Merl's Birthday Generosity: Aunt Monk, February 14, 1975

LN jg1975-02-14.aunt-monk.142mins.aud-castelli-motb-0149.108896.flac1644

Thought I'd throw in my 2/14/75 notes too, having just done 5/9/75.

MOTB Release: 0149 16/44.1
Release Date: 2010-07-10
Band: Legion of Mary
Date: 1975-02-14  (Friday)
Venue: The Generosity
Location: San Francisco, CA
Analog Audience Source: FOB Master Cassettes (MAC)
Medium Stock Brands: MAC = 2 x Maxell UD C120's
Analog Lineage: Sony ECM 270 >> Sony TC 110(mono) >> MAC  
Analog Sound Preservation: MAC >> Nakamichi CR7a => Korg MR-1000 >> DSF [1-bit 5.6448 MHz Stereo] >> Korg MR-1000 => Korg AudioGate >> WAV [24/96] [>> FLAC1644]
Taped By: Robert Castelli
Transfer By: Bob Menke
Mastering By: David Minches

--Disc One (5 tracks, 70:41)--
d1t01: tuning [0:35]
d1t02: Little Bit Of Righteousness [17:50] [0:10] % [0:28] %
d1t03: Favela [16:15] [0:08] %
d1t04: Pennies // From Heaven [18:#14] [0:07] %
d1t05: When I Die [16:44] [0:08] %

--Disc Two (4 tracks, 71:05)--
d2t01: Valdez In The Country [16:51] ->
d2t02: People Make The World Go Round [21:55] [0:04] %
d2t03: Boogie On Reggae Woman [14:55] [0:11]
d2t04: Creepin' [17:00] [0:09] %

! ACT1: Aunt Monk
! lineup: Merl Saunders - keyboards;
! lineup: Martin Fierro - saxophone;
! lineup: Tony Saunders - el-bass;
! lineup: Bob Stellar - drums;
! guest: Jerry Garcia - el-g.

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.

! Jerrybases: https://jerrybase.com/events/19750214-01

! db: http://etreedb.org/shn/17371 (older, generated copy of same source tape[s]); http://etreedb.org/shn/108896 (this fileset).

! R: MOTB Notes: "This is a compilation of 2 different sources.  Both sources may emanate from the same master but I would guess 2 masters were made.  Tracks 1 through 6 and the first 5:25 of track 7 are from source 1.  The cross fade in track 7 begins at 5:22.  Source 2 provides the remainder of the show. Speed correction by Joe B. Jones."

! Notes from shnid 17371 fileset (jjoops): "Amazing material!!! Essence of Legion of Mary [ed-- not really] -- nothing but pure, unadulterated instrumentals.  Among many, many highlights, I will simply note that this version of People Make the World Go 'Round is about five times longer than any of the many other versions in circulation.  It really takes the tune places you always thought it should have gone, but never seemed to.  I felt similarly at many points during this material."

! personnel: The MOTB info file lists this as Legion of Mary with Garcia, Saunders, Kahn, Fierro and Tutt. But the Generosity was Merl's gig, the band is probably Aunt Monk, and the personnel is probably different. [edit: Tony Saunders has confirmed that this is him playing bass and Bob Stellar playing drums and that the band is Aunt Monk.]

! personnel: d1t02 the descending bass line around 5:00 of LBOR doesn't sound like John Kahn to me. I am guessing it's Tony Saunders. [confirmed]

! d1t02 @ 9:27 JG hits his "Dancin' in the Streets" lick from the Dead's disco version of that song, ca. 1976-1979.

! R: d1t04 PFH splice @ 11:00, not much missing

! R: d1t05 noticeable warbling about a minute and a half in

! P: d2t01 this is not the best version of VITC. It's a little disjointed, laconic.

! personnel: d2t03 BORW: again, this bass sounds to me like Tony Saunders rather than John Kahn [confirmed].

! R: d2t03 end of BORW the hiss really comes up

! This probably isn't the complete show, since they are tuning up when the tape ends after Creepin'.

Odes to Joy: Aunt Monk at the Generosity, May 9, 1975

LN jg1975-05-09.aunt-monk.84mins.aud-castelli-motb-0144.107829.flac1644

For a couple of years, the good people at Mouth of the Beast (MOTB) were dropping some ridiculously great and important listening material on the masses. Most important, from the perspective of Garcia on the Side (GOTS) were the Robert Castelli tapes, a handful of recordings made by the gentleman of that name who seemed to find his way into, and record, especially rare and special shows. The most important of these, for me, were a couple of recordings from The Generosity, traveling with dates of February 14, 1975 and May 9, 1975.

The Generosity

My notes tell me that The Generosity was located at 1981 Union St, San Francisco, CA 94123 (street view). I frankly do not know much about it beyond that. It is not discussed in Selvin's San Francisco: The Musical History Tour (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1996). I don't recall ever having seen ads or calendar listings for it, nor posters nor anything else, quite frankly, except these tapes. Maybe we can get the maestro behind Jerry's Brokendown Palaces to dig up more information!

Aunt Monk

Though the tapes travel with the band name Legion of Mary, I believe it was probably actually Aunt Monk. This is almost certainly true of the Generosity gig dated 2/14/75, since that predates what I reckon to have been the first local usage of the Legion of Mary moniker on March 1-2, 1975. When that tape first emerged, Merl Jr. indicated that Aunt Monk (i.e., Merl Sr.) had a standing gig at the Generosity around that time. The 2/14/75 and 5/9/75 tapes are most definitely of a piece – all instrumental, less oriented toward songs (especially Jerry-centric ones) and more oriented toward long workouts of funk, soul and R&B numbers than even LOM would typically be. As I note below, there are some bass slides that sound utterly unlike John Kahn to my ears, and I have to think that’s Aunt Monk bassist Tony Saunders funking things up.

I have discussed Aunt Monk a few different times. To reiterate, the written record ("Rap-Up's Wrap Up," Oakland Tribune, August 25, 1974, p. 2-RAP) suggests that this band name emerged around August 1974, as I discussed in a post about the Garcia/Saunders/Fierro material that circulates dated “July 21, 1974” and “July 22, 1974” from the Keystone in Berkeley. The first billings I presently show are from the Tuckett Inn in September 1974, continuing well (if sporadically) into 1977.  As indicated in the Trib and my post, it seems that the band (name) replaced The Merl Saunders Band, which had been featured at least in ca. summer 1974 at the Sand Dunes down in the Sunset District, and with which Jerry apparently played with some regularity. I have also recently discovered a June 1, 1975 Aunt Monk w/ Jerry Garcia gig at the Inn of the Beginning in Cotati, which nicely brackets the May 9^th date I am contemplating.

GOTS Context

In a recent interview on the Jake Feinberg Show (promoting his new album, "Romancing the Bass"), Tony Saunders has discussed this time period a little bit. The relevant bit starts around 34:35 of the hourlong interview. I transcribe some of it here.

[Garcia] would show up at my Dad and my gigs with Aunt Monk. He was playing little places. He played on Union Street in San Francisco at this place called The Generosity. It was tiny. And he would just show up with his amp in his car, show up, come in and play. He never wanted any money. He just wanted to play. And when you talk about him learning … we played a Stanley Clarke song one night … but the song just went all over the place. And he came up to me and he shook my hand and he said ‘Tony, that was a good one, because I couldn’t just do what I thought that I could do. I couldn’t just play along and every time I went to go, when I felt comfortable, I really liked that. That was a great song.’ And a lot of the songs that they played in Legion of Mary, we played them at first with the Aunt Monk group. And Jerry … he would play them first there, and then he would transpose them over to the groups with my Dad.

When Feinberg asks (@ 35:35) who was in the group, Tony says “At first it was E.W. Wainwright, myself, my Dad and … most of the times Jerry would come sit in and be the guitar player. Another young guitar player, Chris Hayes, who went on to play with Huey Lewis and the News for twenty years.” (As an aside, Tony had earlier said that his first gig with his Dad and Jerry, when he was 18 (ca. 1974) was at the Inn of the Beginning, about which I have written a fair bit [see also the IOTB handbill collection at Chicken on a Unicycle]. I have a speculation about that, but it’ll have to wait for another post.)

Anyway, I love Tony’s description of Garcia’s involvement. “He just wanted to play”, indeed. And what we have on this tape, if not the precise Stanley Clarke song Tony was talking about, is Garcia waaaaayyyyy out on the edge of what he knew and could play. This ain’t “My Funny Valentine”, friends. The final two songs here, are one-offs of the Horace Silver's "Nica's Dream" and Stevie Wonder’s “Love Having You Around”. Wow! These stealth gigs with Merl would be among the last Jerry would ever do. I wouldn’t say this is Jerry’s best playing, but I would say it’s among his most interesting, and certainly among the last times he’d perform publicly utterly without a net.

Well worth a listen. Thank you Robert Castelli, Bob Menke and MOTB crew for getting this stuff out for everyone to hear. Pretty amazing documents of a fleeting phenomenon.

Listening notes ...

MOTB Release: 0144 16/44.1
Release Date: 2010-05-19
Band: Legion Of Mary
Date: 1975-05-09 (Friday)
Venue: The Generosity
Location: San Francisco, CA
Analog Audience Source: Aud Master Cassettes (MAC)
Medium Stock Brands: MAC = 2 x Maxell UD C90'S
Analog Lineage: Sony ECM 270's => Sony TC 152 >> MAC
Analog Sound Preservation: MAC >> Nakamichi CR7a => Korg MR-1000 >> DSF [1-bit 5.6448 MHz Stereo] >> Korg MR-1000 => Korg AudioGate >> WAV [24/96]
Taped By: Robert Castelli
Transfer By: Bob Menke
Mastering By: Derek McCabe

(6 tracks, 83:51)
t01: ... When I Die [11:59] [0:18] %
t02: noodling [0:34], Little Bit Of Righteousness [15:07] %
t03: Little Sunflower ... [18:53] %
t04: ... Wondering Why [2:29] [0:10] %
t05: noodling [0:38], Nica's Dream [18:38] [0:16] %
t06: Love Having You Around/ [14:45]

! Band: Aunt Monk
! lineup: Merl Saunders - keyboards;
! lineup: Martin Fierro - saxophone, flute;
! lineup: Tony Saunders - el-bass [confirmed];
! lineup: Bob Stellar - drums;

! guest: Jerry Garcia - el-g;

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/19750509-01

! db: http://etreedb.org/shn/107829 (this source).

! This show is completely unknown except for this tape, which came into the light via the efforts of Bob Menke and the MOTB crew in the first half of 2010. Thanks to Rob Castelli for recording and sharing this, to Menke for his tireless work on behalf of the recordings, and the MOTB recordings for making it sing and getting it out to us, the masses. It is historically fascinating. I suspect that the band is actually "Aunt Monk", which was Merl's band of the time, with a regular gig at the Generosity [confirmed]. See also 2/14/75 for another instance of what I believe to be this band at the same venue. The material is more oriented toward long instrumental workouts of soul-funk-R&B numbers than the Garcia/Saunders aggregation, which featured more (i.e., more than no) Garcia vocals. This is not Jerry's band ... he is just a player. Who knows if they even have vocal mics? The performances are loose and out there, the setlists are fascinating (this one includes Garcia's only known engagements with the songs "Nica's Dream" and "Love Having You Around"), and the whole vibe of this is really special. It would not be long before Garcia could no longer play a stealth club gig (or, in any case, would no longer do so). Indeed, it's hard to think of any at all after about this point in time.

! personnel: Tony Saunders has confirmed that he is playing bass and Bob Stellar is on drums.

! R: t01 When I Die enters in progress

! R: t01 fade down/return @ 0:56

! P: t01 @ 8:30 ish Jerry sounds like he's doing a little Dancing in the Streets thing. Still/again @ 9:20ish.

! personnel: based on the bass work being done t01 @ 3:50-4:42, I am concluding that this is not John Kahn. I have never heard Kahn do those little funk slides in there. This is probably Tony Saunders playing bass.

! R: t02 fade to splice @ 0:49, undetermined amount missing, possibly substantial; fade down splice/return @ 6:07;

! P: t02 LBOR Garcia is raunching and tearing it up, e.g., in the 6-min mark. Indeed, this is some of the free-est Garcia playing of 1975, I think. Vigorous, hot, engaged, creative. Very, very nice.

! R: t02 fade down splice/return @ 9:36

! P: t03 Martin plays an Eleanor Rigby quote @ 4:35

! R: t03 Little Sunflower fades out

! R: t04 Wondering Why is fragmentary

! R: t05 splice @ 1:34

! song: Nica's Dream (t05). This is the Horace Silver composition, done by all kinds of people. Here's a nice clean (and hot-as-shit) take from Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, The Jazz Messengers (1956): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLAbozQz4T0. This track is not obscure, but there are a lot of possibilities from within the jazz canon, and there's always more to hear and learn! It was first labeled simply "untitled 19750509a". Then etree user diethylether proposed on 8/27/2011 "I'm fairly convinced that untitled 19750509a is 'Bahia' by Ary Barroso. Compare it to the the version that Aunt Monk/Merl recorded on their 1976 album You Can Leave Your Hat On (Fantasy 9503, June 1976) ...  the arrangement is similar, though on this LoM recording Fierro is playing the melody where Merl plays it on the album. The break between the original groove leading into a more swinging section at the chorus is another point of similarity." At some point I listened closely, did some A-B comparison, to check this thesis, and came away saying "I have confirmed that this is Ary Barroso's 'Bahia, sometimes also written 'Baia'." Yet now (2/18/2013), a knowledgeable anonymous commenter has indicated that it's "Nica's Dream", and I agree. Diethylether agrees. We all want to get it right, and it's wonderful when more knowledgeable folks chime in. Thank you! So, for those keeping score at home, this is the third and hopefully final appellation for this track, which is a singleton performance of the song.

! setlist: t06 was originally labeled "untitled 19750509b", but DNC user Santos L. Halper proposed, and A-B comparison confirms, that this is an instrumental of "Love Having You Around", the first track on Stevie Wonder's 1972 album "Music of My Mind" (DNC Garcia Folder, Aug 8, 2011 10:55 am (#39795 ***39796)).

! R: t06 Love Having You Around fade/return @ 9:45; fades out as ending.

Aunt Monk: June 1, 1975, Inn of the Beginning, Cotati, CA

May 1975 Inn of the Beginning calendar, courtesy Mark Braunstein

What a great piece of art, first of all. I am afraid I neglected to note the name of the artist/artists on the IOTB fliers. Mea culpa!

Anyway, bottom right tells me that on Sunday, June 1, 1975, Jerry Garcia played with Aunt Monk (comprising inter alia Merl Saunders on keyboards and Martin Fierro on saxophone/flute) at the Inn of the Beginning, 8201 Old Redwood Highway, Cotati, CA 94931. This is the May 1975 IOTB calendar, and the names are handwritten in, with the standard Sunday evening free folk crossed out. The provenance makes it pretty certain that Garcia was there.

This is the last of the new-to-me Garcia dates to come out of these IOTB materials. To rehash, here’s the list:

1. NRPS 8/20/71: new-to-me
2. NRPS 8/21/71: new-to-me
3. JGMS 9/20/71: new-to-me
4. JGMS 1/14/73: new-to-me
5. OAITW 3/5/73 8 pm: new-to-me
6. OAITW 3/5/73 11 pm: new-to-me
7. OAITW 4/24/73: new-to-me
8. OAITW 7/18/73: confirmation
9. Merl Saunders and Friends 5/31/74: new-to-me
10. Merl Saunders and Friends 6/1/74: new to me
11. Aunt Monk 6/1/75: new-to-me [this post]

Basically ten “new-to-me”, new to The List shows. That’s pretty awesome. I have a few more Garcia-related tidbits from these materials, but they are generally more speculative and/or less consequential than these. Thanks again to Mark Braunstein for sharing this wonderful trove of information.

So, who knows the ca. 1971-1975 proprietors of the Orphanage, the Boarding House, the Record Plant or the Longbranch Saloon? :)

Anyway, I won’t elaborate much on Aunt Monk’s 6/1/75 show, since I have already talked around many of the same issues on my post on the Merl Saunders andFriends shows on May 31-June 1, 1974. Just a few points.

First, I expect this’d be Tony Saunders on bass. He was pretty regularly listed in Merl’s bands from 1974 forward.

Second, I suspect the material we are able to hear from the Generosity on 2/14/75 and 5/9/75, thanks to amazing taper Robert Castelli and the crew at Mouth of the Beast who helped preserve and document his tapes, probably closely resembles the material that might have been played in Cotati on the night in question. Lots of jazz, funk, soul, R&B and Saunders originals, maybe even all instrumentals, though by this time Merl might have started singing a song or two, as he had in Legion of Mary and as he would eventually do in most all of his bands.

Third, Jerry and Merl would take a 3-plus year hiatus within six weeks of this sit-in. While Legion of Mary would sputter on through July 6^th before ending mysteriously, the little one-offs seem to end. The next time Garcia would sit-in with Merl would be October 2-3, 1978 at the Shady Grove in San Francisco, according to TJS. (The older McNally-Arnold JG List only lists October 3, 1978, from which there is tape [shnid 20027 | shnid 97200]. TJS says these were benefits to keep Shady Grove open, but I don’t know the basis for either the Oct. 2 listing or that characterization. I don’t doubt it, but I just don’t know.) That little sit-in would seem to relate to their shared involvement in John Kahn’s 1979 band Reconstruction, which would be the last sustained live Jerry-Merl collaboration.

In a way, this sort of completes the skimming of the cream from these beautiful Inn of the Beginning documents. Ross has kindly entered lots of dates and (eventually) images from this IOTB research over at the Chicken, so that it’s preserved for posterity. Thanks again to Mark Braunstein for sharing thoughts, memories and filing cabinets!

Merl Saunders and Friends: May 31 – June 1, 1974, Inn of the Beginning, Cotati

Here is one of the tantalizing little performances that you come across and really, really want to know more about, while understanding how miraculous it is that you are able to know anything about it at all.

The Inn of theBeginning in Cotati hosted Merl Saunders and Friends, including Jerry Garcia, with Paul Pena opening, on Friday, May 31, 1974 and Saturday, June 1, 1974.

The May 1974 IOTB calendar had listed Friday, May 31 and Saturday, June 1 as TBA, supported by local folk artist Cris Williamson. The May ledger leaves the top of the bill a bit unclear, but the June calendar and ledger fill in the blanks. First, the calendar. It lists “Merl Saunders and Friends” for the weekend, with Paul Pena opening the evenings’ proceedings.

Inn of the Beginning calendar, June 1974. Courtesy of Mark Braunstein.

Paul Pena

Pena’s story seems an interesting one, just entering the GOTS narrative enough to warrant attention, but obscure enough to motivate some digging. I have talked about him a little in my 2/16/74 post.

A Boston native, blind from birth, the first trace of Paul Pena I can find in the Garcia nexus is as opener for the Grateful Dead at the Electric Factory in Philly on February 14-15, 1969. I’d guess he settles into the Bay Area around July 1973, since that’s when he starts showing up as the opener for Garcia/Saunders. He may even have been the single most frequent opener for these guys from 1973-1975, most often at the Keystone. On this evidence, we’d conclude that Keystone proprietor Freddie Herrera, Jerry and/or Merl liked him and/or his music enough to make him the “regular” opener where the three of them interfaced. Merl and Jerry also laid down some tracks for Pena’s New Train on October 4, 1973, though the album was not released, on CD, until 2000. It is most relevant here for Garcia’s pedal steel credits on “Venutian Lady” and “New Train”, tracks on which Merl is also credited. More broadly it’s just a pretty nice album (I like “Gotta Move”) and is noteworthy for Pena’s version of his “Jet Airliner”, later famously covered by a certain non-playin' motherfucker.

The IOTB materials, as rich as they have proven, again have interest, though I am not sure if this answers the question of how Pena came to be connected to these guys. On the back of the April 1974 ledger there’s a note to reach Pena through Annette [presumably Annette Flowers] at the GD offices. So, somehow, Paul Pena seems to have been in the GD orbit. Yet he was either also, or eventually became, close to Merl, for whom he’d continue to open shows at least into January 1976 (i.e., during the Merl-Jerry live performance interregnum beginning in ca. July 1975).

Anyway, the June 1974 calendar gives us a listing of Merl Saunders and Friends with Paul Pena opening for this weekend. The Inn of the Beginning Flyer gives its usual nice, informative, locally-contextualized blurb, which I reproduce with its surrounding nice, informative, locally-contextualized materials from the Flyer.

June 1974 Inn of the Beginning Flyer, first page. Courtesy of Mark Braunstein.

Jerry Garcia in the IOTB Ledger

As has been the case so often with these Inn of the Beginning materials, the ledger sheds new light, in this case about a heretofore unknown GOTS performance:

Excerpt of Inn of the Beginning June 1974 ledger. Courtesy of Mark Braunstein.

As I have elaborated over and over, I find these ledgers to be incredibly robust forms of evidence. The man who kept them kept (and retains) extremely accurate records, on my impression. So, to my satisfaction, this establishes that Jerry played on these nights.

So, eventually, The Jerry Site and anyone’s respective Garcia lists should be updated to reflect these dates:

• Merl Saunders and Friends (with Jerry Garcia), Friday, May 31, 1974, Inn of the Beginning, Cotati, CA
• Merl Saunders and Friends (with Jerry Garcia), Saturday, June 1, 1974, Inn of the Beginning, Cotati, CA

update: now at Jerrybase: May 31, 1974 | June 1, 1974

Some speculative and overdone reconstruction of these newly-discovered dates

How do I imagine this coming about? Clearly going too deeply into something that’s probably really simple, let me say a few things.

In my mind’s eye, this is Merl calling for a gig (or Mark Braunstein checking in with him), “I’ve got a bunch of guys together and am free that weekend”, kind of thing. The May-June gigs were booked late, since they didn’t make the May calendar, but the “TBA” listing suggests to me that the Inn was holding that weekend for something special. They usually had things fully calendared in time to go to print. My hunch is that Merl was trying to get Jerry to come up to Cotati on this free weekend and that this accounts both for the delay and for the slightly more tantalizing “and Friends’ formulation. Merl: “Hey Jerry, wanna come up to Cotati and jam this particular weekend?” Garcia: “Yeah, man. I gotta check.” Merl, next phone call: “Hey Mark, can you hold that weekend for me? I might be able to get Jerry.” Mark: “Hell yeah.”

It probably takes a while to get Garcia to (be able to) commit, what with Jerry being Jerry (overcommitted somewhere, on something). Indeed, the record shows that Garcia was at Heider’s on May 31^st. Shenk and Silberman (1) report that the “The Vault” (as of the mid-1990s, so presumably containing GD and JG material) holds some Garcia studio work such as “Some Enchanted Evening” (yes, the Rodgers and Hammerstein showtune from South Pacific) and “Cardiac Arrest”. This latter, a little jam really, was released as an outtake to Compliments on the All Good Things box set, and I presume that the released version is from this date. It may also shed some light. According to deaddisc, the players are Garcia, Michael Omartian on the piano, Merl Saunders on organ, John Kahn on bass, and Ronnie Tutt on drums. (I thought I heard some rhythm guitar, but what do I know?). So maybe Merl and Jer drove up to Cotati together, after playing around at Heider’s?

Win-win-win. The Inn is guaranteed a sellout at its standard mid-1974, strong-act-on-a-weekend-night rate of $2. Stuffing 250 people in, they gross $500 in tickets and pay out $400 to the talent (70% of the door for the band, blowing through the $150 guarantee, and $50 for Paul Pena), clear a C-note and then have a nice haul on beer and soda. Merl gets to keep playing with Jerry, which he obviously loves and which, crassly, is always in his pocketbook interest to keep doing. (Man was a cash cow, I tell ya.) Jerry, Being the May-June 1974 Vintage Jerry, The Youngish, Healthy-ish, I-Gotta-Jam-Somewhere-With-Someone Jerry, gets to play. Oh, and he leaves with $80 bucks in his pocket, which oughta keep him in smokes for a few days. Multiply all of this by two for the whole weekend, and we get these gigs.

What “Band” Played?

What should we call this collectivity that performed in Cotati? The listing itself –Merl Saunders and Friends—is interesting, insofar as I care about the formalities of band names, billings, and so on. And I care deeply about those things. When Merl played the Inn on Friday-Saturday April 5-6, 1974, he as just billed as Merl Saunders (note that Paul Pena opened). The “and Friends” formulation in May-June is probably not just an elaborated version of the same thing: it signals something that might interest the cognoscenti, i.e., that Jerry might be there. Just the name and the "and Friends" formulations suggest something looser and more ad hoc than a “band”. Merl Saunders and Friends is probably the best we can do. I would not call it a “band” at this point, just a picked-up group (though possibly with ideas about institutionalization, moving forward, at least on Merl’s part).

To get a sense of how fluid the billings were around Merl’s non-Garcia-related “bands”, I have just poked through some of my notes and listings for Merl’s bands without Jerry in the 1971-1975 period. Here are just some of the “bands” that I have seen mentioned or listed:

• Heavy Turbulence. A six-piece band which  released the single “Little Bit of Righteousness”, with “Iron Horse” on the B-side in ca. late November 1970 (2). I don’t know who the players were. Not Garcia. But maybe Kahn, Vitt, Fogerty. Matt Scofield’s Merl Saunders discography lists the band as Merl Saunders and Heavy Turbulence, with a catalog number Galaxy 776 (1970), but no players are listed. (As an aside, Heavy Turbulence was also the name of a Saunders record, probably released around mid-March 1972 (3). That album, of course, featured Garcia, Tom Fogerty, John Kahn and Bill Vitt.
• Merl Saunders Quartet. This was the listing at the Inn on December 14-15, 1973 at the Inn, with John Kahn apparently on bass.
• Merl Saunders Band. The Oakland Tribune published a piece on Martin in July 1974 using this name (4; see also my posts on July ’74 shows at Keystone and the Sand Dunes). In late August 1974 (5), the Trib reported that “The Merl Saunders Band, which featured Jerry Garcia on guitar and Martin Fierro on sax on alternating weeks at the Sand Dunes in San Francisco, has changed its name to” …
• … Aunt Monk. So we should date this from around late August 1974. The next usage of this name, which is seems to refer to a bona fide “band” (a name, a relatively fixed membership, a perceived “going concern”, an album) enters my data in September 1974 and continues sporadically for several years.
• Merl Saunders and Martin Fierro. What interests me about the previous little hints of institutionalization (for a “band” to change its “name” it had to be a band with a name in the first place, if you follow me) is that on the same date as the Fierro article (5) the Trib referred to the folks playing at the Sand Dunes as Merl Saunders and Martin Fierro, not Merl Saunders Band (6). No biggie, but just weird. Maybe they needed the extra letters for the type to set properly right-justified, who knows.
• plus lots of ad hoc listings of names, lots of interchange of nouns (band, group, aggregation), and every possible permutation of Merl/Merle [sic]/Mel [sic] Saunders/Sanders [sic]’s name.

It doesn’t really matter, of course. But I like that, in parallel with the Garcia/Saunders group itself, which didn’t have a name –about which I’ll have too much to say, at some point—things were just really, really fluid around all of this. Jerry and Merl would settle in with Legion of Mary for the first-half of 1975, and then, for Garcia, comes the crucial, fateful fall 1975 choice to put his name (and himself) out front in the Jerry Garcia Band, which would be the name of his “main” side band until his death twenty years later (except January-September 1979, with Reconstruction). It’s a terribly important inflection point. Putting his name on it, commodifying his name, professionalizing the band, institutionalizing it, all hearken to the end of a kind of dream of being able to jam anonymously, to play music without all the bullshit that attached to being Jerry Garcia Of The Grateful Dead. I suspect that Jerry would lament, in later years, his increasing inability (or unwillingness, or whatever) to just sit in anonymously in some small club with a band with no name, play some funk.

Who was in the What?

Who played? Well, we know Merl and Jerry played. Let’s assume there’s also bass, drums, and another instrument. We just really, really don’t know.

update 20210713: we pretty much do know. Tony Saunders has posted a pic of what he has said was one of his first gigs with Merl and Jer, from the Inn. Jerry is beardless and may even be wearing that black turtleneck he favored at this time. Tony identifies the players as Jerry, Merl, himself, Tom Donlinger on drums, Martin Fierro on sax, and Peter Welker on trumpet. And I am about 99% sure that the pic relates to these gigs.

What I had written is now greyed out some - I want the words to still be there, but they of course give way to the more solid information that has since arisen. Thanks to David Kramer-Smyth for the tip in comments.

Regarding bass, the December 1973 IOTB Flyer tells us that the Merl Saunders Quartet of December 14-15, 1973 featured John Kahn. By 1974 Merl’s son Tony Saunders, who would turn 18 in that year and who is a monster funky bassist, appeared more and more frequently and effectively supplanted John (insofar as John was ever implanted at all). But since John would appear to have been at Heider’s with these guys earlier in the day on May 31st, Occam’s Razor probably points to him, at least for that date. The truth is we just can’t know.

I would also suppose that Martin Fierro was there. He had been playing with Merl and Jerry pretty steadily for something like ten months by this time. We know from the band discussion above that he was playing in the Merl Saunders Band at the Sand Dunes in ca. the first half of 1974, apparently alternating Monday nights with Garcia. Of course, that’s right in this time period.  We don’t know he was there, but there are all kinds of reasons to think that he probably was.

There was also presumably a drummer. Bill Vitt thinks he was out of the Saunders/Garcia scene by mid-1974, so we should probably rule him out. Bill Kreutzmann is possible, but we just can’t know. It seems unlikely to me, since Merl’s “friends” could easily have included some other drummer. My bet, based on a thin scrap of evidence (his credited presence on the 5/31/74 “Cardiac Arrest” jam) would be Ronnie Tutt. This is presently the earliest direct Garcia-Tutt connection known to me, and given that he’d be around from 1975-1977, a live gig this early would be of particular historical note. But, as with all of this, I am speculating. It could just as well have been that guy from Cotati. You know—that guy. Whatshisname.

What did the Who/What Play?

In terms of the repertoire (i.e., the what that the What and Whom played), again, no specific idea. I imagine that these kinds of gigs, where it’s really Jerry sitting in with Merl, are the ones that turned out to be all-instrumental, such as the “7/21/74” or "7/22/74" Keystone stuff, which is actually 1/21/75 and 1/22/75 (for analysis, see nick, or me, or me again), or the 2/14/75 and 5/9/75 (May 9^th) gigs from The Generosity in San Francisco. (As an aside, Merl Jr.’s first reaction to the 2/14/75 Generosity gig is that it would have been Aunt Monk, with Tony Saunders on bass.) I thus imagine “When I Die”, “Ain’t No Woman (Like The One I’ve Got)”, “Little Bit Of Righteousness”, “Valdez In The Country”, etc. Maybe a Stevie Wonder number. I doubt they even had a vocal mic set up. Anyway, that’s all speculation. We just don’t know.

Summary

So, my initial goal was just to establish the evidentiary basis for adding these two gigs to our Garcia lists (i.e., The Garcia List). But the post turned into a little discussion of Paul Pena and some broader historical context, including Merl’s (Jerryless) bands around this time and some possible players and songs. Lots of wild speculation, once I left the fact of the gigs themselves, but fun stuff to think about. May-June in Sonoma, jamming with friends (or strangers). Not too bad.

REFERENCES

(1)  Shenk, David, and Steve Silberman. 1994. Skeleton Key: A Dictionary for Deadheads, s.v. “The Vault”, p. 301. New York: Doubleday.
(2)  Gene Robertson, “On the Beam,” Sun Reporter (San Francisco), November 28, 1970, p. 29.
(3)  Dennis Hunt, “Playing Small Rock Clubs is a ‘Release From the Dead’.” San Francisco Chronicle Datebook, April 9, 1972, p. 8, notes that HT was “released a few weeks ago”.
(4)  R.B. Ragg, “Life Out on the Side,” Oakland Tribune, July 21, 1974, p. 3-RAP.

(5)  "Rap-Up's Wrap Up," Oakland Tribune, August 25, 1974, p. 2-RAP. 

(6)  "Rap-Up's Wrap Up," Oakland Tribune, July 21, 1974, p. 2-RAP.

JGMS: "July 21-22," 1974, Keystone, Berkeley, CA

**updated 20111216 2057 GMT**
Tony Saunders is the bassist on these two tapes.

The Jerry Site has listings for Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders at Keystone, Berkeley, on July 21 and July 22, 1974. I doubt both date/venue combinations, for reasons I'll lay out below.

A) "JGMS 7/21/74, Keystone, Berkeley"

This first date is so obviously spurious that it barely bears laying out, but in the interests of completeness I'll do it anyway.

1) The GD played the Hollywood Bowl this date. Depending on show times both would be possible, but this seems extremely unlikely on its face.
2) Keystone billed Moby Grape and Earthquake on Sunday, 7/21, as evidenced by a Scenedrome listing in the Berkeley Barb:

 3) The recording, which is high (Betty-Board) quality but only in light circulation, contains two versions of "When I Die".


Regarding "7/21/74", I therefore conclude that this date was attached to some Betty Board snippets merely as an anchor (i.e., for ease of identification). When/where the material is actually from is anybody's guess (and I'll take a flyer below).

B) "JGMS 7/22/74, Keystone, Berkeley"

This may be the tougher case, since there is a quite delicious Betty Board (e.g., shnid 86198) in long circulation. (If you don't have it, get thee to the to your favorite Bit Torrent site forthwith!) The tape is notable for an as-yet untitled standard that starts things off, as well as the only-known (to me) JGMS version of Cucumber Slumber.

However, there is some reason to doubt this date/venue combination.

1) Saunders and Fierro appear to have been billed at the Sand Dunes bar on this Monday night:

I have posted about the Sand Dunes and the fact that Merl and Martin were playing there on Monday nights, with Jerry's at-least occasional participation. It seems likely that all three of them were at the edge of the Western World (i.e., the far western Sunset District of SF) on 7/22.

2) The bassist on these tapes is confirmed to be Tony Saunders. Tony Saunders played in his father Merl's bands at the Sand Dunes and The Generosity.

3) Keystone Berkeley's listing in the Hayward Daily Review, July 19, 1974, p. 36, bills Nite Shift and audition bands. Now, this could easily be moved for a Garcia appearance, I am sure, but it's just another strike against a JGMS show at Keystone Berkeley on this night.

4) As the Jerry Site notes, in remarks added by slip and seemingly attributed to 'strumminsix,' the recording features "Boogie On Reggae Woman" from Stevie Wonder's Fullfillingness' First Finale, which was apparently released on July 22, 1974. Now, it wouldn't shock me that Merl and/or John might run down to the record store first thing and get the new Stevie Wonder album. But I'd be slightly more surprised if the band could have absorbed it enough to play it that night. This leads me to question whether the circulating material dated as 7/22 is actually from that date.

5) Finally, reinforcing these doubts just expressed, the newest iteration of this "7/22/74" material (again, shnid 86198), may not be all from one performance. This would have to be checked more carefully than I am able to do, i.e., in listening for source changes in the recording, but it's a possibility that joins with all the others to raise some doubts.

Based on all of this, I conclude that Garcia and Saunders were not at the Keystone, Berkeley on July 22, 1974. The material circulating as "JGMS 7/22/74, Keystone, Berkeley" is either from another date, or from another venue, or is a hodge podge of material from other dates/venues.

C) A Final Thought

Putting things together this way reveals a tantalizing possibility: maybe all of this material is actually from the Sand Dunes from around this time (e.g., 7/21/74)? Everything we have, including a tape label the dating of which coincides with a brief flurry of Martin-related items in the Oakland Tribune, and includes Tony Saunders, who played in the band at the Sand Dunes.

Alternatively, maybe it's from The Generosity. The newly polished/circulated Castelli tapes from 2/14/75 (shnid 108896) and 5/9/75 (May 9th) (shnid 107829) reveal some things in common with these "1974" tapes, the appearances of "When I Die" and other seemingly-very-rare instrumentals (Cucumber Slumber, What's Going On, and the unidentified tunes) being most prominent. [Note added 20111216:  These song selections are only unusual if this is actually JGMS, which it almost certainly isn't. This may have been the standard Monday night set for the Merl Saunders/Martin Fierro outfit at the Sand Dunes, or Aunt Monk at The Generosity! Tony Saunders played bass in both outfits, and he is present here.] The possibility identified in point B4 above, that BORW might need to be from later than 7/22/74, could be seen as reinforcing this possibility.

If forced to bet I'd say that both of these tapes are approximately-correctly-dated performances of the Merl Saunders-Martin Fierro group --Saunders, Fierro, Garcia, Tony Saunders, and an undetermined drummer-- at the Sand Dunes, 3599 Taraval Street in the Sunset District of San Francisco, CA, 94116.

And, regardless of all of this, I highly recommend all of these recordings to you. They're awesome and show Jerry playing amazing, unfamiliar material when he is truly at the top of his game. Two snaps up.