LN jg1974-08-24.jgms.all.sbd.10162.shn2flac

On Saturday, August 24, 1974, the Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders played the Great American Music Hall at 859 O’ Farrell Street, San Francisco, CA, 94109. I have written about this show once before, just to lay out a few contradictions around the date/venue combination, which I basically dismiss. I am of the view that this show happened as we have it in The Garcia List despite lots of other weirdness around the August 1974 record of shows (about both of which – The Garcia List, and August 1974 confusion—I will post before too long).

Here I report on what I hear through shnid-10612, a very nice soundboard recording from the First Betty Batch, taped by the incredible Betty Cantor-Jackson.

Tape Provenance and Quality

The etree copy is identified as 10" MSR > C > DAT > CD > EAC > SHN. It entered the lossless realm in around July 2002 via jjoops, who had received CD copies from Katy Miller. For reference, Eaton lists this date as follows: "08/24/74 Great American Music Hall, San Francisco Ca - complete; 4.6, 135min, Sbd, A1D0, Reel Master > Cass 1 > Dat 0, 48k; 7inch Master Reel @ 7.5 ips 1/2trk > Tascam 122mkIII 1st Gen Cass > 3800 x0."

The first question I have is whether these are different reel sources, one of them 10” and another 7”. It is possible. As I note, these recordings almost have the feel as if they were intended for a live release. I have seen hints and allegations of various 1^st gen mixdowns involving this date, 8/28/74, and other dates, perhaps around the release of the “9/1/74” Keystone show (which is not from a single show, but from several). That said, it’s probably safest to assume that these came from the same 1^st gen cassettes that Eaton has on DAT, and possibly from Rob’s DAT itself.

Either way, these look to be part of the First Betty Batch. Recall that the First Betty Batch and the Second Betty Batch were tapes that were bought in the storage locker auction ca. 1986 and digitized by a large crew of people, many of whom had the idea that they should be freely and widely circulated. As reported in Dwork et al. (2000), Harvey (2009) and various other sources, the daisy chain involved in transferring these tapes (7” and 10” reels) was as follows: 1x Technics 1506 reel to reel playback deck (Bob Menke's) > 1x Sony PCM-501ES (Dougal Donaldson's) > 1x Panasonic VHS hi-fi VCR deck > 3x Beta hi-fi VCR decks > 1 other VHS hifi VCR deck > 2 cassette decks. I don’t know to whom the various other decks belong, nor the extent to which their Garcia tapes have circulated. I know that some of Dougal’s Garcia PCMs emerged (e.g., 7/21/74, maybe 7/22/74, maybe 6/4/74), and that there other tapes that are identified as MSR > cassette (such as the Sacks version of 7/21/74 [shnid 10127] and this 8/24/74 tape). That may imply that whoever got cassette copies also circulated them independently, that Dougal himself had cassette copies, or some other arrangement.

The tapes are beautiful. Even with the limits imposed by the (various) A>D steps (e.g., wasn’t the Sony PCM 501ES doing A>D at 14bit/44.056kHz?) and an assigned cassette gen, underneath it (and, don’t get me wrong, it’s not far underneath) lies a gorgeous, full, rich, balanced, crisp Betty Cantor-Jackson recording. She has amazing ears.

Personnel

This is Garcia, Saunders, Fierro, Kahn and a drummer. I believe the drummer is Paul Humphrey. Argument against is that Bill Kreutzmann is known to have played the day before (8/23/74) at the Berkeley Community Theater for the Ethiopian Famine Relief Benefit. Argument for is that this sounds like Humphrey to me. I don’t trust my ears, but this is my thinking. update 20181211: drummer is probably BK. As I note below, I think this is the period in which Martin really starts to step forward. I like that, but others find it less appealing. Kahn is really good here, and Garcia is right, if a little be restrained.

Song Notes

Some notes on some of the songs, straight from my listening notes.

“La-La” [Allan | Scofield | JB] is understood as a Martin Fierro composition and features him on flute. I know little about the song, beyond that it was released on Keepers (1997). As I have conjectured, August 1974 is where Martin Fierro really starts to step in front of this band. He leads the first five minutes here with his flute. In the 4-min mark he uses some really nicely controlled echo and reverb. I suspect if we go back and compare we'll find that he only really started using this sort of thing from July 1974. Folks who object to Martin's playing (I am not generally among them) will probably like his playing less and less from July 1974 to the end of the year. (I haven't revisited true 1975 LOM shows with this hypothesis in mind, so let me not comment on his playing there yet.) During this time, Garcia is very subtly strumming a vaguely Brazilian rhythm behind. Really tasteful, "back" stuff. Betty's recording really does La-La justice, too. Everything is mic'd just perfectly. the 9-minute mark, after some really nice gentle Merl solos, John Kahn steps forward a little, even more prominently in the 10-minute mark. Everyone is really tight here. @ 11:15 La-La I think Merl is the one who signals a decay of the song structure, which really interests me. Garcia is always ready to go to space, so it's probably part of their playing together that Jerry restrained himself and put Merl in front of it (at least in this case). I need to revisit, but he does something right around this time that decays the notes, I can't describe it. By mid-to-late 11-minute mark, Garcia has heard him and he signals that he's ready to get spacy. John is there, too. Late 12-minute mark, there is some spacy knobbing going on. I have typically associated this sound with Martin's saxophone, but here it is. I wonder if it's a synthesizer that Merl has that can either be keyed to the saxophone or switched over to a knob or pedal or key that Merl has? Late 12-minute mark, just some nice decayed jazzy spacing it. Martin has picked the flute back up (he had laid out for a few minutes, or maybe was just doing that funky space sound I just described) Garcia speeds up 14:12, tries a little fretting, Martin is doing the reverb and echo on his flute again. Early 15-minute mark the drummer digs in and tries to set a faster pace, getting underneath John who's going that speed as well and scaling around, a little fast wiggle @ 15:47ish. Jungle echo'ing, gotta be wired up through Martin's flute? Yep, listen @ 16:50, where it's coming out as hybrid flute and jungle echo. Garcia leads a more urgent decay @ early 17-min mark. I find this material engaging. I think some would critique it, but I find it to be pretty productive jamming for this whole time. The song clocks in around 18 and a half minutes, but it doesn't sound to me like it meanders. The transition to PMTWGR is flawed but interesting. Martin quite explicitly blows the “La-La” theme on the flute, while Kahn quite explicitly (and rather more definitively) asserts the “People Make The World Go Round” intro. Bass v. flute, so to PMTWGR we go!

“People Make The World Go Round” [Allan | JB] is absolutely fantastic. It starts with the bass-led intro, beautifully accompanied by the flute, Merl running some nice gentle organ keys, Garcia just strumming, nice tight-string rhythm happening. A little palate cleanser after the space out. It's interesting to me that this is indeed how this band used PMTWGR, a warmdown and not a jam vehicle. In the one Aunt Monk version in circulation (2/14/75), it was a 20+ minute echofest (and really good). I have always assumed that these guys got the song from Milt Jackson's 1973 album Sunflower (my CD version of which is part of a "CTI Catalogue Re-Launch Series", produced by Didier C. Deutsch, ZK 65131, 1997), since on that album the song precedes Freddie Hubbard’s “Little Sunflower” [Allan | Scofield | JB] (called just “Sunflower” on the Milt Jackson album), which this group also played (9 times between 5/9/75 and 7/4/75 in various personnel/band configurations). (Blair Jackson has said this latter tune was brought in by Martin, FYI.) But beyond their propinquity on the Milt Jackson album, there’s no particular reason to imagine that PMTWGR came from there. Composed by the Stylistics’ writing team of Thom Bell (music) and Linda Creed (lyrics), and released on that band’s eponymous 1971 album, it was covered by inter alia Michael Jackson and Ramon Morris (on Sweet Sister Funk). These guys could have gotten it from anywhere, and listening around a little bit I don’t hear a distinct arrangement that jumps out as the source for Merl/Martin/Jerry and the rest of these guys.

“(I’m A) Road Runner” [Allan | Scofield | JB] was written by the Holland/Dozier/Holland team at Motown and first released by Junior Walker & The All Stars on the 1965 record Shotgun. JGMS had started playing it around the start of 1974, and IMO it got better by August 1974 than it had been earlier. The song lives right at the top of Garcia's vocal range in this period, in fact probably just a bit beyond it. When he first started singing it, to get to these notes he sort of parodied them, which is just not a good emotional register for Garcia. It doesn't make me as uncomfortable as Marmaduke's {RIP} treatment of Honky Tonk Women, which had a worse to-be-taken-seriously-ratio for a more parodiable song, but I don't like those early Roadrunners (see 2/5/74, 2/9/74 for reference). Look it ain't a Dylan song, but it's a good piece of Americana and it deserves some respect, dammit!

Jimmy Cliff’s “Sitting In Limbo” [Allan | Scofield |JB] is an early version for this band (third time), performed with extreme care to good effect. It almost sounds like Garcia thinks he's on the radio, that's how careful he's being. Almost like he thinks he's being recorded for release. The vocals are as perspicacious as Garcia vocals could get. Despite that this song lives in a really tight spot for his vocal range, he doesn't crack or clam up, not once. He doesn't sound too thin (though a critique might say it is, indeed thin). He doesn't stumble once on the lyrics. His guitar playing is reasonably safe, but pretty well flawless. I think he really likes and respects this song. And, again, Betty's tape does this quiet song great justice. Now, this sort of thing doesn't light me up (I like the rough as much as the diamond), but if you want to hear Jerry paying attention, this is as good an example as any.

Overall

Great recording, pretty good show. La-La -> PMTWGR are the highlights, for me.

Listening Notes after the jump.

JGMS: July 19, 1973, Great American Music Hall, San Francisco, CA

Heitman, Dianne. 1973. Merle [sic] & Jerry soar at Music Hall – so does audience. San Francisco Phoenix v.1 n.24 (August 10), p. 8. Positive review of Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders, July 19, 1973, Great American Music Hall, San Francisco, CA.

The Great American Music Hall, at 859 O'Farrell Street in San Francisco, CA, 94109, looks to be a gilded freaking palace. I didn't see a post on it at any of Corry's blogs. If there is one, please point it out!

As far as I can tell the first time Garcia played it was Thursday, July 19, 1973. Somewhere there's an interview from Merl where he talks about how special this room was to them. By my back of the napkin count, they played this venue at least 30 times. I have touched on several, and with at least some focus in at least three:

·       3/10/74, where the venue gives birth to a new band, the Great American Music Band

·       7/14/74

·       8/24/74

The band on 7/19/73 was Jerry Garcia (electric guitar, vocals), Merl Saunders (keyboards, synthesizers), John Kahn (electric bass) and Bill Vitt (drums). Three "guests"/sort-of-members/eventual members appear as well: unknown harmonica player in the "guest", slot, Sarah Fulcher (vocals) in the "sort-of-members" category, and Martin Fierro (saxophone flute) as the "eventual" member. While Sarah would join the group (or, as it was known at the time, inter alia, The Group) a little off and on through most of 1973, Martin would keep appearing pretty steadily from this point forward, forming the third key instrumental voice in what would become, by 1975, Legion of Mary. His basically two-year stint is pretty good by GOTS first-half-of-1970s standards. He was practically a mainstay for those fluid days.

Anyway, this show has come up in the Workingman's Tracker's Garcia / Saunders and Legion of Mary Project, which I think will have nice curatorial value at least for SteveSw's reviews (what I would call "listening notes"). I wish more people would join in the conversation Here, There and Everywhere … we need to crowd-source more data and analysis! The WT forums are now publicly visible – thanks to the admins there. I am posting here because what I really wanted to do was post an image of the show review above, but I couldn’t figure out how. So I’ll post it here and invite you all to read it. It’s fantastic!

Here is the reference and a few select quotes and themes.

Heitman, Dianne. 1973. Merle [sic] & Jerry soar at Music Hall – so does audience. San Francisco Phoenix v.1 n.24 (August 10), p. 8.

Here’s the opening:

The good-time, low-down, high-energy sounds of Merl Saunders, Jerry Garcia and their group took off and soared under the high, gilded, electric-chandeliered ceiling of the Great American Music Hall one night called July 19.

The Music Hall was packed.

After identifying the personnel, Heitman mentions that “Sarah, during the second set, came out and sang a few numbers with the band, as she is wont to do from time to time.” Yet another example of “Sarah” only being referred to by her first name, as I have observed once before. Indeed, I wonder if the only way we know her name is by the information written onto Betty’s tape boxes and transcribed by Rob Eaton. Maybe not, but if someone can find me any pre-1995 information that mentions Sarah’s last name, I’d love to see it. And I wonder if this is intentional on Sarah’s part, or just reflects oversights?

As the quote below suggests, Sarah’s patronymic anonymity is not due to journalistic sloth. Continuing in the guests-who-shall-not-be named category, Ms. Heitman mentions “some fellow playing sax and flute. (Someone of unascertained reliability said he thought this musician’s name was Elspeth, but no-one else seemed to know him. Nor, unfortunately, could I discover Sarah’s last name – but they know who they are." Now this really cracks me up. Elspeth? Heh heh

“Elspeth” comes up again at the end of the review, when fan and reviewer interpret how Jerry relates to him based on the show-ending “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)”:

“Hear that! Wow, did you hear that? The way Garcia just shot that flute player down? Man, he just told him to shut up. You could just hear how Garcia was telling him with his music: ‘Shut up now. You had your turn already.’” (That may have been so, though the way I heard it, Garcia was just telling the flute player to wait for him backstage afterwards.)

I have always found that Martin was divisive among those who pay attention to these things, just as Sarah has always been. Some love them, some really dislike them. Seems like the “Wow!” guy wasn’t a big Martin … err … Elspeth fan. S’all good.

Heitman also picks up a nice piece of color that reflects the Dilemma (maybe not yet The Burden that it would be come) Of Being Jerry:

A fellow at the next table observed that the audience at this concert was made up largely of the same people who go to all the Grateful Dead concerts, ‘Their enthusiasm for the Dead and all things connected with the Dead borders on idolatry’, he remarked, and the others at his table nodded.

Guy sounds like a stick-in-the-mud, but he probably has a point. I would love to gather more systematic evidence as to when this sentiment first started popping up around GOTS. It was clearly happening by 1973. I suspect that fan idolatry, and/or complaints of it, are as old as Garcia On The Side itself.

Anyway, there’s also a real positive review of the show, and some nice, if small, bookended photos of Jerry and Merl. They don’t look like stock photos I have seen, so maybe they show them from the actual day of the show. I dunno. Anyway, happy reading. It’s good stuff.

The Birth of the Great American Music Band

Editor's Note: I should point out that the timing of this post was inspired by Corry, who has recently posted on the misty origins of OAITW and who earlier had posted on what might have been the "public debut of a very important band," the GAMB. While I think this post casts a different light on the "public debut" question, I am of course indebted to Lost Live Dead!

I am going to offer and try to defend the hypothesis, just articulated, that the Great American Fiddle / String / Music Band was "born", as recognized by David Grisman at least, on Saturday, March 9, 1974 at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, CA. I will try to post separately on the convoluted tale of the band's name.

Let me start by reproducing a calendar listing for the show from the Hayward Daily Review:

We see the following two listings:

1. Saturday, March 9, 1974: Richard Greene, David Grisman, Vassar Clements and Skunk Cabbage; Great American Music Hall, SF, CA; two shows.
2. Sunday, March 10, 1974: Richard Greene, David Grisman, Vassar Clements and Skunk Cabbage, Great American Music Hall, SF, CA (NB 6 p.m. to midnight)

I believe the first listing is effectively the first GAMB show, and the second is the first with Garcia. Let me lay it out for you.

First, let's recapitulate David Grisman's various tellings of the birth of GAMB.

A gig came up at the Great American Music Hall which was supposed to be Richard Greene and Vassar Clements, each with his own band. Richard asked me to play with him, so we got Eric Thompson on guitar, Sandy Rothman on banjo, and Bing Nathan on bass. Some promoter got a local group called Skunk Cabbage to back Vassar, and on the afternoon of the opening night both bands played a radio show. After Skunk Cabbage heard us play they said “We can’t play with Vassar; he belongs with you guys.” … So they opened the show for us, and we had Richard and Vassar and called it the Great American Fiddle Band. The second night Jerry Garcia played banjo, and Sandy Rothman switched to guitar. Bing Nathan couldn’t make the second night, so Taj Mahal played upright bass. Another musical friend of mine, David Nichtern … had been interested in my stuff … So he showed up the second night (ref 1, p. 34).

Richard Greene and I had a gig at the Great American Music Hall with Vassar Clements and his band, so we called it The Great American Fiddle Band (ref 2, p. 26).

The first quote establishes that Greene, Vassar and Grisman were at the GAMH together for two nights, with Vassar slated to play with Skunk Cabbage. That looks an awful lot like the March 9-10 listings. He also says that Garcia didn't show up until the second night, which is consistent with Jerry and Merl being in Berkeley on the Saturday night (March 9th).

Second, note the 6 pm - midnight billing on Sunday night. This was clearly something special.

Third, I have independent evidence that Grisman and Vassar were interacting with Jerry at precisely this time. There was a Round Records recording session at Columbia Studios, San Francisco, on Friday, March 8, 1974, from 11:00 a.m. until 2:00 p.m. involving Vassar and Grisman working on "Lonesome Town", "Indiana," and "Russian Lullaby". The first and last of these appeared on Garcia's Compliments, while the middle one is probably "Back Home in Indiana," which appeared as a Compliments outtake on the incredible All Good Things boxset.

Fourth, there is the tantalizing little 7-minute snippet of Stinson Beach rehearsals featuring David Grisman, Richard Greene, Jerry Garcia, Eric Thompson, Bill Wolfe, and maybe others, that is dated March 8, 1974. They work through "Sweet Georgia Brown" and "Limehouse Blues," both of which were staples in the (too brief!) GAM/SB repertoire. Related, there is independent reason to believe that there are four reels' worth of materials labeled "Grisman's House", with this date, in the Garcia vault.

Fifth--and this to me is just the sweetest batch of evidence-- there is a fascinating set of fly on the wall recordings, a few hours' worth, labeled only "Bluegrass at Grisman's," that I think is relevant here. It's a mix of material, including some work-throughs of OAITW material (presumably from ca. early 1973) and some other stuff that sounds more like OAITW. But there's at least 20 minutes, and maybe more, of stuff that is clearly proto-GAM/SB, including very early run-throughs of Grisman's (eventually, but not yet!) amazing "Dawg's Rag." Sandy Rothman seems to be present for some of this, and Grisman, Greene and Garcia are omnipresent.

Now, here is the real kicker. At one point during this GAM/SB-ish material, we have the following exchange between what sounds like an older southerner and Garcia.

Older southerner: "Jerry, everybody, I'll see you bright and early tomorrow. You're playin' a gig tomorrow night, then?"
JG: "Yes I am, yeah."
Older southerner: "Sunday you'll be there."
JG: "Yeah, Sunday I'll be there."

Ladies and gentlemen, I am prepared to call it QED on this basis. This material is from March 8, 1974. Grisman and Vassar do a morning studio session for Garcia for a little payday. Then everyone heads over to Grisman's in Stinson Beach. We already know, from point three above, that a bunch of guys are playing proto-GAMB in Stinson Beach, and uncirculated tapes suggest it's at Grisman's house. It sounds for all the world like someone's living room, including side conversations, phone calls, etc. The southerner gives us days of the week: "tomorrow", a Saturday, when Jerry cannot be there because he has a gig, and then a Sunday when he will be there. Those are clear references to March 9 and March 10. When we circle back to Grisman's account (first quote above), it all fits together perfectly. Note that he mentions both Sandy Rothman and Eric Thompson as being involved with the GAMH gigs. Well, here we have Sandy with these guys on the "Bluegrass at Grisman's" recording, and Thompson listed on the 7-minute snippet that David Gans shared with the world on the amazing (if perhaps presently a bit troubled) KPFA. Way too much coincidence not to be correct, IMO.

In conclusion, the evidence overwhelmingly points in favor of the proposition that GAMB was born on March 9, 1974, and Garcia first joined in on March 10th.

One last thing: it sounds like it was a helluva a great show. One account based on interviews with Grisman refers to the legendary 1974 GAMH gig with a "monumental jam" featuring Grisman, Greene, Vassar, Garcia, Fierro, Nichtern, and “from these jams, the Great American String Band was born" (ref 3). Having Fierro in with those guys would have been interesting, to say the least. I hope he just brought the flute and left the sax at home! I have also heard tell of an incredible rendition of "Wild Horses" played by the GAM/SB with Sandy Rothman around this time frame, taped by Betty but with no tape in circulation, which I believe must be from this night. Sounds like fun! Set time capsule ..

REFERENCES:

1. Forte, Dan. 1979a. David Grisman: Taking the Mandolin Beyond Tradition. Frets 1, 1 (March): 30-36.
2. Juanis, J.C. 1992. Dawgwood Revisited. Relix 19, 6 (December): 25-27. 
3. Sharpe, Ted. 1977. David Grisman: Mad, Marvelous Mandolinist. Blue Sky Review no. 7: unpaginated.

March 1974

update: this post mostly doesn't serve any purpose anymore, but here it is

I am working around an important (to me!) post about the birth of the Great American Music/String Band, and want to lay some foundation. So let me start by mapping the known-to-me Jerry Garcia engagements from March, 1974, and just making a few notes.

1. Saturday, March 2, 1974: JGMS @ Great American Music Hall, San Francisco, CA (JB)
2. Monday, March 4, 1974: Compliments work at Heider's (JB)
3. Wednesday, March 6, 1974: Compliments work at Heider's (JB)
4. Friday, March 8, 1974, 11 AM: Compliments session at Columbia Studios w Vassar, Grsiman, Sandy Rothman (JB)
5. Friday, March 8, 1974: Rehearsal at Grisman's house, Stinson Beach, CA. David Grisman, Richard Greene, Jerry Garcia, Eric Thompson, Bill Wolfe, maybe others (JB | 7-minute recording info) 
6. Saturday, March 9, 1974: JGMS @ Keystone, Berkeley (JB | sbd recording info)
7. Birth of GASB here
8. Thursday, March 14, 1974: JGMS @ Keystone, Berkeley (JB)
9. Friday, March 22, 1974: JGMS @ Chateau Liberté, Los Gatos, CA (JB)
10. Saturday, March 23, 1974: GD at Cow Palace (JB)
11. Sunday, March 24, 1974: Compliments work at Columbia (JB)
12. Monday, March 25, 1974: GD Mars Hotel work at Columbia (JB)
13. Tuesday, March 26, 1974: GD Mars Hotel work at Columbia (JB)
14. Tuesday, March 26, 1974: Compliments work at Columbia (JB)
15. Wednesday, March 27, 1974: Compliments work at Columbia (JB)
16. Thursday, March 28, 1974: Compliments work at Columbia (JB)
17. Friday, March 29, 1974: Compliments work at Columbia (JB)
18. Saturday, March 30, 1974: GD Mars Hotel sessions at CBS Studios, 829 Folsom Street, SF, CA (JB);
19. Saturday, March 30, 1974: JGMS @ Keystone Stockton (JB)

So, why do I list this stuff here?

First, TJS used to list a 3/1/74 JGMS gig at GAMH, but I am now about 99.9% sure it was a phantom.

Second, never mind.

Third, re: Vassar he played with Skunk Cabbage 3/1 at the GAMH. I had noted in my post on the Skunk Cabbage set at the GSCBF that Vassar played around with them. Here are a few other dates I have managed to pick up for Skunk Cabbage, with and w/o Mr. Clements:

1. Sunday, 11/18/73: The Cashews, Skunk Cabbage; New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA; (note Rowan Brothers billed there on 11/20, FWIW)
2. Monday, 11/26/73: Juice, Jango, Skunk Cabbage, and others; Lion's Share, San Anselmo, CA.
3. Tuesday, December 11, 1973: Byron Berline, Country Gazzette, Vassar Clements, Skunk Cabbage; Great American Music Hall, SF, CA.
4. Friday, March 1, 1974: see above.
5. Sunday, March 3, 1974: Skunk Cabbage with Vassar Clements and Western Union; Keystone, Berkeley, CA.
6. Saturday, March 9, 1974: Richard Greene, David Grisman, Vassar Clements and Skunk Cabbage; Great American Music Hall, SF, CA; two shows.
7. Sunday, March 10, 1974: Richard Greene, David Grisman, Vassar Clements and Skunk Cabbage, Great American Music Hall, SF, CA (NB 6 p.m. to midnight)

Fourth, finally, and by way of preview, ladies and gentlemen, I believe the above March 9th listing was the birth of the Great American Music/String Band, with Jerry Garcia joining in on the 10th. I'll post soon, hopefully tonight, on why I think the GAM/SB was born on this night. update: done

JGMS: November 2, 1974, Keystone, Berkeley, CA

Almost-certainly-almost-never heard Garcia/Saunders show: November 2, 1974. I don't usually link to recordings this way, but I am salivating at the chance to hear this bad boy.

Thank you Robert Castelli, Bob Menke, Derek McCabe, and the MOTB crew for serving this puppy to your hungry, waiting fans!

I will post on the show after I get to listen to it, probably by editing here. TJS will be updated at some point, too. I do know that any show with Donny Hathaway's bossa "Valdez in the Country" and Eddie Harris's voodoo fusion "Freedom Jazz Dance" is going to be a keeper. On that, see October 6, 1974, at the Great American Music Hall (GAMH) [JGMF | ?I thought the LLD suite of blogs had done a venue post on GAMH?], San Francisco, CA [TJS | db.etree | LL | bt.etree].

JGMS, August 24, 1974, venue confusion

August 1974 is one of Jerry's greatest months. Between the killer GD shows at the star of the month and all of the incredible Garcia/Saunders shows (8/31/74 is right at the top of my desert island list), it really is incredible. But I am confused about a few of the details from this month.

I'll start with my confusion surrounding the venue for the Saturday, August 24, 1974 Jerry Garcia/Merl Saunders gig, identifed as having taken place at the Great American Music Hall (GAMH).

Here is what three good sources of local listings show at the GAMH on Saturday, August 24, 1974:

• Hayward Daily Review, August 23, 1974, p. 44 (calendar listing): JGMS
• Berkeley Barb, August 23-29, 1974, p. 24 (calendar): Max Collie's Rhythm Aces
• San Francisco Phoenix, August 29, 1974, p. 9 (display ad): Max Collie's Rhythm Aces
• Oakland Tribune, August 23, 1974, p. 19 ("Weekend Scene" calendar): JGMS
  

My confusion was heightened by a reference to an Ethiopian famine relief concert at Berkeley Community Theater on this date (1), but this clearly seems like a misprint and refers to the Friday, August 23rd concert at that venue and it no longer concerns me (though it is slightly odd).

A recording (one cassette gen off the 10" master reels, presumably taped by Betty) circulates as GAMH, so I guess we should continue to believe that JGMS played the GAMH on 8/24 and remain agnostic about Max Collie's whereabouts.

REFERENCES:
(1) UPI, "Ethiopians cite famine," Hayward Daily Review, August 22, 1974, p. 37.

JGMS with Jack Casady and Stephen Stills? July 14, 1974 at the Great American Music Hall

Merl Jr. said that the tape to find would be Garcia/Saunders at the Great American Music Hall on a day that Crosby, Stills and Nash had played a Day on the Green. He says that Jack Casady and Stephen Stills came over after the CSN gig and jammed with Jerry and Merl and that it was amazing. 7/14/74 fits the bill - JGMS were at GAMH, and CSN were playing a Day on the Green.

Interestingly, I found an ad from the San Francisco Phoenix which lists two shows for the date, starting at 9 p.m. and 2 a.m. Very unusual. I wonder if it was planned ahead of time that Casady and Stills would come by?