Jerry and Freddie, mid-March 1972

Above are the music listings from Night Times, March 8-21, 1972.

Check 'em out if you're interested, of course, but let me be Garciacentric and offer the following tidbit, about the deepening relationship between Jerry Garcia (et al.) and Freddie Herrera: Jerry and Merle [sic] --Night Times misspelled his name without fail through this point, always adding the erroneous 'e' to his first name-- as I say, Jerry and Merl played for Freddie 8 times in 11 nights between Wednesday the 8th and Sunday the 18th. Here's a table view:

Table xxx. Jerry and Freddie, 8 gigs in 11 nights, March 8-18, 1972

Both weeks, it's Wednesday-Thursday at Keystone Berkeley --formerly the New Monk and renamed, as far as this evidence goes, as from the March 8th (update: March 1st) JGMS show!-- and Friday-Saturday at Keystone Korner in the City. The Keystone Berkeley would continue operating as such for a dozen years, based in large measure on the informal partnership --I believe that nothing was written down-- between Jerry Garcia and Freddie Herrera. It worked really well for a really long time.

Note that Armando Peraza is billed consistently with JGMS during this period.

JGMS January 28-29, 1972 Keystone Korner - CANCELED

Interesting to see Jerry Garcia and Merle [sic] Saunders billed for Keystone Korner on Friday-Saturday, January 28-29, 1972. Suggests that, as of whenever the deadline for these listings might have been, a second weekend for the Hooteroll? tour had not yet been pinned down. #AHATT.

According to listing in the next day's HDR, Grootna filled the open spot. Hopefully The Fabulous Geoffrey didn't lose a payday when Garcia-Saunders empted him from that February 3-4 space, part of a 3-4-5 run, maybe to make it up to Freddie for having to cancel the weekend before. Maybe he opened for them.

Color: January 12-25, 1972 Night Times listings

Here are some listings from the Night Times, with a few scattershot thoughts.

1) The Berkeley Night Times is a gem.

2) It's especially good re: race.

The range of clubs it covers exceeds most other sources - you've got the country clubs, the rock clubs, the black soul/R&B/gospel clubs, the Latin clubs, a little bit of the crooner set, a little of everything. I think I have noted, and Corry and I have certainly discussed so he may have noted, as well, the racial disparities in our work, derived in part from the material fact of the source materials we use. The white college kids and hippies going to the Longbranch, to say nothing of the martini set at the Circle Star, probably generated more paper, and certainly more enduring (i.e., filmed, digitized) paper, than did the folks getting their gospel on at the On Broadway or one of the Oakland rooms. Night Times had informants seemingly quite consistently across a wide set of sociocultural (and hence musical) strata - valuable stuff for future researchers who might want to look at how race played though all of it.

3) Some foreground, and not just color: JGMS 1/14-15/72

There's also a piece of foreground for me, in this listing. Garcia-Saunders have the January 14-15, 1972 weekend at Keystone Korner, still a Freddie Herrera joint.

I have done up some listening notes for the delightful tape of the Saturday show. It's the only tape fragment between 9/25/71 and 2/6/72, and it's worth a listen - very sweet, indeed.

And yet, as I continue to p.6 (looks like their ads expanded and so did their listings around late 1971, after maybe two months), I see JGMS listed for the same nights at the Lion's Share.

A Jerry Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand

To recap, there are four pieces of contemporary evidence, of uncertain independence (relative to each other, including relative to some common prior cause).

1. listing: Hayward Daily Review, January 13, 1972, p. 35:  Jerry Garcia and Friends at Keystone Korner;
2. listing: Night Times, January 12-25, 1972, p. 5: Jerry Garcia and Merle [sic] Saunders at KK;
3. listing: Night Times, January 12-25, 1972, p. 6: Jerry Garcia, Merle [sic] Saunders and Tom Fogerty at Lion's Share
4. http://etreedb.org/shn/8644, the circulating audience tape says KK.

Based on a preponderance of the evidence standard, I'll go with KK, but I am open to arguments either way.

4) Stoned Sunday rap info?

Joel Selvin or someone at Night Times drops this tidbit into the listing: "fresh from being interviewed by Charles Reich and Jann Wenner (whew!)". I need to check when the Rolling Stone piece, because he might be reacting to its published length. Otherwise, I wonder if this is a scrap from telephone game that helps us pin down the dating of this event? Here's a scenario: Garcia talks about how long these stoned raps were, or he mentions it to Freddie, Freddie tells Selvin over the phone and they have a chuckle about it, it's good fresh banter if the interviews just took place. Could have happened. That'd put the rap (or is it raps? I can't recall) sometime between Christmas 1971 and the second week of January 1972.

update: JGMF, "Signpost to a New Space and Stoned Sunday Rap - Dates"

5) What Would You See?

Lots of great music happening in the Bay Area during this fortnight. Besides the Garcia stuff, I don't know what I'd pick, if I had to pick one. Doc Watson would be good. The George Duke Trio gig at El Matador is tempting, I wonder who was in that band? You'd be deaf for a week after that synth assault.

6) Other Notes

Gideon and Power always intrigues because I have it in my head that Melvin Seals was part of the band (Power) at some point. The Night Times has some cool little asides about Gideon, who seems to have been quite the showman with his "hard-driving gospel soul".

The aside about Malo is also interesting, because it brings the Latin scene into focus. The band had gotten and/or would get lots of press, as part of an exploding Latin scene in San Francisco that had Carlos Santana's fingerprints all over it. Malo was a sort of supergroup with all kinds of hot players. The listing blurbs it as "a local big band that is fronted by Carlos Santana's brother Jorge and that has a Warner's album scheduled for release this month". I have some other 1971-1972 listings and such to go through and Cesar's Band at Cesar's Club, Luis Gasca, the percussionists Armando Peraza and Mongo Santamaria, and all kinds of other maniacs were tearing up the clubs. This whole scene feels very heavily fueled to me.

7) "All the beer you can drink"

One last piece, another piece of Fred Herrera color, as he is getting the New Monk, which would become Keystone, up and running at 2119 University in Berkeley. Ever the entrepreneur, the deals sound great: Clover is the regular band on Monday night, $1 and free food; Doobie Brothers on Thursdays, $2.50 and all the beer you can drink. Forget the still-scrappy Doobies, "all the beer you can drink"? I am on that.

The Mission

"No matter what comes down, the Mission always looks the same"

Jerry Garcia Sometime Before Christmas

Night Times, published out of Berkeley for about a year (as far as I know) in 1971-1972, is a treasure. I found a review of Chez Panisse just shortly after it opened, but it's loaded with great music, art, etc. content.

Anyway, I liked this one, from the December 23, 1971 - January 3, 1972 issue, for what it says about Jerry's life at this time. He is listed as appearing at Keystone Korner (still run by Freddie Herrera) "sometime before Christmas". I wonder if, toward the end of his life, he ever actively mourned such freedom? Or had it been dead and buried so long that it no longer crossed his mind?

The Fat Man Is Back - LN jg1987-02-24.jgb.all.aud-pinney-gems.82610.flac1644

Poster for JGB 2/24/87 at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium on Tuesday, February 24, 1987, image courtesy of Wolfgang's Vault.

Since I gathered an ad and a few listings in Santa Cruz, I gave the 2/24/87 JGB show at the Civic Aud a spin and discovered a great tape (a single one in circulation, thanks to taper Tom Pinney and all involved in getting his tape into the Official Record) of a Garcia Band sounding really good and band leader who sounds cogent, focused, engaged, and increasingly frisky. I'd need to listen to more of the surrounding shows to get a really clean sense, but I if I draw a straight line between some of the Rock Bottom shows (and even some of the early 1986 shows) to the great 18 months that would begin on 8/29/87 and end on 5/19/89, I pass right through this show on the way up. (I do now see that I wasn't doing backflips over 3/14/87.)

I cannot believe Bill Graham Presents ran this with what we might render today as #thefatmanisback, nor that the Garcia people allowed it to run. But here we are! That Lucky Old Sun is a stunningly improbable highlight for me. I never thought I'd hear of it highlighting, less still writing of it. I usually find it a bore. But of this version, on this listen, I have nothing but love. Let's use TLOS as a window on the show.

! song: That Lucky Old Sun [Allan | deaddisc]: The great Tin Pan Alley songwriter Haven Gillespie wrote this reverie with the lesser-known Beasley Smith, a glimpsed-thought-turns-philosophical-truism solar daydream, which makes a really good point. Americana? How about Frankie Laine, Sarah Vaughan, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan and Louis Armstrong covering your song -- in 1949 alone! Tony Bennett, Pat Boone, Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Bing Crosby, Bobby Darin, Aretha Franklin, Jerry Lee Lewis, Willie Nelson, the Righteous Brothers, and too many others to name would follow.

Jerry put it in his repertoire immediately after the coma, draping it in mournful hopefulness, the man who six months earlier lay at death's door, three weeks in the hospital coming back to something like life, thinking "Man, if I get out of here, I'm gonna play every chance I get" (Vaughn 1987, 80), now coming back to health, regaining strength, maybe the coma wrung the junk-sickness out of him, too, because he's clear-headed for the first time in forever, like more than a decade depending on how you reckon it, and he's playing a neat little gig at the Santa Cruz Civic, the breathtaking little Civic Aud, and he's working his craft. Check out the Jerry Band on a Tuesday night, a worknight, February 24, 1987, and hear him right where he belongs, in a sweet little room working up a slice of Americana for an appreciative listener. It's not perfect, but it's careful, attentive arranging, singing and guitar playing. The song is perfect for JGB #21b because Melvin can swirl up a sweet, colorful Sunday garland right around your ears, drape it around you a little, the ladies supply the backing diaphragm that lets Jerry focus on articulation, phrasing, breath management, and the band simmers it just right, so there's room for the same guitar feel, well plucked and articulate rather than face-melting (though Jerry still plays LOUD!). You don't have to love Garcia to concede him his place, doing this song – see 2/24/87 for what I hope is the open and shut argument.

The whole show and tape have this sweet feel. Garcia sounds great, the band sounds great, the tape sounds great, and I wish I had been able to sit in deco splendor on this night, maybe drink some club soda and commune with the Jerry Band. "The Fat Man Is Back," indeed!

Jerry Garcia Band
Civic Auditorium
307 Church Street
Santa Cruz, CA 95060
February 24, 1987 (Tuesday)
Pinney shnid-82610

--set I (7 tracks, 50:09)--
s1t01. //Cats Under The Stars [#7:52] [1:34]
s1t02. Forever Young [8:48] [0:17]
s1t03. [0:20] Stop That Train [7:49] ->
s1t04. Run For The Roses [5:22] [0:11]
s1t05. And It Stoned Me [6:45] ->
s1t06. My Sisters And Brothers [4:10] ->
s1t07. D//eal [6:#53] (1) [0:08]

--set II (6 tracks, 57:29)--
s2t01. [0:47] Harder They Come [9:49] [0:17]
s2t02. I Shall Be Released [7:23] [0:09]
s2t03. [0:10] Think [7:49] [0:07] % [0:16]
s2t04. Dear Prudence [10:55] [0:06]
s2t05. That Lucky Old Sun [9:53] ->
s2t06. Tangled Up In Blue [9:38] (2) [0:09]

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia Band #21b
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - guitar, vocals;
! lineup: John Kahn - bass;
! lineup: Melvin Seals - keyboards;
! lineup: Jacklyn LaBranch - backing vocals;
! lineup: Gloria Jones - backing vocals;
! lineup: David Kemper - 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/19870224-01

! JGC: https://jerrygarcia.com/show/1987-02-24-civic-auditorium-santa-cruz-ca/

! db: http://etreedb.org/shn/82610 (Tom Pinney MAC, this fileset, only known source!).

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

! venue: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2011/09/civic-auditorium-307-church-st-santa.html

! handbill: http://images.wolfgangsvault.com/jerry-garcia-band/poster/memorabilia/SCC870224-PO.jpg

! ad: Good Times, February 19, 1987, p. 21;

! listing: Good Times, February 19, 1987, p. 30;

! historical: Rather remarkably, the WV handbill has the tagline "The Fat Man Is Back". Jerry must have been in a sporting mood about it, I guess. Tuesday night gig, Garcia sounds amazingly clear and focused. This show is a delight to hear, after the darkness of the Rock Bottom series. This is a man working his craft with newfound enthusiasm. He is still regaining strength and stamina - the sets are about an hour. But he definitely sounds like he's getting stronger. Two snaps up on this vintage 1987 JGB.

! R: field recordist: Tom Pinney;

! R: field recording equipment: 2x Beyer M88 (XY 90 degrees) > Sony D5 MAC;

! R: field recording location: FOB Center - 20' from stage;

! R: lineage: cassette (1), Tape from the collection of: Russ Cansler;

! R: Cassette Transfer: By Todd Evans: Cassette (1) > JVC TD-V1050 cassette deck -> Lynx Two A/D (24-bit, 44.1kHz) -> Wavelab 6.0. Transferred February 15, 2007. Edited and Remastered:  Wavelab 6.0 with Waves Plugins and Ozone. Dithered L2,type2,ultra 16/44.1  SBE FREE by Jamie Waddell. a www.shnflac.net **GEMS** production  February 16, 2007.

! R: seeder notes: "a very solid recording"; "first circulating source of this show, 20 years later";
"very strong version of Think"; "tape flip at the start of Deal"; "seamless transition between the discs"

! R: seeder notes: "Big Thanks To Todd Evans for the Transfer! And Sincere Gratitude to Tom Pinney for Taping and Russ Cansler for the generosity and insight to share this missing show with GEMS and the community as a whole!"

! P: Jerry sounds in great voice this night. Very nice. This is an excellent all around show, not a weak spot in it.

! R: s1t07 Deal tape flip at start

! s1t07 (1) JG: "We'll be back in a few minutes."

! P: s2t05 TLOS is a great example of Garcia being attentive and careful in his vocal delivery. He's locked in. This version has some deliberate guitar playing, but nothing super-incendiary, which he could sometimes achieve in the unlikely setting of this song. Hits something cheeky at 6, again 6:25, reminding you he's playing rock, big downward thing 6:33, Melvin comes in big, on cue, scrubbing 6:59. This is an excellent version of a song that I normally don't pay much attention to. Melvin' swirly thing across 7:30. He always plays it the same, but it works; i.e., this is a good arrangement. Nice careful singing 9:15ff, nicely done. Very, very nice. Sounds gorgeous.

! song: That Lucky Old Sun (s2t05): The great Tin Pan Alley songwriter Haven Gillespie wrote this reverie with the lesser-known Beasley Smith, a glimpsed-thought-turns-philosophical-truism solar daydream, which makes a really good point. Americana? How about Frankie Laine, Sarah Vaughan, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan and Louis Armstrong covering your song -- in 1949 alone! Tony Bennett, Pat Boone, Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Bing Crosby, Bobby Darin, Aretha Franklin, Jerry Lee Lewis, Willie Nelson, the Righteous Brothers, and too many others to name would follow. Jerry put it in his repertoire immediately after the coma, draping it in mournful hopefulness, the man who six months earlier lay at death's door, three weeks in the hospital coming back to something like life, thinking "Man, if I get out of here, I'm gonna play every chance I get" (Vaughn 1987, 80), now coming back to health, regaining strength, maybe the coma wrung the junk-sickness out of him, too, because he's clear-headed for the first time in forever, like more than a decade depending on how you reckon it, and he's playing a neat little gig at the Santa Cruz Civic, the breathtaking little Civic Aud, and he's working his craft. Check out the Jerry Band on a Tuesday night, a worknight, February 24, 1987, and hear him right where he belongs, in a sweet little room working up a slice of Americana for an appreciative listener. It's not perfect, but it's careful, attentive arranging, singing and guitar playing. The song is perfect for JGB #21b because Melvin can swirl up a sweet, colorful Sunday garland right around your ears, drape it around you a little, the ladies supply the backing diaphragm that lets Jerry focus on articulation, phrasing, breath management, and the band simmers it just right, so there's room for the same guitar feel, well plucked and articulate rather than face-melting (though Jerry still plays LOUD!). You don't have to love Garcia to concede him his place, doing this song – see 2/24/87 for what I hope is the open and shut argument.

! s2t06 (2) JG: "Thanks a lot. See ya later."

REFERENCE:

Vaughan, Chris. 1987. (Grateful) Dead Fingers Talk. Spin 3, 4 (July): 74-76, 80.

GD September 3, 1972, Folsom Field, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO

I have posted on this show once, but only to link these breathtaking photos:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/34917706@N07/sets/72157622061027813

Photos, I gather, by Joe Calvin.

I have always thought there's a dissertation or book to do about music at colleges and universities. Corry has hipped me to their importance in economy, among other things. The Dead in Boulder is a great case study. But, no time!

Links:
http://www.dead.net/show/september-3-1972

More Carousel

Chicken:
http://www.chickenonaunicycle.com/Carousel%20Shows.htm

20 June 1968     Big Brother and the Holding Company, Fleetwood Mac, Dr John The Night Tripper
23 June 1968     Big Brother and the Holding Company
24 June 1968     Big Brother and the Holding Company

But this ad has it June 21-22-23.

Again, I am sure this is all well established, but since I don't see any notes about contradictory listings I thought I'd bring these up.

GD at Carousel, May-June 1968

Since I am on the subject, the ad below (published 5/30/68) lists the GD at Carousel on Friday May 31, Saturday June 1, and Sunday June 2, 1968. The Chicken lists Thursday (5/30) through Saturday (6/1).

Sorry if this has all been gone over, but I don't see any notes in my own files on this.

GD April 5, 1968 (Friday), Carousel - never happened

Updated: the SFC Datebook of April 5, 1968 (p. 47) shows John Lee Hooker, Loading Zone, Mother Earth. Given the two conflicting pieces of print, I'll prefer the later-published one (SFC) to the earlier-published one (Express Times issue of ca. 4/3/68) (lex posterior derogat priori).

Corry's tour itinerary shows an open Friday night for GD/Garcia on April 5, 1968.

Randomly, I just found a listing for the GD and Chuck Berry at the Carousel that night. Here it is.

This is one of the interesting thing about cross-validating from the Barb to the Express Times and other sources - sometimes interesting things pop up!

The Chicken lists John Lee Hooker, Loading Zone and Mother Earth.

update: The Chicken was right all along, and I think there was no hidden GD show this night, at least not at Carousel.

Interesting that this was ever on any calendar at all, though. I wonder what the GD ended up doing this night instead of gigging, as at-one-time advertised?

Documenting the JGB - February 26, 1976 - Del Mar Theatre, Santa Cruz, CA

Continuing this little Santa Cruz series, I thought I'd use the next gig to lay out some nomenclature. A little taxonomy to tempt your tastebuds.

Institutionalized Practices

The current title only came to me after I had just posted this more generically. It currently reads "Documenting the JGB" to complement the Billing and Accounting posts from the 10/8/75 shows (linked below).  Maybe the better term is Publicizing, because the documents I look at below are all publicly available, highly regularized, capable of setting peoples' expectations at the time and into the future. These are, in short, highly institutionalized practices. Maybe that's the biggest point about Accounting, Billing, Publicizing, and now Documenting. We know an awful lot about where and how to look for evidence. We have "well-formed priors", as my Bayesian sisters and brothers might say.

The Jerry Garcia Band played two shows, 7:30 and 10:30 p.m., at the gorgeous Del Mar Theatre, 1124 Pacific Street in Santa Cruz (CA, 95060), on Thursday February 26, 1976. [map | JB-A | JB-B | JGBP | cinematreasures | 10/8/75 billing | 10/8/75 accounting].

Nomenclature and Examples from JGB 2/26/76

The shows provide a nice set of public paper documentation that I'd like to lay out. Here are the key pieces, in my nomenclature, that I can illustrate: 1) preview; 2) listing; 3) ad; 4) review. There are a few other things that I code as mentions, some other things I just tag expost (which are really ex post mentions), and now a category called an item. These are all key categories in my research, spanning the time frame from before the show (e.g., #s 1-3) to after it (e.g., #4).

1. Preview

The 2/26/76 shows at the Del Mar do not feature a paragraph- or article-length sneak peek (à la "Garcia Headlines Friday Concert" from OAITW 10/5/73). But they do provide, on p.1 of that day's Good Times, an attractive picture of a trim, smiling Jerry playing the white Travis Bean - this has all the markings of a snap from the 10/8/75 show. The caption essentializes, "Jerry Garcia and his band will play two shows at the Del Mar Theatre, etc. etc." A canonical preview would be longer, but I'll call it a preview anyway.

2. Listing

Same newspaper, same date, a little further back, there's a canonical (calendar) listing:

3. Ad

a) Same publication, next page, an ad:

I'd like to see this mandala design in color, but alas there is none. I can't quite make out the artistic attribution: would that be RIB design?

b) Basically the same ad in the campus newspaper, the City On A Hill Press, from the prior week, with some vintage 1976 Dennis Banks/AIM/Pine Ridge reportage. A little dissonance with your morning brew:

4. Review

Finally, a review (Harlan 1976):

One of the more lethargic programs these deteriorated ears have yet tolerated. The material … was inexcusably insipid and dragged on for countless minutes, almost to the extreme of note-to-note crawls.  ... humdrum, tiresome style of performing ... The tedium increased as Garcia's lackluster vocals ... and the acutely inept playing of [band members] curdled the show. ... numbing musical environment ... Wake up, Jerry!

Summary

So, to beat the methodological point to death: When looking for evidence to confirm or disconfirm a given event, the most systematic research method involves seeking out any or all of the above: 1) preview (ex ante), 2) (calendar) listing (ex ante), 3) ad (ex ante), 4) review (ex post). I also use a category called mention, which can be either ex ante or ex post (e.g., in the Chronicle's "Something Else" feature, or in the Staska-Mangrum column from the Hayward Daily Review). We could also think about announcement of the show (e.g., "tickets on sale tomorrow for Garcia concert"), but I don't tend to see too many of those. update 20140922: I have added a category called an item, which I found a bunch of in my recent SF Chronicle research. For example, the JGMS show on September 9, 1971 gets a little 2-3 line blurb (item: "Garcia, Fogerty at Harding," SFC, September 9, 1971, p. 44). This shades into announcement territory, but some of them feel conceptually distinct. For example, sometimes they'll say the show has been sold it, a show that had been formally "announced" weeks or even months before. I found a bunch that remind people that the Jackson Five are at the Cow Palace, or whatever. Not quite announcements, not a mention in a column, not a listing, but an item.

There are other possible categories, but this covers most of them. Each can impart important information. When many are unearthed we of course gain more-than-additive confidence, through the mechanism of convergent validation.

REFERENCES:
Harlan, Brian. 1976. Garcia Concert Mediocre. Good Times, March 4, 1976, p. 3.

JGMS: October 11, 1974 - Chateau Liberté, Los Gatos, CA

Unlike 3/22/74, a date for which I found no trace of a Garcia-Saunders gig at the Chateau Liberté, the Friday, October 11, 1974 gig there, for which we have some wonderful recollections from Michael Parrish, yielded a few paper remnants. Ironically, I believe that tapes circulating with this date are mislabeled hodgepodges of 1974 soundboard material. There are no tapes of this gig known to me, unlike Kingish from the next month.

But Sundaz was on the case.

The listing includes what I presume to the be opening act, singer-songwriter Jimmy Collier.

The ad has an interesting Merl-and-Jerry sketch, backed by Santa Cruz mountain pines.

I have never been able to figure out whether there's any significance, in this period, as to whether Jerry or Merl is listed first. This gives Merl Saunders and Jerry Garcia, but it can be lots of other things. Listing gives Merl Saunders, Jerry Garcia & Friends. I know that later the choice between JGMS and LOM was very conscious - there's really good evidence for that. But things are much more fluid here in fall 1974 - just how fluid is hard for me to say. It is relatively uncommon.

Must have been a great time. Wish I could have been there! Go to cryptdev for eyewitness color.

! JGC: https://jerrygarcia.com/show/1974-10-11-chateau-liberte-los-gatos-ca/
! map: https://goo.gl/maps/Ofhun
! venue: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2011/09/chateau-liberte-22700-old-santa-cruz.html

OAITW - October 5, 1973, Civic Auditorium, Santa Cruz, CA

Ahhh, beautiful, beautiful libraries.

Below is the stuff I found around the Old And In The Way gig played Friday, October 5, 1973 at the Civic Auditorium, 307 Church Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95060 [map | Jerrybase | JGC | JGBP]. cryptdev was in attendance!

Let me first note, because I can't resist the pretty colors, that this is the third-to-last regularly-scheduled OAITW gig. They played Saturday, October 6 at Keystone and were supposed to play Sunday in the football stadium at California State College Sonoma, in Cotati. Great art for that gig, "Bluegrass on an Autumn Afternoon", a White Cloud Production to benefit A World Peace [illegible].

Advertisement for OAITW at Cal State Sonoma, October 7, 1973 (rained out and rescheduled to 11/4/73), courtesy IM. I see something toward the bottom that I can't quite make out, something will happen on October 15th in case of rainout, but in any case this was rained out and eventually played (and available for our listening pleasure thanks to a soundboard patch tape by the legendary Ed Perlstein) on November 4th. So they do Friday in Santa Cruz, Saturday in Berkeley, and then play the legendary Boarding House show of Monday, October 8, 1973, which is now available complete from Acoustic Oasis (along with the 10/1 show) and which has supplied the lion's share of all of the officially released OAITW stuff, as the last regularly scheduled OAITW show. There's nothing else. Think about that. They quit, it ended, more or less right after getting all the tracks they'd need, for more or less a lifetime. The Sonoma State makeup happened on 11/4 and then, five months later, a cursory reunion set to close the Golden State Country Bluegrass Festival. That's it. Long story short, I say, long story short, the Santa Cruz Civic show was the third to last regularly scheduled one. Here's the handbill.

I found two previews, an ad, and a review.

First, from the UCSC paper, a preview that understands the fine musicianship underpinning OAITW, and I don't (nor does she) mean Garcia. "If you dig good acoustic country boogie, don't miss this one." (Note the El Topo ad for some AHATT color.)

A second preview, in Sundaz, focuses on the gig's beneficiary. Jelly Roll Community Media (formerly Productions) has set itself up as a non-profit, putting on some righteous sounding programming at the intersection of empowering indigenous and other communities, on the one hand, and the media and communication arts, on the other. Sounds like they were trying to give people some skills that they could use to make a living, form deliberative, civic and other community spaces, and so forth. The outfit was $4,000 in the red and the Civic Center shindig would hopefully wipe that clean. (Since the review implies the gig was not only a sellout, but oversold, one hopes that was indeed the case.)

So, like the Sonoma State gig scheduled for the same weekend, this was a benefit. Right on, gents.

Then an ad in Sundaz:

Finally, a fine black and white picture of Garcia picking the banjo accompanies the review:

 

Reviewer Michael Goldberg reports 1,600 satisfied customers, and some number of folks with tickets disallowed entry by order of the fire marshal. We get a little glimpse of the scene backstage, with Garcia, Wavy Gravy, Ramblin' Jack, the OAITW folks, and various locals being weird, Paul Krassner "wandering through dark hallways with slender women," andMr. Romney opining on the deployment of jello moats, instead of Hell's Angels, as event security perimeters. 

Frye is identified as an ex-member of Santa Cruz mountains legends Oganookie, Ramblin' Jack played his usual set, and Grisman can play the shit out of the mandolin. Cryptdev discusses the show some. Reviewer Goldberg, for his part, "is getting a little bored with Jerry Garcia and his country/rock groups," playing well-arranged and technically proficient music that is "just not exciting". There's no accounting for taste, of course, but what makes me wonder is when Garcia's white working class side stuff was ever either well arranged or technically proficient! :)

Corry has this to say about the Civic Center:

The Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium ... is an excellent Art Deco style building that was completed in 1940. As Santa Cruz rose in importance, more and more performers started using the friendly little 2,000 capacity hall for warm up shows, or shows on off nights ... Garcia played the venue several times in later years. The Civic is just 2.1 miles to the UCSC Campus Entrance, as close as Garcia got to campus.

REFERENCES

"Garcia Headlines Friday Concert," City on a Hill Press, October 4, 1973, p. 5.

"Jelly Roll Rolls Again," Sundaz, October 5, 1973, p. 12.

Arnold, Corry. 2009. The Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia in Santa Cruz County 1965-1987. Lost Live Dead, November 4, URL http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2009/11/grateful-dead-and-jerry-garcia-in-santa.html, consulted 8/14/2014.

Goldberg, Michael. 1973. Garcia, Elliot, Frye. Sundaz, October 11, 1973, p. 1.

Parrish, Michael. 2012. Jerry Garcia and his banjo in Santa Cruz 1973-75. Cryptical Developments, June 9, 2012, URL http://cryptdev.blogspot.com/2012/06/jerry-garcia-and-his-banjo-in-santa.html, consulted 7/30/2012.

Best no. 47 (June 1972)

JGMS March 22, 1974 - Chateau Liberté

The McNally-Arnold JG List included Garcia-Saunders on March 22, 1974 at the Chateau Liberté. I presently list the address as 22700 Old Santa Cruz Highway, Los Gatos, CA 95033 [map | JGBP | JGC | Cryptical Developments | see also LLD]. I know of no documentation of this in the public realm, just the listing, which I presume to be based on union contracts or other office paperwork around the gig.

Sundaz the day of the show listed The Tubes at the Chateau that night.

Hard to know quite what to make of this. Anyone know anything more about the Garcia-Saunders gig at Chateau Liberté on 3/22/74?

Carousel, May 22, 1968 - Jerry Garcia and others

Garcia and others are listed for the Carousel on May 22, 1968. According to a report in Billboard (Lehman 1968), this was a benefit concert to promote bringing jazz into schools, with an organization called the Jazz Action Movement (JAM).

San Francisco Express Times, May 22, 1968, p. 14.

The night before circulates from Bear's journal tape, remarkably enough (shnid-22727). The poster for that night said "Rock Jam" and we know it as Tuesday Night Jam. Check the linked info file for players.

This night, the Wednesday, May 22 gig, lists no personnel. I could drool over which jazz players might have dropped in for this benefit. I don't know of any other information about this show, pending, again, a check on Rhoney Stanley's book.

See also my post glancing across the Tuesday, June 4, 1968 Tuesday Night Jam,  "Strung Between Dreams and Reality" (title courtesy of the great Ralph Gleason). I think, but am not sure, that 6/4/68 is relevant to Stanley Mouse's purple pig poster (AOR 2.170).

Need to double-check. Rhoney Gissen Stanley's book covers the event in great detail.

Anyway, back to listings, some nice color in here. I bet the Russian River Rodeo in Guerneville on Sunday, May 26 was a mighty time - a whole 'nother sense of a Bear Republic, I suspect!

REFERENCES

URL http://www.classicposters.com/Tuesday_Night_Jam/poster/Art_of_Rock/2.170;

Lehman, Godfrey. 1968. Coast Group Set Up To Keep Jazz Alive. Billboard, May 18, 1968, p. 20, via Google Books.

Stanley, Rhoney Gissen, with Tom Davis. 2013. Owsley and Me: My LSD Family. Rhinebeck, NY: Monkfish Book Publishing Company.