and off into a majestic Wharf Rat. Then someone comes onstage and tells everyone to sit in their seats.

This first night is understandably not as well-regarded as most of the rest of the tour, but I was quite pleased by this jam.

4/8/72 London, Dark Star #1

This Dark Star is an all-timer, some of the most unfettered joyous music they ever played.  To be frank, I was feeling the acid that they were surely also all feeling (hey, it's my blog, man): the way this one swells and veers between jump-out-of-your-skin buzzy joy, contemplative quiet spaces, and dark spookiness... but I digress.  I have particularly strong feelings about the jam that builds up out of the quiet around 6 min and soars along until they downshift into the DS groove and 1st verse @10:40ish.  After some gentle space, they seem to find their way back to the same jam (after 17 min), which is pretty amazing.  This wave crests, Pigpen appears and doodles on organ around 20:25ish, and they rev up the engine again, then take the off ramp into something gentle and prettier.  Then their collective trip all takes a turn for the worse and they slide down into a darker Tiger space.  Gaaah.  The sun comes back out at 28 min and they set their sights on Sugar Magnolia, but take another detour for a few minutes on the way, and folks, it doesn't get much more life-affirming than this.  They are just celebrating the fact of it all.  I balk at calling it a Mind Left Body Jam, although there are spots where I suppose that's what it is; it feels like an extended Sugar Magnolia transition to me, but that doesn't get at the beauty of it.

After Sugar Mags, Caution #1 is one big roll down the hill... I love this, but I don't have a lot to say about why.  There's not as much verbal dexterity from Mr. Pen in this one, but everyone else compensates -- Jerry in particular seems like he's still working through the buzzy high of the preceding half hour and is swooping over all this rather playing through it.  Pigpen plays a little harp around 12:20, and then they take a surprise left turn at 14:30 or so into a gentler space that I imagine could have been a doorway back into Dark Star (dream on, buddy).  Phil cues them back into Caution and they end without any further vocals.  But I am satisfied!

bonus track: Good Lovin #1 jams a bit at first, then Pig does his thing for about 2 1/2 min before handing it back to Garcia and then takes it back for a little bit before the reprise.  The band sounds like they're closely following him, not too sure if he's in it in for the long haul or not.  The energy is there, the exploratory spirit is not.  About 10 min total.


4/11/72 Newcastle, Other One #2

Truckin's jam veers a bit towards the Other One, but @9:45 they pull over into a little oasis and ponder what to do. There's kind of a Dark Starry flavor for a bit, then @13:45 they find a new direction and set off into a loose but unique jam. Phil seems antsy to get to the Other One, but no one else is with him; things get messier, then @15:40 Phil drops a bassline that sounds like Wayne Shorter's "Footprints" (though I doubt that's what he's actually playing) and this re-centers everyone. This feels exploratory in the sense of them being genuinely unsure of what's going to happen, and though they're not as "together" as they were in the preceding two nights' jams, this seems to be new turf.  I also believe that this is the first time Truckin' went into a unique jam that wasn't obviously connected to either Truckin' or the Other One (thanks Light Into Ashes for the correction: 3/26/72)

After Drums, they rock the Other One groove for a bit (Pig is on organ for much of this part), digressing for a bit but never going too far off course. First verse is @7:20, then they splash around afterwards and find their way back into the Other One rhythm but Jerry pulls them into a more major-sounding mode. This is great! @11:30 a wonderful Feelin' Groovy jam takes shape and rolls for about 3 1/2 min. Everyone backs off as Jerry leads them into a sparse, gentle space, very peaceful at first, but eventually the knives start coming out and they rile themselves to a Tiger-ish peak; they ease back, then lean back in; @22 min Phil nudges them into a Caution-ish kind of groove (and Pig reappears) but in less than a minute they're back in the Other One for the second verse and a proper ending. Jerry tentatively starts Comes a Time as they're recalibrating themselves and before everyone else is ready. Does he start this in the wrong key? Sounds like they get it all together by the 2nd verse, at any rate. Ha!

bonus track: Good Lovin' #2's jam starts off with Pigpen rapping for a few minutes, establishing the "4 day creep" routine that he expands on considerably in the coming versions. The second half of this is a Jerry-led jam which reaches a nice climax at 11 min.  15 min total, 5 min longer than the last one.

 

Stay tuned for Denmark (and my getting back on schedule)

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)

OAITW '76: sure ain't Dead

Grisman, Wakefield, Rowan, 7/4/76, by Les Kippel

 

Nothing hugely significant about this, but worth putting a pin in, at least.  This reemerged at Lossless Legs, an older source (transferred 2006, seeded 2009) of a tape labeled Old & In the Way 7/5/76 at the 6th Annual Green Mountain Country Banjo Festival in Castleton, VT, taped by Jerry Moore.  Moore confirmed that "actually, THIS set was billed as 'Old and in the way.' The festival ran several days, and this was the final set. There were two other sets under the 'Good old boys' name."  It's really three-fifths of OAITW: David Grisman, Peter Rowan, Vassar Clements (all of whom played with Frank Wakefield's Good Old Boys at this fest), plus Bill Keith on banjo and an unidentified bassist (maybe Rick Lindner, who also played with the GOB at the festival).

They run through some OAITW faves, clearly a little rough around the edges -- there's no third singer, for one thing, so some of the harmonies are a little off.  Grisman takes the lead where Garcia used to sing.  In between two such songs (Pig in a Pen and White Dove), there's this little exchange:

Grisman: We'll send this to Jerry, wherever he may be.  
Rowan: We love that boy! We want to bring him home to bluegrass music!  
Grisman: He's out there being Grateful, y'know.  This is one he sang on the album, and we'll try and, uh, get by.  
Rowan: It's called "I'm Grateful But I Sure Ain't Dead."

Haw haw.  The album had been out for a year and a half at this point, and hadn't there been some issue over money?  Paging JGMF.  This comment isn't anything more than a data point, but it does take on a little extra edge if there was a fresh bruise on these men's relationship at this point.

Meanwhile, the Good Ol' Grateful Boys were booked to play Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City on July 2, but were postponed after local concerns about violence (a possible 7/4/76 JGB gig in San Francisco appears to be spurious).  There can't be a snowball's chance in hell that Garcia was actually planning on performing at this festival -- a bluegrass reunion on the US bicentennial! -- is there?  But I wonder if this was really advertised as an Old & In the Way reunion (as the final set of the festival) and if people were really expecting Garcia to show.

Later during this set, before Wild Horses, Grisman tells a little story about how the tape used on the live album was just being threaded into the tape deck at the song started, cutting off his mandolin intro.  Sure enough, as you may remember, on the OAITW album, Wild Horses does cut in a second before the first line of the song.  And now you know why.  On the complete Boarding House set, the take from 10/1/73 is complete, whereas the take from 10/8 does cut in after the first couple seconds, which were edited to make a clean start with Rowan's vocal. 

1/30/91: rashers and sausages

 

courtesy Jerrybase.  Any bets where Jerry was on his night off?

1/30/91 at the Warfield has a really good Don't Let Go.  Not one for the all-timer list, but it's longer than usual (just under 21 minutes) and Garcia sounds like he's inspired and flying high: he soars over the usual main jam, then leans into the spacey second jam that lasts around 3 1/2 minutes.  But then, rather than bring it back to the Don't Let Go rhythm and final verse, he does something that as far as I know is unique to this lone version: at approx 17:15, Garcia starts firing off this brisk melodic theme that reminds me of an Irish jig (actually, as I learned, it's a double jig; see below).  Quickly, David Kemper picks up on what's happening and Melvin Seals lays down some rich chords below him, and they blast off on this unexpected digression for about a minute and a half.  Garcia takes a neat left turn out of this and gets them back into Don't Let Go without batting an eye.  Any Irish music fans care to weigh in on this one?

Thanks to this helpful primer, I now know that

To tell whether a tune you're listening to is a jig or a reel, let your foot tap along with the music at a natural pace, then see how many fast notes you count between each tap. If you can count to 3, it's a jig. If you can count to 4, it's a reel. [...] There are actually several different Irish rhythms which have the term "jig" in their name...when people say "jig," they generally mean a double jig. Double jigs have three notes per beat, and every other beat is a downbeat. Try saying "rashers and sausages" three times fast. That's a double jig rhythm.

(and after Don't Let Go ends, someone next to the taper says, "sounds like he was going into the Other One," which makes sense: the Other One's rhythm is also a 3-against-2 polyrhythm.  For a good time, try saying "rashers and sausages" along with the Other One beat and see what happens.)

So what the heck just happened?  I don't think Garcia is "teasing" any particular tune.  My hunch is that he's just playing in a style that came to mind, and Kemper and Seals were quick enough to hop on and let Garcia ride with it for a minute.  My first thought was that this might have been something he had been playing with David Grisman, but it doesn't match any specific tune that I know of.  They do something kind of similar on the bridge of Grateful Dawg, and Handsome Cabin Boy would have this same rhythmic feel if it was played twice as fast.  But my guess is they were just doodling around with some old Irish tunes during one of their sessions -- or, more likely, a rehearsal for their debut public performance, which would happen 72 hours later on the same stage.

Any ideas, folks?

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!

Lonesome & a Long Way From Home, 1978

3/17/78, by James Anderson

 

My last post had the preamble about this song, which I won't repeat.  I will, however, reiterate that these jams are like nothing the JGB played before or after and, in most cases, are comparable to the Dead at their wildest in 1977-79.  More folks need to hear these.

 

2/15/78 Keystone, Berkeley, CA (date uncertain per text file)

There is one decent aud recording of this remarkable jam: at 29:15, it's the longest of all the known versions and also the longest single non-Dead Garcia improvisation, besides a very small handful of Garcia/Saunders jams in 1971-72.  Even though some of the jams in the Dead's Jan 78 tour were unusually long for the time, I think this also outpaces anything else he played that year.

Like in the Dec 77 performances, Kahn is the first to pull away from the I-VII vamp that begins the jam and push more aggressively towards an atonal/arythmic space.  Buchanan follows Kahn's lead, while Godchaux either holds tight to the vamp or sticks close to Garcia.  Other listeners might not hear it this way, but I think these two complementary but still somewhat oppositional approaches make for an unusual tension, often very effective and engaging, and never less than interesting.  I won't map out the landscape of this long jam step by step, but there are many twists and turns.  After 3ish minutes of grooving around the vamp, they drop off into a pretty, more minor-keyed space. A couple moments stand out here: starting around 12 min, Garcia and Kahn play a 5-note theme that's repeated and varied for a while; Godchaux takes a brief trip to the foreground at 15:30, playing an almost classical-sounding thing over the slow, churning groove; things follow their own twisty path until, at about 20 minutes, Buchanan leans in with a more assertive groove. Everyone else stays committed to weirdness, but Buchanan's push gets them them all moving in mostly the same direction and the intensity starts ramping up. This final stretch is tremendous! Garcia starts wrapping up around 25:15 with some cool variations on the "I have never been so lonesome" melody, while Godchaux appears to be the one who really corals everyone back into the song itself.  An amazing ride.


2/17/78 - Keystone, Palo Alto, CA - as per Jerrybase, but no tape in circulation


2/18/78 Marin Veterans Auditorium, San Rafael, CA
Official release on Pure Jerry: Bay Area '78; the circulating tape has a splice in it.

This jam has a more discernible structure to it (spontaneously conceived, I assume), moving back and forth between an established groove and freer playing.  As the jam begins, it feels like they're anticipating something rather than just easing in. Garcia & Godchaux play some lovely stuff right off the bat, and Buchanan plays it loose while Kahn is punchy but a little less forward than prior versions. The bottom falls out for a minute before they find some forward momentum and take off, with Garcia staying closer to the normal tonality of the song. This feels pretty good! Just before 11 minutes, the bottom falls out again. Another groove is established, more minor-keyed and less intense; then again things veer back into free territory again, splashing around like the comedown after a big Dead space jam. At 17 minutes they find another groove, this time vaguely funky but sparse.  This one isn't as compelling to my ears, but it's interesting to hear, since since the JGB never did this kind off thing.  It winds down into near silence, then Garcia strums them back into the song.  Structurally, this was quite different from 2/15 and has the most "quiet" spacey playing of any version yet.  23:30 total.


3/9/78 Cleveland Music Hall, Cleveland, OH
The one sbd source runs a little fast, though not too bad. Currently there are no auds, but I would love to hear one. Like a few other sbds from this March tour, Kahn is pretty hot in the mix.

The band returned for their second east coast tour in less than 6 months, playing with a noticeably higher level of energy and more aggressive attack than the fall 77 shows. The jam here starts as usual with everyone slowly pulling away from the vamp.  After a minute and a half, Buchanan drops the bottom out, then snaps back into a steady beat after half a minute, but it's too late: Garcia's going for it.  The jam follows a freer logic, eventually slowing down into a prettier space.  Around 8:45, Buchanan kicks into a brisk groove, pulling everyone else into orbit.  Everything stays pretty loose but with forward momentum, until Garcia whips up a big (and long!) fanning climax at 13:35.  Wow!  This jam is plenty spacey, but with more of a souped-up feel and a linear path than the prior walks in the woods.  True to form, Garcia even goofs once they're back in the song itself and repeats the whole final verse as Buchanan is cueing them up to end it.  Whoops!  Nice little scorcher here, though.  17:41 total on this tape, but longer with speed correction.


3/11/78 Leroy Concert Theatre, Pawtucket, RI
This show has a few recordings: another bass-heavy sbd, two solid aud tapes (I prefer 14931 taped by Tom Dalti), and a fine matrix that will probably be the winner for most people.

The band sure sounds enthusiastic tonight!  Again, they jump ship from the vamp to a quieter groove very quickly, but this time they wait a few minutes to get fully into free space.  At 5:30, Kahn starts playing a clear bassline, something he hasn't done in any of these jams, and everyone else locks in.  This lasts for a minute until Garcia throws out a big trill and everyone immediately follows his lead and starts building the spacey intensity.  Garcia starts to fan up a big one, then backs off, and they splash around. Buchanan lays down a beat again at 10:20, but Garcia and Kahn seem too far gone. Things start coalescing, but the energy remains pretty hairy. Wild! Garcia tries getting them all back to homebase around 11:50, but it takes a little while to circle the wagons and they finally get there at 12:30.  This one was a comparative shorty at under 15 minutes, but they're not skimping on the energy here!  A very satisfying blast of weirdness.

Both 3/9 and 3/11 are pretty amped up versions -- less patient or "exploratory" and more fiery, although still very spacey (maybe not surprising, given the apparent recreational stimulant of choice for this tour). It seems like Jerry is the one driving the ship here, with Kahn sounding totally zonked (um, in a good way) and Buchanan holding for for dear life. In both jams, Buchanan reestablishes a beat after the spacey midsection, although this doesn't really guide anyone back to the song itself.  Godchaux is present in both, but harder to hear because of the bass-heavy sbd mix.


3/18/78 Warner Theatre, Washington, DC 

Given the wide circulation of the original tape (an FM broadcast) over the years and it's official release in the Pure Jerry series, this may be the most well-known of these jams. Inevitable contrarian that I am, it's also my least favorite.

Again, they drop into space pretty abruptly after starting the vamp, more immediately than in any earlier version.  But the general feeling is more hesitant, as if everyone is waiting to see who will get crazy first. It seems like they're having a harder time settling on what to do with this; Kahn suggests a couple ideas, and Garcia plays that impatient "chording" figure a couple of times (around 7:15 and 7:30) that usually indicates that he's ready to move onto something new. But nothing seems to stick, and no one seems willing to just push the boat out of the harbor. Kahn in particular seems less emboldened than he was in earlier versions, while Garcia doesn't seem particularly interested (or able) to find a direction for this to go in. Finally Buchanan throws down a groove at 12:15, and things fall in line for a couple of minutes. But even as Garcia is clearly heading back to the song, they left-turn into some more free interplay before Garcia finally gets them back to the song for real.  At over 19 minutes, this is much longer than the prior two versions, but I preferred both of those shorter jams.  Still, this is all nearly unprecedented stuff for a JGB jam, and still more exploratory and experimental than most Dead jams from 77-78, so it is well worth hearing.

6/10/78 - Keystone, Berkeley, CA - per Jerrybase, but no tape in circulation


10/26/78 - Paramount Theatre, Portland, OR

A well-mixed sbd (Bettyboard?) fragment exists of the end of the show, which thankfully includes this entire jam.  This is a pleasure to listen to.  A few auds also circulate.

Unlike earlier versions, everyone stays grooving on the vamp for a while.  There's no funny business from Kahn and, unusually, Buchanan is the one who seems to first pull away from the groove. Still, there's no abrupt shifting gears at all, just a very gradual move into more open playing. Before 6 minutes, Garcia finds a vein of weirdness that he works, and everyone else reorients to wherever he's going. A minute later, Garcia has found a little rhythmic groove, Kahn begins a walking bassline, and things start to achieve lift off. Godchaux doesn't want to let go of the 2-chord vamp, but everyone else is in fairly jazzy territory, rhythmically speaking. Garcia is eventually pulled back into Godchaux's tight orbit, but Kahn and Buchanan are throwing down, shifting back and forth between jazz and a more driving rock beat. This is really sweet. They jam this for a while until it falls into freer space around 12 1/2 minutes. No tempo here, and it feels like Garcia is slowly turning up the heat, a la older GD space jams. After 3 minutes of this, they start peaking with Garcia trilling away and everyone else crashing around. At 16 1/2 min, they ease off the intensity and downshift into a quieter, pretty, almost melodic space.  Garcia slickly threads in the "lonesome and a long way from home" melody line and brings them right back into the song itself. Great transition! He slips up and repeats the final verse a second time like 3/9/78, and they wrap up at a hair over 22 minutes.  Holy smokies, that was excellent.



10/28/78 - Paramount Northwest Theatre, Seattle, WA

A well-renowned show (this is the best aud recording) and often praised as one of Keith Godchaux's best 11th hour performances. I think the early show deserves all the praise it's been given. The late show is bit more of a mixed bag, and this final performance of Lonesome by this band doesn't reach the same heights as 10/26. But it ain't bad!

Garcia starts doing his late-78/79 superfast 16th note runs right at the start of the jam, and Kahn starts getting pushy after not too long.  This one jumps around much more at first: there's an abrupt drop in intensity at 4:30, and Garcia seems to stick more to the background as Kahn and Godchaux move more to the fore.  Things veer into space at about 6 minutes, things amp up, things ease back, Garcia seems mainly to zip around without finding much of a direction.  They reach a fanning climax around 10:20, but the overall vibe of this has felt pretty tweaky and bug-eyed to me.  The wave crests, they splash around for a minute, and Garcia strums them back into the song.  This one felt solid enough, but it flew by without getting much traction; the feel is similar to 3/18's jam, but more compact at 13:30 total.

 

And that, unfortunately, was that.  A week later this lineup played its final shows, and no other iteration of the JGB ever delved this deep again.  When Don't Let Go returned to the repertoire in 1988, that band delivered a few versions that broke the mold of its general structure and wandered into spacier areas.  But they never sustained this kind of creative group improvisation at such length, making these few version of Lonesome and a Long Way From Home nearly unique in Garcia's side career.

In the summer of 1981, Garcia brought Lonesome back -- only twice.  On 7/26/81 the jam stays in the vamp: not the C-B (I-VII) vamp of the 70's versions, but the same C-F (I-V) vamp that begins the song, and then eventually shifts into basically just jamming on a C chord.  Garcia solos while everyone else bubbles away beneath him.  On 7/26/81, the more exciting of the two, Garcia never returns to the song itself and transitions out of the jam right into Dear Prudence.  On 8/20/81 the energy feels a bit more sluggish, but he does return to song to reprise the verse, then segues into Dear Prudence on the final note.  Both of these are about 10 minutes long.  Eight years later, on the JGB's Sept 1989 tour, Lonesome reappeared as an even briefer show-closer: a nice (if short-lived) alternative to Midnight Moonlight, but nothing that was sustained for more than a few minutes.