New-to-The-List from the Examiner, 1970-1972

In addition to the tantalizing May 20-21, 1969 Garcia gigs at the Matrix, the newly-digitized Examiner has yielded a good number of previously unlisted, mostly-midweek Garcia gigs. A little list  from 1970-1972 follows.

update: see also a subsequent list from 1973-end

11/2/70 (Monday): Jerry Garcia / BBHC / Ice / Cleveland Wrecking Company. Harding Theater. Benefit for A Learning Place. I don't know if this would have been NRPS or JGMS; I am listing as JGMS for no particular reason.
! Listing: San Francisco Sunday Examiner and Chronicle Datebook, November 1, 1970, p. 27;
! Listing: San Francisco Examiner, November 2, 1970, p. 35.
! seealso: https://jgmf.blogspot.com/2019/11/ca-november-1-2-1970-fragments.html.

1/5/71 (Tuesday): JGMS at Matrix
! listing: San Francisco Examiner, January 5, 1971, p. 24.

2/4/71 (Thursday): JGMS at Matrix
! listing: San Francisco Examiner, February 4, 1971, p. 25.

3/30/71 (Tuesday): NRPS at Matrix. I interpret this as warmup for the east coast tour. BTW, they also played the next night, according to a redacted source, so we can add 3/31/71 (Wednesday), same band and room.
! listing: San Francisco Examiner, March 30, 1971, p. 24.

11/24/71 (Wednesday): JGMS at Keystone Korner. Garcia's first-known gig for Freddie Herrera had happened the night before Thanksgiving the year before with the New Riders. Jerry and Merl reprise the gig on its first anniversary.
! listing: San Francisco Examiner, November 24, 1971, p. 20.

1/18/72 (Tuesday): JGMS at Lion's Share
! Listing: San Francisco Examiner, January 18, 1972, p. 21.

3/1/72 (Wednesday): JGMS at Keystone Berkeley (formerly New Monk). I now understand this to be the very first night for the so-named Keystone at the corner of University and Shattuck. It's a fitting indicator of the centrality of Garcia to Freddie's enterprises that he would play this opening night at the old Monk. (See also "Jerry and Freddie, mid-March 1972".)
! Listing: San Francisco Examiner, March 1, 1972, p. 33.

6/3/72 (Saturday): JGMS at Keystone Korner
! Listing: San Francisco Examiner, June 3, 1972, p. 10.

8/31/72 (Thursday): JGMS at Keystone Berkeley
! Listing: San Francisco Examiner, August 31, 1972, p. 31.

12/26/72 (Tuesday): JGMS at Keystone Korner. This one puzzles me, because the KK would have been under Barkan's ownership at this point. Barkan has narrated that he once hosted Jerry and Merl (after he started booking the room on July 7th), but didn't dig the vibe and stuck thereafter with jazz. This could well be that very gig. I still don't know what to make of a listing for JGB at KK four years later, of course ...
! Listing: San Francisco Examiner, December 26, 1972, p. 28.

Jerry Garcia Band at Keystone Korner, December 19-21, 1976 (UNCERTAIN)

I am a stickler for accuracy with things like band names, and yet, given what we know, you would think that the words in my title, "Jerry Garcia Band at Keystone Korner", could not be strictly accurate. Garcia stopped playing Keystone Korner in 1972, three years before the Jerry Garcia Band existed, the stickler would say.

That's true, but, imagine my surprise when, in spinning through some more BAM listings that I gathered this summer, I find the following.

BAM no. 9 (December 1976), p. 34. (Sorry about the obnoxious watermark over it.)

Listing for Jerry Garcia Band at Keystone Korner, December 19-21, 1976. Fascinating.

Did These Shows Happen?

12/21/76 almost definitely seems not to have happened, since JGB played Keystone Berkeley (1st of three nights just before Christmas). The show was reviewed (Kelp 1976), there's tape (shnid-20474), and there was a listing in the Oakland Tribune based on considerably fresher information than BAM, still a monthly at this time, could have had.

What about Sunday-Monday, December 19-20? My hunch is that they did not happen, confident to maybe 75%. I couldn't tell you how I come to that assessment so, again, a hunch. Maybe the note to call to confirm the dates plants an extra seed of doubt about it in my mind.

The Listings Themselves Are The Point

Even if the shows did not happen, the listing is fascinating. Someone with calendaring knowledge at Keystone Korner conveyed to someone at BAM that JGB would play Todd Barkan's Keystone Korner in December 1976. Beyond merely stretching the period of known Garcia-Barkan engagement by four years, it ties back into a legendary jazz room. Garcia wasn't playing very jazzily at this time, so bringing him in would have been an exception to the regularity that, after the first six months or so of Barkan's proprietorship (let's say, starting January 1, 1973) it was strictly jazz.

I have a sneaking suspicion the shows never materialized, but either way I am fascinated to contemplate the possibility.

REFERENCES

! review: Kelp, Larry. 1976. A Showcase for Garcia’s Styles. Oakland Tribune, December 23, 1976, p. 22

! listing: "Bay Area Calendar," Oakland Tribune, December 19, 1976, p. E-14

! ref: URL http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2010/10/december-21-22-1976-keystone-berkeley.html

! JGMF: http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2010/10/john-rich-question-reply-to-corry.html

! listing: [contra: Keystone Korner] BAM no. 9 (December 1976), p. 34.

JGMS: the show known variously as 1972-06-30, 1972-09-01, 1971-09-01

So for a long time I have been wanting to lay down a marker regarding the dating of the wonderful Garcia/Saunders show that circulates variously as June 30, 1972, September 1, 1972, and (less commonly nowadays), September 1, 1971. I'll concentrate on the former two dates --I have nothing to say about the '71 possibility-- and suggest to you that the correct date for this material is 6/30/72.

Let's revisit the case for 9/1/72. As far as I know, this dating derives exclusively from tape labels, sometimes very old tape labels (such as those in Pat Lee's collection) and sometimes very authoritative ones (such as the ones, I am told, in the Garcia Vault). Unless I am missing something, there has never been any other (kind of) evidence underpinning this date.

Let's also step back a bit. The Keystone Korner surely deserves a post all its own, but that's the sort of thing that others can do much better than I can. All I'll say is that it was operated by Freddie Herrera through June 30, 1972 and taken over by Todd Barkan on July 1, 1972. Soon thereafter (though not instantaneously), Barkan transformed it into an all-jazz format that proved artistically successful if, it seems, financially marginal

The September 1, 1972 dating is infirmed by three primary pieces of evidence, which seem reasonably independent of each other. The first is a "Scenedrome" (calendar) listing from the Berkeley Barb, the date of which I unfortunately seem not to have noted. I produce the scan below. It was done in 600 DPI, so you ought to be able to download and zoom it --check the circled entries-- for closer inspection. It shows Freddie Hubbard booked at the Keystone Korner from Friday, September 1, 1972 through Sunday, September 3.

Second, Todd Barkan confirmed (presumably independent of this particular listing, though perhaps not of KK booking information from 1972) that Hubbard was playing on this date.

Third, in private correspondence Barkan confirmed that Garcia/Saunders played only two KK dates (July 7-8, 1972 -- previously unknown!) under his ownership.

So far, I hope to have persuaded you that the evidence for 9/1/72 was thin to begin with and has completely fallen apart under close scrutiny.

So, what about 6/30/72?  I don't know what the Jerry Site has gathered over the years, but its listing was my initial justification for dating the material 6/30/72. Somewhat miraculously, there is a contemporary account of the show that brings a few pieces of evidence in support of the date and one not in support of it. Joel Selvin (1) reports that on the last night of Herrera's ownership (i.e., 6/30/72), the Garcia-Saunders-Kahn-Vitt-Fogerty quintet opened "their last set at Keystone with lengthy, rousing versions of After Midnight, Money Honey, and an untitled, basically unstructured instrumental" (p.1). The existing tape shows set II to begin with It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry (strike), but then indeed proceeds with After Midnight (check), Money Honey (check), and a version of "Are You Lonely For Me Baby?" (call that .5 strike) that melts into a crazy, dissonant, 20+ minute instrumental passage (check) before the tape cuts out. Selvin tells us that Paul Butterfield comes on stage and trades licks with Jerry for 40 minutes at that point, but --alas!-- there seems to be no more tape.

It's possible that these numbers were standard fare for the group around this time. But the coincidences are pretty striking. This date attaches to this music for awhile, and then a contemporary piece comes up that seems to connect them independently. I, for one, am persuaded.

Bottom line, from my perspective: I'll call it 6/30/72, thank you very much. And even if you don't buy that, don't call it 9/1/72, because that ain't it.


REFERENCES:
(1) Joel Selvin, "Jamming for the Hell of It," Night Times vol. 2 no. 20 (issue 29), September 27-October 3, 1972, pp. 1, 3. See page 1 from this post.