Saturday, January 30, 2021

Does anybody know how to reach Matt Kelly?

I am hoping to find dates for the 1973 Record Plant session work, with Jerry, that ended up on Wing And A Prayer. Email me if you have email for him, or point him here. TIA!

at 5 comments:

Sunday, January 24, 2021

'88 Bridge Benefit is Good

A lot of good material at the Bridge Benefit, 12/4/88 in the Oakland Coliseum Arena.

It's not like 15-20 minutes was very demanding, but Garcia sounds much more enthusiastic belting out the backing vocals here on "Wang Dang Doodle", and giving "Friend Of The Devil" a sprightly run-through, than he did on either of the two previous nights with JGB at the Orpheum (12/2, 12/3).

This is one of the very few documented Shared Stages between Garcia and "Mr. Forever Young", as Bob calls him, Neil Young, who drops some decent harp on WDD.

at No comments:

We Need A Jerry Garcia Interviews Project

Jerry did many hundreds of interviews over the years. He had a lot of interesting things to say about a lot of topics. There are also lots of quotes and so forth that circulate without any proper metadata.

So, we, and by we I mean the community, need a Jerry Garcia interviews project. Collect 'em up in video, audio and text formats, and eventually get everything transcribed to text. Dates, as best as possible. Etc. Run a blog that gathers them up, a la LIA's Deadsources.

I don't have time to do it, myself, but I have plenty to contribute. Someone out there would be game for it. Maybe it's you! Step up to the big leagues of obsessiveness and tackle this project!

at No comments:

Saturday, January 23, 2021

You Know What's Crazy? I Have Never Listening-Noted a Garcia-Grisman Gig

So I will do the January 12-13, 1994 Warfield shows together.

The performances are delightful, and I don't have tons of comments at that level. They play a number of rarities which had been relatively recently released on Not For Kids Only (Acoustic Disc ACD 9, 1993), and I am a huge fan of that record, which was recently remastered and topped-up with some bonus tracks. The first two tunes on the record are "Jenny Jenkins" and "Freight Train", which I played a LOT for my kiddos and which are both burned into my DNA. JJ kicks off set II of the first night, while Freight Train, which had gotten a one-off breakout with JGB on 11/3/93, happens in set II of night two. Merle Travis's coal miner's lament "Dark As A Dungeon" was a real highlight for me - I recommend it via the video of 1/12/94. But, really, I have to say that I love every single song they played.

There is no banjo playing at these shows, and I think at least "Stealin'" and "Jenny Jenkins" are done as David and Jerry duets.

Set I the second night is quite short, about 36 minutes. Some number of those minutes come out of the great Garcia-Grisman composition "Grateful Dawg", which clocks in here at a mere three-and-a-half minutes. I don't have specific timing for earlier versions, but I want to say they might have gone 6 or 7 or more.

I do want to provide a little repertorial analysis to illustrate the range of (mostly) American musics from which Jerry and David drew, and to which they contributed in turn. Some data next.

I am wide open to suggestions about this set of classifications. In particular, I have in my mind a genre called country blues which I guess is black acoustic, but, again, I don't really know what I am talking about. I have only just come to understand what a standard is. The next table summarizes the shows by genre.


I guess the main take-home from this little exercise is that the first night was a little more contemporary, while the second was a little more traditional. Anything else jump out at you?

Anyway, totally wonderful to listen to these. I was responsible for the earliest seeds of these two shows, which were not very good. Then they were remastered by someone else, not very well. While a bunch of other sources for 1/13 have come about, 1/12 was only very recently upgraded from the recording annotated here, pulled by Steve Fink. So we now have very good tapes from both nights, and they are worth your ear time.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

LN jg1994-01-12.jgdg.all.aud-Fink.150311.flac1648
Jerry Garcia and David Grisman
The Warfield
982 Market Street
San Francisco, CA 94102
January 12, 1994 (Wednesday) - 8 PM
Fink MAD shnid-150311

--set I (9 tracks, 8 tunes, 47:35)--
s1t01. Teddy Bears' Picnic [4:52] [0:53]
s1t02. Jack-A-Roe [4:32] [1:07]
s1t03. Dark As A Dungeon [7:12] [0:18]
s1t04. Bow Wow [5:19] [0:05]
s1t05. ambience [1:28]
s1t06. Two Soldiers [4:20] -> 
s1t07. Friend Of The Devil [6:57] [0:05]
s1t08. Louis Collins [5:20] [0:19]
s1t09. (1) [0:39] Stealin' [3:59] [0:11]

--set II (12 tracks, 9 tunes, 62:38)--
s2t10. ambience [0:48]
s2t11. Jenny Jenkins [4:50 [0:05]
s2t12. Walkin' Boss [7:16] [0:06]
s2t13. When First Unto This Country [4:32]
s2t14. ambience [1:43]
s2t15. Milestones [8:30] [0:15]
s2t16. Sitting In Limbo [9:21]
s2t17. ambience [1:02]
s2t18. Russian Lullaby [6:37] ->
s2t19. I Ain't Never [3:10] [0:32]
s2t20. Bag's Groove [9:22] ->
s2t21. Ripple [4:11] (2) [0:18]

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia and David Grisman
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - acoustic guitar, vocals;
! lineup: David Grisman - mandolin, vocals;
! lineup: Jim Kerwin - acoustic bass;
! lineup: Joe Craven - fiddle, percussion.

JGMF:

! Recording: symbols: % = recording discontinuity; / = clipped song; // = cut song; ... = fade in/out; # = truncated timing; [m:ss] = 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 [m:ss] right after a song title is an attempt to say how long the song really was, as represented on this recording.


! db: https://etreedb.org/shn/11169 (shnf); https://etreedb.org/shn/30691 (loy remaster of shnid-11169); https://etreedb.org/shn/150311 (this fileset)





! setlist: Old data, based on attendee recollections, had Stealin' as the first song of set II, but the recordings clearly reveal it to be in set I. Similarly, Ripple as given as an encore, but continuous tape from Bag's Groove belies this idea.

! R: field recordist: Steve Fink

! R: field recording gear: 2x Neumann KM54 > DAP-20

! R: field recording location: drink rail

! R: lineage: DAT Archived and Transferred by Stucco; Mastering by Jamie Waddell 16bit/48kHz FLAC. Originally shared at www.shnflac.net in celebration of the 15th birthday of our website June 25, 2020 **gems** team.

! R: My goodness, this tape dramatically improves on the only previously circulating version. So clear!

! P: s1t03 DAAD Wow! Garcia is giving this real feeling. 

! song: "Dark As A Dungeon" (s1t03): Public debut. Amazing that he is doing this tune, written by country legend Merle Travis. So freaking great!

! song: "Bow Wow" (s1t04): Public debut. Dawg original.

! s1t09 (1) DG: "[inaudible] send this out to my little boy, Samson Eli, who's four years old today. [inaudible]"

! personnel: I think Stealin' and Jenny Jenkins are done in duet.

! P: s2t12 WB Jerry takes a feature second half of 2 that, to me, has some tempo issues and occasional picking dysfluency. Again late 4 tempo wobbles, and where JG needs to pick and sustain some notes in his dialogue with David, I don't hear the sustain. This version is not as together as the versions from three years earlier.

! P: s2t15 Milestones JG takes first feature 0:45ff. Playing well. Grisman is doing some powerful stuff in the 3 minute range, the crowd responds appropriately @3:10. Just killing! Kerwin features next, building up during 4. Craven percussion feature 5:25ff. 6:15ff Dawg and Jer are sort of trading licks, then 6:35 to the theme.

! P: s2t16 SIL gets off to a rough start, everyone a little out of sync, Jerry garbles the opening verse. Still 3 minutes in, everyone is not together on this. A little better later on in the tune. 7 Jerry digs in a little deeper, does some Caribbean guitar (not inappropriately).

! s2t21 (2) sounds like there's a "thanks a lot"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

LN jg1994-01-13.jgdg.all.aud-Fink.150310.flac1648


Jerry Garcia and David Grisman
The Warfield
982 Market Street
San Francisco, CA 94102
January 13, 1994 (Thursday) - 8 PM
Fink MAD shnid-150310

--set I (8 tracks, 35:59-:12)
s1t01. //Shady Grove [#3:05] [0:31]
s1t02. Long Black Veil [5:03] [0:46]
s1t03. Rosa Lee McFall [3:28] 0:33]
s1t04. Dawg's Waltz [5:00] [0:11]
s1t05. Freight Train [4:52] [0:20]
s1t06. Hot Corn, Cold Corn [4:28] [0:18]
s1t07. Red Rocking Chair [3:24] [0:14]
s1t08. Grateful Dawg [3:28] [0:06] % pre-set II [0:12]

--set II (12 tracks, 9 tunes, 70:00+:12-6:01)--
09. Trouble In Mind [4:14] [0:14]
10. Ballad Of Casey Jones [4:34] [0:17]
11. There Ain't No Bugs On Me [4:41]
12. ambience (1) [0:59]
13. So What? [10:04] [0:11]
14. Rockin' Chair [7:31]
15. ambience [1:17]
16. Stealin' [3:50] [0:34]
17. Little Glass Of Wine [3:44] [0:13]
18. Drink Up And Go Home [2:55] [0:11]
19. Arabia [18:31]
20. ambience (2) [6:01]

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia and David Grisman
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - acoustic guitar, vocals;
! lineup: David Grisman - mandolin, vocals;
! lineup: Jim Kerwin - acoustic bass;
! lineup: Joe Craven - fiddle, percussion.

JGMF:

! Recording: symbols: % = recording discontinuity; / = clipped song; // = cut song; ... = fade in/out; # = truncated timing; [m:ss] = 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 [m:ss] right after a song title is an attempt to say how long the song really was, as represented on this recording.



! map: https://goo.gl/maps/ZW52vfHTbjs

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2013/02/warfield-982-market-street-san.html

! venue: http://hooterollin.blogspot.com/2011/11/september-25-1980-fox-warfield-theater.html

! R: field recordist: Steve Fink

! R: field recording gear: 2x Neumann KM54 > DAP-20

! R: field recording location: drink rail

! R: lineage: DAT Archived and Transferred by Stucco; Mastering by Jamie Waddell 16bit/48kHz FLAC. Originally shared at www.shnflac.net in celebration of the 15th birthday of our website June 25, 2020 **gems** team.

! R: s1t01 Shady Grove cuts in on "wish I had a banjo string"

! R: seeder notes. Set One was recorded much louder, and the crowd cheers clip between songs, but not the music at all. Both Sets of music match volume wise now, I did what I could to unclip the crowd between songs Set One

! P: s1t05 FT he pulls this off just about perfectly. So nice.

! P: s1t08 GD is a fucking killer song, but look at how short this version is! Three and a half minutes?

! s2t12 (1) DG: "The man on the bass - Jim Kerwin. On the fiddle, and on the fiddle case - Joe Craven." JG: "That's David 'Dawg' Grisman playing the mandolin." DG: "Captain Trips here on the guitar [inaudible]."

! s2t20 (2) Some interesting taper talk at the end about a fan who had too much fun
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Monday, January 18, 2021

I need to post the relatively indifferent notes, as well: JGB, November 6, 1991 - Cap Centre, Landover

jg1991-11-06.jgb.all.aud-Brotman-Metchick.151224.t-flac1648

Skimming the cream is a natural tendency - who doesn't like cream? But I need to post a more representative sample of things.

Generous benefactors have recently put together and circulated the integral collection of Dave Brotman / Jeff Metchick's FOBs of the November '91 Garcia Band tour. Every show, same tapers, very nice for evaluative purposes because at least some factors are quasi-experimentally controlled. Oh, and the tapes KILL. I had a plan to listen through chronologically to the whole tour, but I won't be able to do it. It's one thing to do it with the Dead's Europe '72, when every night contains some of the best music ever made, *and* my OCD allows me to just listen while pedaling. It's too much to ask to put Jerry's bar band on, and to engage my OCD with notes, etc. etc. -- not something I can do while doing other things, to the same extent. And the payoffs just aren't that great.

That said, I did start with 11/6/91. My God, what a tape! Seriously, I have never heard something come out of that arena that sounded this good. So, first tip o' the cap to the tapers, and thanks to all involved in getting these amazing field recordings into general circulation with reliable metadata, etc.

The show, conversely, does not move me. Even Don't Let Go didn't earn a single note from me. And this is not just a period effect: I have just listened to another show from the same tour/tapers, and it blew me away. I will post my report at some point. So maybe it's just a mediocre night. Maybe just a warmup. Remember that this band had only played two shows --8/10 and 8/24-- since May. It seems reasonable enough that they'd need to shake off some cobwebs.

So, there we are: AMAZING tape, meh show. But I happen to know that better things would be yet to come on the tour.

Jerry Garcia Band
Capital Centre
1 Harry S. Truman Drive
Landover, MD 20774
November 6, 1991 (Wednesday)
Brotman-Metchick MAD shnid-151224

--set I (9 tracks, 8 tunes, 73:17)--
s1t01. ambience [1:37]
s1t02. Cats Under the Stars [9:24] [2:02]
s1t03. Stop That Train [7:53] [1:37]
s1t04. You Never Can Tell [7:52] [0:33]
s1t05. Run For The Roses [5:27] [1:10]
s1t06. Simple Twist Of Fate [13:18] [1:01]
s1t07. Ain't No Bread In The Breadbox [7:36] [0:10]
s1t08. My Sisters And Brothers [3:52] [0:10]
s1t09. Deal [9:25] (1) [0:10]

--set II + encore (10 tracks, 8 tunes, 84:28)--
--set II (8 tracks, 7 tunes, 
s2t01. ambience [1:48]
s2t02. The Way You Do The Things You Do [12:20] [1:20]
s2t03. Waiting For A Miracle [5:49] [0:15]
s2t04. Money Honey [7:11] [0:48]
s2t05. Shining Star [10:19] [0:52]
s2t06. Struggling Man [7:44] [0:18]
s2t07. Don't Let Go [15:28] [0:17]
s2t08. Everybody Needs Somebody To Love [12:05] (2) [0:06]
--encore (2 tracks, 1 tune, 7:48)--
s2t09. ambience [0:39]
s2t10. What A Wonderful World [6:56] (3) [0:13]

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia Band #21b
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - el-g, ac-g (s1t03 only), vocals;
! lineup: John Kahn - el-b;
! lineup: Melvin Seals - keyboards;
! lineup: David Kemper - drums;
! lineup: Gloria Jones - vocals;
! lineup: Jacklyn LaBranch - vocals.

JGMF:

! R: symbols: % = recording discontinuity; / = clipped song; // = cut song; ... = fade in/out; # = truncated timing; [x:xx] = 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.


! db: https://etreedb.org/shn/16671; https://etreedb.org/shn/85429; https://etreedb.org/shn/87588; https://etreedb.org/shn/87600; https://etreedb.org/shn/137703; https://etreedb.org/shn/151224 (this fileset)



! venue: First Jerry Band show in this shed after 21 GD gigs.

! review: [positive] Joyce 1991. Took a few tunes to warm up, Joyce says, but "soon enough ... Garcia, firmly underpinned by bassist John Kahn and drummer Dave Kemper, was unfurling long, flowing, effervescent guitar improvisations or yielding the spotlight to organist Melvin Seals, who waxed both earthy and ethereal on a Hammond console."

! R: field recordists: Dave Brotman and Jeff Metchick

! R: field recording gear: 2x Schoeps CMC34 (ORTF) > Tao Research > M1000 cables > Panasonic SV-255mod (16/48) > Master DAT

! R: field recording location: FOB

! R: transfer: Master DAT > Panasonic SV-3800 (spdif out) > Digigram VX Pocket sound card > Panasonic Toughbook (spdif in) > Steinberg Nuendo > WAV 1648, by Anonymous. Edited & Mastered (Adobe Audition) by Joe Noel, December 16, 2020.

! R: seeder notes: - Thanks to Dave Brotman & Jeff Metchick for recording the show. - Thanks to Anon for the transfer, while hiding out away from the Bay Area. - Thanks to Ted Mattes, aka 'Postmaster General' for organizing this project. - Each tape was adjusted electronically & mechanically in the SV3800 to ensure proper play. - None of these tapes have emphasis.

! R: Right out of the gate, this tape kills. Oh man. Bravo, gentleman, and thank you! This fileset emerged in late 2020 with the entire tour recorded by these guys with this gear. I can't wait to spend more time with these lovely recordings!

! P: s1t04 YNCT he is a little unsure of the words throughout.

! P: s1t06 STOF is extremely careful and gentle. John starts his feature about 5:20 and it is suitably fluttery until floating to a close at 7:30. JG brings a bit more volume after that.

! P: s1t07 ANBITB Melvin is playing piano here, and it's really nice. Sounds kinds of Hornsby-ish.

! s1t09 (1) JG: "Thanks a lot. We'll be back in a few minutes."
! P: s2t02 TWYDTTYD goes out around 8:40. Man, I love this vintage of the song. So interesting.

! P: s2t06 Struggling Man a little sluggish out of the gates. Definitely too slow for my taste.

! s2t08 (2) JG: "Thanks a lot. See ya later."

! s2t10 (3) JG: "See y'all later."
at 2 comments:

Thursday, January 14, 2021

Garcia and The Great American Songbook

Per wiki, The Great American Songbook is "the canon of significant early-20th-century American jazz standards and popular songs". It is put out by The Great American Songbook Foundation, fittingly enough.

I have so damn much to learn about this stuff. It's just a gaping hole in my (admittedly limited) musicological understanding. 

I just fell into the rabbit hole, so let me report here the tunes from the GAS that I understand Garcia to have engaged.

YearSong titleComposer(s)Lyricist(s)
1930"Georgia on My Mind"Hoagy CarmichaelStuart Gorrell
A Good Man Is Hard To Find

The Man I Love


at 14 comments:

Not For Kids Only Deluxe (Acoustic Disc DLACD-09, 2020)

https://acousticdisc.com/product/jerry-garcia-and-david-grisman-not-for-kids-only-download/

This happened without my noticing at the time (whenever it was in that accursed year, just passed, that shall not be named). But Acoustic Disc has remastered the Not For Kids Only (Acoustic Disc ACD 9, 1993), added four bonus tracks, and offered it up for download. I am spinning the high-def (24bit / 96 kHz) version now, and it sounds gobsmackingly great. (The original did, too - tip o' the cap to "Decibel" Dave Dennison.)

The unreleased tracks (alt. takes of Jenny Jenkins, Three Men Went A-Hunting, Teddy Bears’ Picnic, and There Ain’t No Bugs On Me) are Jerry-David duets. Alas, they are undated. I will try to see if AD will answer a query as to the dates. Let me say here that Grisman and Garcia are too important as American musicians, and this material is too important as American music, not to give it the jazz treatment, with full metadata. I have never understood why they hold things like the dates close to the vest.

Anyway, happy listening!

at No comments:

Tuesday, January 12, 2021

updated bibliography

I have just posted an updated bibliography as a blogger page linked to the top-right and as a pdf. 114 pages, and I have made no effort to gather GD stuff, though some has snuck in.

at No comments:

Friday, January 01, 2021

The Romanesque Church Design Was Based On The Roman Basilica: Discuss (JGB at the Knick in Albany, November 3, 1993)

I just marveled at the almost 90-minute second set offered up on 12/22/90, and got to wondering about post-coma others that might match or beat it in duration. I recalled some long sets on the 11/93 tour, recalled that I had unposted (because not very informative) notes on 11/3/93 (my 23rd birthday, though I was somewhere in the vicinity of Monterey, CA), and checked them out.

Indeed, 89+ for this set II. We are envisioning being able to analyze real data on set and show durations via Jerrybase at some point in the not-too-distant future.


The show is maybe below average for the tour overall, with a few guitar highlights that I mention in the notes below. The real interest lies in the impromptu version of  Elizabeth Cotten's "Freight Train", which Garcia plays with an acoustic sound as a 'quippie fixes a string on John's bass. First, he lets the crowd know what's going on: "We've gotta change a string on the bass. You can all talk amongst yourselves." This latter formulation absolutely, positively echoes Mike Myers' contemporaneous SNL skit "Coffee Talk" - I use it myself when equipment challenges interrupt my teaching. I may also give a topic, as Linda Richmond does in the skit. In my case, it's something on-topic like "Vladimir Putin: strong man, or the strongest man? Discuss." In hers, the title gives a sample subject.

Then, without further ado, Our Man in Albany starts picking the tune. Melvin Seals accompanies extremely well on piano, so well that it makes me wonder how he knew the tune, since it is not associated with the "Band Electric". Maybe they had worked it up? I certainly would have liked to hear it more. Anyway, Melvin's great, and he weaves in a few bars of Scott Joplin's "The Entertainer" for good measure, last heard (by me) in the JGB being done by the great (if very drunk) Nicky Hopkins on 12/31/75. Jerry gets the verses mostly sung, if a little imperfectly (see my rough transcription just below), and this whole thing is just a stone cold fucking delight.

1- (chorus) Freight train, freight train, run so fast | Freight train, freight train, run so fast | Please don't tell what train I'm on | They won't know what route I'm gone
2- When I'm died oh bury me deep | Down at the end ol' Chestnut Street | Place the stones at my head and feet | Tell 'em all I'm gone to sleep
3- (chorus) Freight train, freight train, run so fast | Freight train, freight train, run so fast | Please don't tell what train I'm on | They won't know what route I'm gone
4- When I'm dead and in my grave | No more good times here I'll crave | [mumblyverse] | Tell 'em all I'm gone to sleep
5- When I'm died oh bury me deep | Down at the end ol' Chestnut Street | So I can hear ol' number nine | as she goes rollin' by
6- (chorus)

Here are Elizabeth Cotten's lyrics:

Source: Cohen and Seeger 1964, 136

At 4:30, John drops a note of electric bass to signal that he's ready to play, one of his few contributions on this night, in the era when he mostly fluttered around pretty inaudibly.

The song is one of my favorites, a perfect choice for Garcia and Grisman's then-recently-released masterpiece Not For Kids Only (Acoustic Disc ACD-9, 1993), and something Garcia had played since the pre-Dead period (see Jerrybase for the overview). In the GD era (and so the GOTS era) it showed up in the studio around 1975-1976. Jerry played it live 4/10/82a, his only "modern" solo acoustic date, but it was pretty cursory, just two and a half minutes without a good handle on the words, before running into the Cotten tune he did a lot more and in a range of contexts, "Oh Babe, It Ain't No Lie". After this impromptu version eleven years later, it came up twice more in the 1994 Garcia-Grisman live sets before ol' Jer landed at the end ol' Chestnut Street himself.

For more on this tour, the Garcia Band's last out east, see also "The Reedman vs. the Gunslinger at at the Garden" (11/12/93), "Good Clean Fun" (11/14/93), the sweet little BS passes for this "Slack Tour" featuring Church of the SubGenius prophet J.R. "Bob" Dobbs, and take a gander at the crew tourbook.

Listening Notes below the fold.

at 6 comments: