"Gimme some chords, Jerry Garcia, gimme some chords"

LN jg1976-01-07.jgb-rehearsal.93mins.sbd-tjs.8385.shn2flac

I will just post raw listening notes, because I will be sweeping bit and pieces of it up into a larger narrative that I have been working on. (update - see "James Booker, Classified")

Jerry Garcia Band
Club Front
20 Front Street
San Rafael, CA 94901
January 7, 1976 (Wednesday) - rehearsal
93min TJS sbd shnid-8385 shn2flac

--(14 tracks, 93:02)--
t01. Tico Tico (1) [11:11] ->
t02. Tico Tico [4:42] 
t03. talk (2) [0:40]
t04. Don't Try To Be Your's Brother's Keeper [15:51]
t05. Something You've Got [5:21] ->
t06. Just A Closer Walk With Thee [4:00] ->
t07. Goodnight Irene (3) [4:50] ->
t08. Just a Closer Walk With Thee (4) [0:50]
t09. //Goodnight Irene// [#1:43#]
t10. //Goodnight Irene (5) [11:29#] [0:32]
t11. (6) United Our Thing Will Stand [8:21] [1:23]
t12. Classified [6:08] ->
t13. Right Place, Wrong Time (7) [3:31] [0:23]
t14. Slowly But Surely [11:37] [0:10] % dead air [0:14]

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia Band #2
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - el-g, vocals;
! lineup: James Booker - piano, vocals;
! lineup: John Kahn - el-b;
! lineup: Ron Tutt - drums.

JGMF:

! Recording: symbols: % = recording discontinuity; / = clipped song; // = cut song; ... = fade in/out; # = truncated timing; [ ] = recorded event time. The recorded event time immediately after the song or item name is an attempt at getting the "real" time of the event. So, a timing of [x:xx] right after a song title is an attempt to say how long the song really was, as represented on this recording.

! Jerrybase: https://jerrybase.com/events/19760107-01

! db: http://etreedb.org/shn/4466 (shorter shnf); http://etreedb.org/shn/8385 (this fileset); http://etreedb.org/shn/28366 (EAC-FLAC of shnid-4466, probably deprecated).

! venue: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2011/09/club-front-20-front-st-san-rafael-ca.html

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/Ree7m

! band: http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2012/01/jerry-garcia-band-personnel-1975-1995.html

! ref: Arnold, Corry. 2012. January 9-10, 1976: Sophie's, Palo Alto, CA: The Jerry Garcia Band with James Booker. Lost Live Dead, May 24, 2012, URL http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2012/05/january-9-10-1976-sophies-palo-alto-ca.html, consulted 12/31/2013.

! R: source: MSR > ? > 1C > 1D > 1CD > EAC > SHN. Extraction using EAC, re-tracking using CD Wave, and .shn encoding using mkwACT. Proper sector boundaries verified using shntool.

! R: shn2flac jgmf 1/8/2015.

! R: seeder notes: "This version should be compared to the previously circulating version to be understood.  This one is slightly more complete (the two takes of Goodnight Irene, here laid out at the start of disc two, are absent from the other version).  It also has slightly clearer lineage, at least in terms of the analog-to- digital transfer (John Kahn's cassette to Ryan Shriver's DAT). In terms of sound quality, it seems a bit of a toss-up.  The other version had some noise reduction and other work done in Sound Forge, and actually seems to have considerably more high end than this version, which is considerably flatter and bassier. d2t01 & t02 both cut in"

! t01 TT this first version with Booker on piano, then on organ for t02. (1) @ 3:47 they bring it to a little close, JB "Play that part again". Until about 6:15. JB explains: "I do one medley of that. I do one chorus of that, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen, please let me explain, Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen means that you're grand." "Hey John, you wanna try this 'Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen'?" until 6:45 ish. Jerry doing more of his Tico Tico stuff 6:45ff with Tutt. Not sure I have heard John yet.

! t02 Tico Tico JB on organ

! t03 (2) JB: "Hey what about this tune 'Your Brother's Killer'" -- band laughs, eggs him on, whoa, whoa! Being goofy. JB, coquettishly: "Oops - I slipped." Garcia laughing. @ 0:33 JB: "Hey, look here - listen at this - hey John, listen at the changes in this" -- starts playing.

! P: t04 DTTBYBK is just Booker for the first two minutes. Jerry comes in around 2:18 a little, Tutt is real light behind. Booker is a rather amazing one-man band. Jerry comes in more seriously 3:17, lands safely, catches the ground running like a parachutist, real soft, turns himself up 4:10. If Booker was looking for a backing band, this guy's not particularly backing. JB calls it to a halt, 5:45, sounds a little frustrated - "you stay on that 'C', stay on that 'C'", and he hits it, calling out some chords over the progressions, with lyrics. 6:15: "Look, John, do this. Listen at me." He's showing it to John. By 6:48 John is with him.

! P: t05 SYG JB stops, "Wait a minute - I done messed up the changes."

! t07 (3) JB: "Goodnight, ladies and gentlemen!" as they start the song, and he's playing it as outro music as the bar winds down. @ 0:38, Booker starts playing, calls out "pick your feet up and shuffle!", and Garcia digs into a good strong shuffle. "That's how we're gonna go out" - Booker is structuring the show. And, fuck yeah, this is the way to take the band out. This is Jerry Garcia playing Goodnight Irene with James freaking Booker. Thank you, tape Gods. "See ya later ladies and gentlemen! How about a hand for Jerry Garcia, and brothers, and others! Yeah! "Jerry Garcia, of the Grateful Dead: thankful as evah. Yeah! How 'bout a hand for gratitude ... in the grave -aw!-- how about a hand for resurrection ... and reincarnation ... and all that karma, and all that jazz."
! song "Goodnight Irene" (t07, t09, t10): The earliest known recording 1/7/76 is the first extant recording of Garcia playing the New Orleans classic, and he's doing it with the Bayou Maharajah, Professor Longhair student and Mac Rebbenack (Dr. John) mentor, entertainer to anyone who ever kept his presence, the great piano wizard James Booker [x-ref earlier Booker materials - probably prefer to keep this discussion for later JGJK].

! t08 (4) JB "Gimme some chords, Jerry Garcia, gimme some chords" (sung to this shuffle of "Just A Closer Walk With Thee"), then breaks it down for instruction: "Jerry, gimme some chords ... a few places, you know? Don't just wire it all up, you dig? Try to settle down a little something so we can keep some contrast in it."

! R: t09 there's a cut here, but this sounds like it follows from what they were just doing.

! P: t10 (5) @ 4:20, James is telling John to "ride the tonic" - "John Kahn, ride the tonic, like I'm doin' rightchere wit my lef' han'" - Tutt thinks he's found the end @ 4:35, hits it clean, but no-one else appears to have taken note.  At the end of the song, Booker asks "Now, what was the name of that?" Garcia: "Goodnight Irene". JB: "Yeah". What an odd little exchange. JB @ 11:45 "Now, this other tune is the one we did before. Oh no no no no ... yeah? Didn't we do that, 'So Swell When You're Well'? What key did I do that in?" Garcia: "That's what we were tryin' to figure  out." JB: "Oh no, I wanna do this first." JG: "Just tell us the name of 'em." I figure they must have had charts, but Garcia didn't read music, did he?

! t11 (6) JB: "'United, Our Thing Will Stand' - it's in F." The guys say "yeah", and they jump right in, so they are working from something. 5 JB brings in some nice loud B3. After the song, 8:24, James says "This thing in D-flat? I think I'm gonna do it in C instead." I think I hear Jerry say "all right". No, E-flat. I better try it in C." Last song title discussion. @ 9:23. "I wrote that in the New Orleans Parish prison in 1970." More: "I wanna do this, here's another one (t12) - do it in C. we did it last night, but it was in D flat."

! P: t12 Classified JB is calling out the notes. At 2 Jerry could have made it sounds like his great jam in Hard To Handle, but he resists. JB wants him to play some chords 2:18. 4 he tells Jerry to vamp on that C.

! t13 (7) at the end JG asks what was the name of that again? JB: "'Classified', but I just made a medley of it." Then: "This other thing ... 'One Helluva Nerve' - oh no no, not that, yet."

! P: t14 SBS John and Ronnie are on it. Garcia slow to join, than @ 0:30 JB: "No - it's not a straight thing, it's choppy - real choppy fonk, regular choppy New Orleans fonk." 10 he dedicates the song to his Aunt Bessie down in Bay St. Louis. She used to say that all the time - "slowly but surely". And she'd say this: "Dead and gone, I may be dead and gone, just under the ground rottin' [??]. Oh but the truth will live on, you know, it never be forgotten, oh no." etc Jerry does some nice scrubbing 10:44.