Carl Lockett and the Side Trips Social Network

Preface: Reconstruction #2

Jerry Garcia's commitment to Reconstruction never seemed total, a big problem if you're John Kahn, first, and then Merl Saunders, looking to reboot the lucrative Garcia-Saunders-Kahn Fantasy Records franchise. It's no good if the G is wobbly, because "multiracial dance and jazz band with a rotating cast of Bay Area guitarists, including perhaps Jerry Miller or some other hot player who is not Jerry Garcia" may be a fine concept musically --Reconstruction was a frequently hot and risky enterprise-- but a tough sell, not least on evidence of its short, sociometrically-turbulent, falls-off-a-cliff tenure.

Sometimes, and at some point, Reconstruction happened without Garcia. Corry's canonical "Jerry Garcia Band Personnel, 1975-1995" listing (bookmark it!), sociometric data handbook of a big chunk of the historical Garciaverse, catalogs that outfit "Reconstruction #2":

First show-August 4, 1979 Keystone Palo Alto
Last show-September 29, 1979 Keystone Palo Alto

! lineup: John Kahn - bass;
! lineup: Merl Saunders - organ, keyboards, vocals;
! lineup: Ron Stallings - tenor sax, vocals;
! lineup: Carl Lockett - guitar;
! lineup: Ed Neumeister - trombone;
! lineup: Gaylord Birch - drums;
! guest: Jerry Miller - guitar, vocals (for a few shows, presumably in place of Lockett).

Corry notes "It's possible that the last date was actually September 4 in Bolinas, but I am not pursuing that subject in this post", so let me go ahead and ask him for the "short version" in comments. :)

Introduction

My purpose in this post it to drop a few Carl Lockett crumbs I have come across, building up and working around and through a little node in the Side Trips Social Network. Carl Lockett orbits the Garciaverse at one remove, as far as I know. They never shared a stage or an album credit, but they alternated or sequenced as guitar players with Reconstruction. As it happens, they also have a lot of shared ties to others, and I can use this as a case study to map some triadic closure in a little piece of the network topography.

Carl Lockett: Profile

From a little profile I just came across:

Carl Lockett is a Bay Area legend. A musical child prodigy, Carl started out as a drummer, then went to the guitar. By the age of 14, he was playing gigs around the Bay Area, even opening for the legendary Redd Foxx's comedy shows. For over 4 decades, he has made a name for himself in the music industry ... Carl has played live, and on studio albums with Chuck Mangione, Randy Crawford, Jimmy Smith, Joey DeFrancesco, Hank Crawford, Jimmy McGriff, Plaz Johnson, Tammy Terrell, Esther Phillips, The Platters, The Ink Spots, Big Mama Thornton, Jackie Wilson, The Drifters, Papa John Creach, Brook Benton, Dakota Staton, The Coasters, Bill Summers, and David Ruffin. His complete mastery of his instrument and his class and talent, has had him in diverse settings, ranging from a perfect third in a traditional organ trio (touring with Jimmy McGriff and Jimmy Smith), to sitting in for Jerry Garcia when Jerry was unable to make a gig with David Grisman.

In descending order of frequency/intensity of crossings with Jerry this population would sort to Grisman, then probably Papa John (at least a few crossings) and, at the level of shared billings, Big Mama Mae Thornton. Note, at a remove, Jimmy Smith, with whom I believe Merl Saunders studied and/or played. (BTW, note the presumed error in Lockett standing in for Jerry - it was almost certainly not with Grisman, but with Reconstruction.)

Carl Lockett Discography

Discogs identifies 16 credits, which bring out all kinds of stuff. Let me pick some stuff out from across the credit chronology there.

First, Carl Lockett's earliest credit is Walter Hawkins And Selah ‎– Walter Hawkins Selah (Fantasy ‎– 9410, 1972. Merl Saunders and Tom Fogerty produced the record at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley, and Garcia was around - he shares a few credits with Walter Hawkins and the Hawkins Singers (notably on The Group's 1973 Fantasy, Fire Up, catalog 9421).

Second, astute readers will recall that Merl Saunders' ‎ Do I Move You (Crystal Clear Records ‎– CCS-5006, 1979) was mostly comprised of tunes associated in the Garciaverse with Reconstruction, but as Corry has pointed out in comments it did not come after Garcia and Kahn had bailed on the project, but at the front end, recorded just four days after Reconstruction-with-Garcia's debut in late January. So this suggests that Merl brought these tunes into the band, rather than taking them out, as I had surmised.

Recall that John Kahn founded and owned Reconstruction. It meant a lot to him, as I have described in "Risky Reconstruction":

He seems to have had real ambitions for Reconstruction. He saw it as a kind of update to the Garcia-Saunders-Kahn-et-al group which had sold (and continues to sell!) so many records for Fantasy. The outfit would be rebuilt, playing some of the stuff that John had picked out for Jerry's 1974 Compliments of Garcia (Round RX 102, June 1974), notwithstanding that the latter hadn't sold enough to make Round Records viable, some more nightclub numbers and Merl vocals, a beautiful batch of Latin and other jazz, drop some disco danceability and play the black sinner music that John loved so much.  Reconstruction was aptly named, the mixing and mingling of old and new players and materials.... "I want it to last," [Kahn said]. "We're a serious band, and I want it to stay together" (Brown 1979).

Eventually, though, Merl goes from bringing stuff to the table in a partnership to seemingly owning the band. When and how did this happen? I am not really sure. I have a listing for Reconstruction, subtitled "Merl Saunders and Friends", at Frenchy's in Hayward on Monday, 9/3/79; that seems a strange way for John's band to be advertised. The Keystone Berkeley gig on Saturday, 9/22 was demonstrably the original Reconstruction, with Jerry and John, albeit with guest. A week later Reconstruction is booked into the same room, a Saturday night, which means that somewhere Freddie Herrera came to think that Jerry would be present. Yet there are good reasons to doubt he was, since the show never entered The List and the collective memory it inscribes - not impossible, but unlikely. I would infer that around or by 9/29/79 Jerry and John had walked away, and were probably already working stuff up with Ozzie Ahlers (keys) and Johnny D (drums) for the next Jerry Garcia Band.

I pretty much figure that Jerry and John bailed between Saturday 9/22 and Saturday 9/29. John must have assented to Merl taking the name, and he could afford to, given that he had already won the much more lucrative Garcia Loyalty Sweepstakes, a freaking lifetime lottery ticket, John's decisive victory over Merl for control of the Golden Goose. Just a hunch, of course. In November, Merl undertook an east coast tour with a hornless aggregation of name unknown to me (Merl Saunders - keyboards, vocals; Andre Goosland - Guitar; Tony Saunders - Bass; Jay David - Drums; Pamela Rose - Vocals), working a bunch of the same material, but no sign of the name. On 11/29/79 there's a band called Reconstruction playing Rancho Nicasio in West Marin, and then nothing again as far as I can find.

Here are the discog credits for Do I Move You:

Alto Saxophone, Flute – Martin Fierro
Arranged By – Mark Isham, Merl Saunders
Backing Vocals [Background] – Bernetta Rand, Frances Pye, Lynette Stephens Hawkins*, Sherlene Hall, Tramaine Hawkins, Walter Hawkins
Bass – Tony Saunders
Directed By [Technical] – John Meyer
Drums – Larry Vann
Guitar – Carl Locket*
Lead Vocals, Keyboards, Electric Piano, Organ, Clavinet, Synthesizer, Effects – Merl Saunders
Mastered By – Larry Van Valkenburg
Mixed By [Live] – Pat Malonie
Percussion – Kenneth Nash
Producer – Ed Wodenjak, Merl Saunders
Producer [Associate] – Tom Wiggins
Tenor Saxophone – Pee Wee Ellis
Trombone – Ed Neumeister
Trumpet – Mark Isham

Third, after more funk and soul, Lockett again worked for Walter Hawkins on I Feel Like Singing (Light Records ‎– LS-5789, 1982), which includes a couple of Tony Saunders credits (A3-"Do Your Best"; B4-"Try What You May") and rhythm tracks by future 14-year Garcia Band keyboardist Melvin Seals.

Wow.

So, into the Garciaverse, through this node and at this resolution, enters Melvin Seals, who enjoyed the third-longest continuous musical relationship with Garcia, after the Grateful Dead and John Kahn. We also cross Martin Fierro (many dozens of shows with Garcia 1973-1975, and once again on 7/16/88), Tom Fogerty (a few dozen shows with Garcia 1971-1972), Tony Saunders (played with Garcia probably at least a handful of times ca. 1974-1975), Larry Vann (probably shared a stage a time or two with Garcia at The Generosity in 1975, in Merl's band), and Mark Isham (suspected but not established shared stage and probably some shared credits lurking around). The Side Trips Social Network is a small world.

Fourth, Elvin Bishop makes an appearance on Lockett's credits in 1995.

Bishop was present at the Big Bang of the Garciaverse, the Dawn of a particular Man, the portal that opened to become Garcia's name-claiming journey, the 5/21/68 Carousel Tuesday Night Jam, on a cheap handbill on which, right in the eye's spot, we find "Jerry Garcia" billed, an sich, for the first time in the Grateful Dead Era.

Bear recorded it, and, amazingly, the recording circulates freely among fans (shnid-22727). According to Rhoney Stanley (2013, 157-163), Elvin, nicknamed "Pigboy", also provided visual inspiration for the purple pig that Stanley Mouse used to advertise the Carousel Tuesday Night Jams. update: Stanley Mouse says that the visual inspiration for the purple pig was none other than LBJ.

You'll recall that Elvin sat-in with the Hartbeats at the Matrix on October 30, 1968, subbed for him with the Grateful Dead on June 8, 1969 --which, along with August 1, 1969, present the only known times that the Grateful Dead played without Garcia-- and called Garcia onstage for a number to soothe a sunstroked crowd in the football stadium of beautiful UC Santa Barbara on June 4, 1978 . I am sure it's just a coincidence that this was a decade to the day since the June 4, 1968 Tuesday at the Carousel when they jammed together into the night and entered the light of day witness to the assassination of Bobby Kennedy, and a man found his country "fated to keep spinning out of control, down some grim spiral to madness".

Speaking of which, Jerry Garcia and the aforementioned Melvin Seals, who played many hundreds of times together, first did so on that same sunny Santa Barbara afternoon in 1978, when old pal Elvin induced an already opiated-coked-hermetic Garcia to step out and play on his call-to-fun "Right Now Is The Hour" (not, I do not think, as some reports have it, "Goin' Fishin'"), one of the very few times Garcia sat-in with anyone in the hazy decade that bounced lazily and weaved wildly out from the Bicentennial. (Warren Zevon was apparently little better off, guzzling Stoli, heckling the crowd as a bunch of acid casualties, and reportedly booed off that same stage not long after.) I don't have the personnel down, entirely. There were three guests on this tune: Garcia, Chuck Cochran, talented lead guitarist of the Santa Barbara reggae band called Wha-Koo, which had opened the show,and that same band's singer Dave Palmer, joining Elvin band members Jerry McKinney on saxophone, Johnny Vernazza ("Johnny V") on guitar, plus a bassist, Elvin and, perhaps, Melvin Seals. (Keyboards could have been manned by Bill Slais during the Garcia sit-in, but it is not clear -- see Corry.)

Conclusion

Well, here we are. This began as a question about Carl Lockett, and it became a little stroll through aspects of Georg Simmel's notion of triadic closure in social networks, here that two people who have crossed (or nearly done), are also more likely to have crossed some of the same others. It's amazing how bound up these networks really are, so that even though Lockett and Garcia never formally crossed, they are still woven from, into and through patches of the same cloth.

Darben The Redd Foxx

Commenter Nick's encyclopedic discographical resources (vinyl and knowledge) rescue me/us from an error and afford a little glancing blow through American culture that helps us situate Garcia in his world.

The song currently understood as "Ptah, the El Daoud" (Alice Coltrane), previously understood "Bag's Groove" (Milt Jackson), performed by Garcia-Saunders on June 4 and June 6, 1974, is actually what I will spell as "Darben the Redd Foxx", which Nick first finds on James Moody (Argo LP 648, 1959) [youtube | wiki]. He supplies a very helpful starter discography:

• "Darben the Redd Foxx" on James Moody s/t (Argo 1959)
• "Dobbin' with Redd Foxx" on Eddie Lockjaw Davis, Bacalao (Prestige 1960, rec 1959)
• "Darbin and the Redd Fox" on Milt Jackson, Vibrations (Atlantic 1964, rec 1960)
• "Darben the Redd Foxx" on Don Patterson, Mellow Soul (Prestige 1967)
• "Darbin the Redd Fox" on James Moody, Don't Look Away Now (Prestige 1969)
• "Darben the Red Fox" on Dizzy Gillespie, live recording 1980 (sextet with Moody), see http://jdisc.columbia.edu/session/dizzy ... er-24-1980
• "Darben the Red Fox" on Rutgers University Livingston College Jazz Ensemble, Music of the Masters - Past and Present (RJE/PJ, 1981)
• "Darben the Redd Foxx" on James Moody/Hank Jones, Our Delight (IPO, 2008)

I think Nick suggested we go with "Darben The Red Fox", and WTF am I to say otherwise, but when in doubt I like to use the oldest known title. (Not sure I actually adhere to that rule, but regardless it's the one I am applying here.) So, again, I'll call it "Darben the Redd Foxx", credited to James Moody.

Do your own comparisons:

• Moody's original, starting from 12 seconds in: http://youtu.be/5jzzWcl7bbE?t=12s
• JGMS 6/4/74
• JGMS 6/6/74

A little more context from Nick.

It's a random one-shot jazz tune for them to play, but it's certainly possible that Fierro was familiar with Moody and brought it to the group, or maybe even that it was a tune that Tony Saunders was familiar with … It doesn't seem like a complicated song to learn right before a gig. I don't think it was a standard, but it clearly had enough cachet for a few major jazz artists to record versions of it, so maybe it was something that jazz musicians played often at jam sessions or something -- I don't know. The real mystery (for me, at least) is how Alice Coltrane of all people came to reappropriate the exact same melody for one of her own songs -- I wonder if it isn't lifted from some classical or folk melody, but I have yet to get to the bottom of that one.

I look forward to learning more! In the meantime, let me paint around the edges a little, as is my wont, four rough-hewn sets of strokes.

First, #jazz, fine jazz. That's all.

Second, Redd Foxx -- John Elroy Sanford (December 9, 1922 – October 11, 1991) – wow. Hello to an America you couldn't, initially, see on your TV: "Foxx was born in St. Louis, Missouri and raised on Chicago's South Side. His father, Fred Sanford, an electrician and auto mechanic from Hickman, Kentucky, left his family when Foxx was four years old. He was raised by his half-Seminole Indian mother, Mary Hughes from Ellisville, Mississippi, his grandmother and his minister." (Obviously, I want … to ... compare and classify!) But, then, amazingly, in his 50^th year, Redd Foxx was an American you could see on your TV, in "Sanford and Son", which ran from January 14, 1972, to March 25, 1977. White America, mostly guided, pushed and instructed by Black America itself, of course, and Foxx pushed it further still, making all kinds of marginalization mainstream, having and getting some good laughs along the way. It was a good show, and, though I don't much about Garcia's TV watching habits –sci fi and B horror flicks come to mind, and he testified to watching hellfire-, brimstone- and amphetamine-breathing preachers on late night Bay Area TV, probably variously that guy/those guys on Channel 2 for awhile, Channel 12 for awhile). Foxx's standup and some musical stuff appeared on more than fifty records, and it's just hard to imagine that Garcia hadn't taken some it that in at some point in his Beatnik youth or his still-transgressive early thirties. Here's the "Redd Foxx"-GRAM over the course of his lifetime:

Figure xxx. Ngram "Redd Foxx", 1922-1991

Third, on our history with this tune. It's been called "Bag's Groove" (no) and, lately, "Ptah, the El Daoud". To err is human, and is often the fun and interesting stuff. I am glad we thought it was Ptah, because that's a great tune that I probably would have missed if we hadn't. (Same goes for another candidate, Salah Ragab and the Cairo Jazz Band's " "The Crossing (Oubour)".) And it's a lot like Darben. But the song JGMS played was the latter and not the former, we now know. Cool. Updated your song lists – I have (s-Darben the Redd Foxx, #songs-D).

Fourth, a little spray-can Mona Lisa: I get a kick Garcia smiling behind his beard (or maybe not, in June 1974; so, smiling beneath his chins), maybe Tony Saunders brought it to them, someone thinks of Redd grabbing his chest and yelling "I'm coming, Elizabeth!", a chuckle is had. But then, the serious work, maybe important is the better word, the meaningful work of playing some fine jazz – because it's a great tune. It's a chuckle, but make no mistake about it – this material, in the setting in which it was played, finds Garcia in some of his healthiest, most challenging musical engagements. This is not his native musical idiom, but his willingness to tackle it speaks volumes.

As is so widely the case, the blackness of these engagements often remains hidden, mostly by deeply subtle forces, for example that, as a proportion of white paper (let's say, posters, handbills, business files and records), there was less black paper to begin with, less was ever collected/preserved/archived, less has been analyzed, and so forth. There's less tape from Slim Jenkins’ Supper Club or Esther’s Orbit Room in West Oakland (Hildebrand ND), to say nothing of the Marin City joints, than came out of the Lion's Share or the Keystone Berkeley. Even now race is a hard conversation to have – but it's a great conversation to have. Garcia was having it in tackling "Darben The Redd Foxx", and the sonar's return ping at forty years' vantage maps all kinds of American cultural depth. But it also reveals a sweet simplicity that would diminish over time. Thinking of Garcia thinking of Redd Foxx in early June of 1974, and then tackling a nice little piece of jazz, puts a little smile on me in the way that I hope it was able to put a little smile on him, free, still, to just play, something new and interesting, no strings attached.

REFERENCE

Hildebrand, Lee. ND. Blues on Seventh Street: Recollections of the West Oakland scene in its heyday. The Monthly, URL http://www.themonthly.com/upfront1302.html, consulted 1/24/2015.

JGMS: June 11, 1974 Keystone Berkeley - new to The List

So here's a new one for The List: JGMS at Keystone on Tuesday, June 11, 1974.

But note, too, that Merl is playing Sand Dunes on Monday the 10th - this could very easily be a Monday on which Garcia sat in. The fact that Tony Saunders played with Merl and Jerry the week prior (June 4 and June 6) makes it seem even more likely to me. The fact that Jerry played under Merl's billing on May 31-June 1 at the Inn of the Beginning is also suggestive.

No proof will ever turn up, of course, so this can remain little more than speculation. But I sure would have liked to belly up to the bar at the Sand Dunes on this Monday, in the thick fog and salt, and catch some tunes.

Read more:

• Jerry with Merl and/or Martin, ca. 1974, The Sand Dunes 
• JGMS: "July 21-22," 1974, Keystone, Berkeley, CA

What's Going On? Listening to the Show Traveling as JGMS 7/22/74

LN jg1974-07-22.jgms.146mins.sbd-GMB.86198.flac1644

I wrote about this Jerry Garcia – Merl Saunders (JGMS) set dated July 22, 1974 and located at the Keystone, Berkeley, some time back. I had suggested that this show (and the one attributed to July 21, 1974, same venue) might not be as it seemed. I initially speculated that it might be from the Sand Dunes, but upon a close listen I don’t think so – it sounds like the Keystone to me. I don’t normally trust my ears, but it’s identified as Keystone and it sounds like everything else I have heard from there, with a good-sized crowd. (For more on the Sand Dunes, see my initial post and check the posts under the Sand Dunes label.)

I have recently gone back to the material identified as JGMS, July 21, 1974 at the Keystone Berkeley and promised to revisit 7/22 as well. I have now done so, and I can say a few preliminary things.

First, the two filesets are clearly related beyond that they are dated to consecutive days. As I note below, the following pieces look to fit together: Pennies From Heaven (7/21/74 front, 7/22/74 back), How Sweet It Is (7/22 v1 front, 7/21 back) and You Can Leave Your Hat On (7/21 front, 7/22 back). I don’t know how what began as scraps of tape got organized and disseminated in this way, but there you go. This all remains to be confirmed, but I think it will be.

Second, while I am not sure I’ll ever be able to figure out exactly what’s what, I presently hold the view that these filesets are approximately correctly dated, which is itself a discovery since there are lots of reasons to misbelieve them. Among them are the following:

• The Grateful Dead played Hollywood Bowl on 7/21/74.
• Newspaper listings for the Keystone show different acts on these dates (respectively, Moby Grape and Earthquake on Sunday 7/21, Nite Shift and audition bands on Monday 7/22).  (These contrary listings appear in the Berkeley Barb, July 12-18, 1974, p. 28 and in the Hayward Daily Review, July 19, 1974, p. 36.)
• Related, Merl Saunders and Martin Fierro were billed for the Sand Dunes on 7/22 (Oakland Tribune, July 21, 1974, p. 2-RAP). 
•  There are repeated songs on each “date”: When I Die on 7/21 and How Sweet It Is on 7/22.
• Boogie On Reggae Woman was first released on Stevie Wonder’s Fulfillingness’ First Finale, which appears to have come out on … wait for it … July 22, 1974.

So there are all kinds of reasons to disbelieve these datings. Yet, they feel approximately correct.

First, there’s the matter of the tape labeling itself. These have quite clear provenance (First Batch Betty reels > Dougal Donaldson’s PCM copy > DAT), and it’s not clear that a mislabel would have been likely to intervene in such a short chain. It could have, as the old saga of April 1975 LOM dates suggests. Someone might have been making shit up. But it’d be strange. 

Second, Tony Saunders is here, which implies that John Kahn was not available. (This is not Aunt Monk, remember; it’s Garcia-Saunders. I infer this inter alia from the fact that Garcia sings some tunes.) We know that John was at Hollywood Bowl (with Maria Muldaur’s band) on 7/21/74, and might imagine that he wasn’t in as much of a rush to get back to the Bay Area as Garcia might have been, not least because he had family in LA. 

Third, when else would these have been? We could push out as far as July 1975, but no farther. The setlist, performance quality, song timings, and many other things ring more like 1974 to my ear than 1975. It almost certainly could not have been any earlier.

More specifically (and hence less justifiably), I am entertaining the idea that there were indeed shows on more or less precisely the nights indicated. The plans for Frank Biner and the Nite Shift and some band auditions at Keystone on Monday 7/22 could very easily have been shunted aside if Jerry would be in the house. This would be a really nice Monday-night payday for Freddie Herrera (Keystone proprietor) and the other musicians, so the incentive was there. Regarding 7/21, I guess either that there was a late set from Saturday night to Sunday morning (i.e., starting on 7/20/74) that was labeled the 21^st because it started after midnight, or, more likely to my mind (though not likely in any absolute sense), that Garcia indeed did race up from LA after the Hollywood Bowl gig and make it to Berkeley to play the last set with Merl et al. I know it all sounds implausible, but that’s my hunch. There was a flurry of activity in the Oakland Tribune around Saunders and Fierro in July-August 1974 (see, e.g., my post on Merl Saunders and Friends gig at the Inn of the Beginning on May 31-June 1, 1974). I don’t know precisely what it was, but something was going on, and typical patterns (insofar as there were any at this time) could easily have given way.

Baroque listening notes follow.

Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders

Keystone

2119 University Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94704

July 22, 1974 (Monday)

--Set I (6 tracks, 67:56)--

s1t01. //Pennies From Heaven [#2:20] [1:10]

s1t02. Boogie On Reggae Woman [18:40] [3:53]

s1t03. Wondering Why [17:05] [0:16]

s1t04. How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) // [5:06#]

s1t05. // You Can Leave Your Hat On [#5:27] (1) [0:49]

s1t06. That's What Love Will Make You Do [12:55] (2) [0:12]

--Set II (4 tracks, 78:10)--

s2t01. //Cucumber Slumber [#20:47] [0:40]

s2t02. Harder They Come [17:34] [2:09]

s2t03. What’s Going On [26:22] % [0:04]

s2t04. [0:05] How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) [9:38] (3) [0:49]

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders

! lineup: Jerry Garcia - guitar, vocals;

! lineup: Merl Saunders - keyboards, vocals;

! lineup: Martin Fierro - saxophone, flute;

! lineup: Tony Saunders - bass;

! lineup: Gaylord Birch - drums.

JGMF:

! Recording: symbols: % = recording discontinuity; / = clipped song; // = cut song; ... = fade in/out; # = truncated timing; [ ] = recorded event time. The recorded event time immediately after the song or item name is an attempt at getting the "real" time of the event. So, a timing of [x:xx] right after a song title is an attempt to say how long the song really was, as represented on this recording.

! TJS: http://www.thejerrysite.com/shows/show/1075

! db: shnid 86198 (this seed); shnid 10127 (earlier, slightly shorter version seeded by Darrin Sacks; it gives lineage as MSR>C>DAT, which is possible given that there were indeed cassette decks at the transfer party for the first Betty Batch).

! R: "Source: SBD: MSR > PCM > DAT; Transfer: Panasonic SV-3700 > M-Audio Audiophile 2496 to Wavelab 5.0 mastering with L3 Multimaximizer > CDWAV1.9 > FLAC (level 8). Transferred, Remastered by B. Koucky and Seeded by Green Mountain Bros. June 2007." This, along with "7/21/74", was part of the First Batch of Betty Boards (see Dwork et al. 2000; Harvey 2009, pp. 122-141). It is not identified by Dougal Donaldson (in Dwork et al. 2000, pp. 37-39) as one of the tapes transferred from that batch, but samizdat versions of the history of the Betty tapes include these dates (as well as 6/4/74). As of this writing, I do not know the tape specs, i.e., whether they were 7" or 10" tapes, the recording speed (probably 7.5 ips), any noise reduction applied or decoded (Dolby or DBX), etc. I only know that, per the Betty Board histories, they were half-track tapes played back on Bob Menke's Technics 1506, through Dougal Donaldson's Sony PCM 501ES unit. I presume that the source PCM tape was Dougal Donaldson's.

! setlist: the seeder Bill Koucky had referred to these two pieces as either sets or shows. There is so much other mystery around this date, I'll just keep it simple and call them sets for now. I think we will discover that this material fits together like puzzle pieces with the material dated "7/21/74". Specifically, the following pieces look to fit together: Pennies From Heaven (7/21/74 front, 7/22/74 back), How Sweet It Is (7/22 v1 front, 7/21 back) and You Can Leave Your Hat On (7/21 front, 7/22 back). How the material got distributed across the two recordings this way remains a mystery.

! setlist: Seeder Note: "d2t04 How Sweet It Is may or may not be from this show depending on if it was an early or late show. It is very clear the tune is the last song of the night as Jerry says, “See you all later” and you can hear people in the first rows ask for an encore. There is a tape splice before the song, which may indicate a reel change or a filler to the DAT source. The Jerry Site notes that What’s Going On is cut and this version is not and does not list How Sweet It Is nor does it list the d1tr01 Instrumental [Pennies From Heaven]. This is a more complete source that what previously circulates."

! setlist: s1t01 Pennies From Heaven is the Arthur Johnston/Johnny Burke composition (1936). Thanks to Tony Saunders for identifying it. It also appears as d1t03 on the shnid 117653 fileset for "7/21/74" and on the Aunt Monk show dated 2/14/75.

! R: s1t01 PFH cuts in.

! P: s1t02 BORW comes in smokin', nice entry by the bass and the drums.

! s1t02 after the song, they are warming up "After Midnight" until 19:47, but then change course. @ 20:47 Merl signals "When I Die" and Tony takes the cue. They noodle in for a little bit, change course again. @ 21:24 Garcia seems to strum "The Weight". Merl hits "When I Die" again @ 21:38. In the meantime, he had mentioned "Wondering Why", which is where they go.

! R: s1t04 HSII cuts out

! R: s1t05 YCLYHO cuts in

! s1t05 @ 5:38 (1) I think I hear Garcia say something like "We only have time left to do one more" to his bandmate(s).

! s1t06 @ 13:00 (2) JG: "We're gonna take a break. We'll be back pretty soon."

! setlist: s2t01 Cucumber Slumber is a one-off -- this is the only known version (for Jerry Garcia, naturally). As far as I can tell, it was initially released on Weather Report's Mysterious Traveller (Columbia 32494, 1974). And how would you like some serendipity? According to wikipedia, first, the record was recorded between February and May 1974 at Devonshire Studios in LA, which of course is where (and when) Garcia's Compliments album was recorded. Second, "Greg Errico was the drummer for the tour between the previously released Sweetnighter and [Mysterious Traveller], but declined an invitation to be a permanent member of [Weather Report]." The first references I can find to this album being released are in July 1974 (a review in some Indiana newspaper). It could have been that these guys somehow got their hands on an advance copy, or at least the chart of the Alphonso Johnson/Josef Zawinul composition. Maybe they got a copy of it at Devonshire Studios. But it's unlikely. update: indeed, I think the simpler explanation is that the dating given to this material is wrong, and the gig happened a half year later.

! R: s2t01 Cucumber Slumber cuts in, not much missing.

! P: s2t01 Cucumber Slumber Martin does some very loud squawking at 19-min mark. He would do more and more of this as things progressed. I don't particularly remember him doing it quite this aggressively before about this time (ca. July 1974), but that's something I'd want to check. If you don't like it when Martin squawks, I'd say that shows in '73 and the the first half of '74 will be more to your liking.

! R: there is a persistent R-channel buzz that can be heard especially clearly when Cucumber Slumber ends. It ends around 21:16 of the track. It is back again at the end of HTC, probably has been there all through the music.

! setlist: s2t03 What's Going On is the only known Garcia-associated version (i.e. a one-off). As Corry notes, the drummer for this megahit was none other than Paul Humphrey. I think that certainly makes it more likely that this is Humphrey drumming. update: nope - it's Gaylord Birch

! P: s2t03 WGO is a really nice performance, very exploratory but not too meandering. At times toward the end Tony S. is playing a bass line a little like "Welcome To The Basement". Very nice stuff.

! P: s2t04 HSII Martin is blowing *hard in the 7-minute mark.

! s2t04 (3) JG: "Thank you. We'll see y'all later on."

REFERENCES:

Dwork, John, and Alexis Muellner, with Dougal Donaldson, Doug Oade and Mark Kraitchman. 2000. Outside the System. In The Deadhead's Taping Compendium, vol. III, An In-depth Guide to the Music of the Grateful Dead on Tape, 1986-1995 (New York: Henry Holt/Owl Books.), pp. 33-62.

Harvey, Katie A. 2009. Embalming the Dead: Taping, Trading and Collecting the Aura of the Grateful Dead. Master of Arts Thesis, Tufts University, August. URL http://www.scribd.com/doc/26367749/Embaling-the-Grateful-Dead, consulted 12/18/2011.

jgmf.blogspot.com

Pennies From Heaven: Listening to the Tape Known as JGMS 7/21/74

**updated**

Here are the reference posts for this set of listening notes:

1. JGMF, “JGMS: "July 21-22," 1974, Keystone, Berkeley, CA”, 7/25/2010, updated 12/16/2011.
2. JGMF, “Jerry with Merl and/or Martin, ca. 1974, The Sand Dunes”, 5/16/2010.

In brief, I am walking back from my speculation that this material is from the Sand Dunes. It’s not. It sounds like the Keystone. This only raises more questions about the date. But I am going to listen to 7/22/74, and on its face it looks like these two tapes may be close companions. I will leave some notes when I can.

LN jg1974-07-21.jgms.93mins.sbd-Betty.117653.flac1644

Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders
Keystone

2119 University Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94704

"July 21, 1974 (Sunday)"

Disc One (3 tracks, 47:22)
--end set I--
d1t01. The Harder They Come [18:09] (1) [0:14] %
--set II--
d1t02. //When I Die [12:33#] (2) [0:28]
d1t03. Pennies From Heaven// [15:41#] % dead air [0:14]

Disc Two (4 tracks, 46:02)
--set II (con't)--
d2t01. //After Midnight [#10:33] (3) [1:59]
d2t02. When I Die [17:10] [1:29]
d2t03. You Can Leave Your Hat On// [11:28#] % dead air [0:04]
d2t04. //How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) [#2:56] (4) [0:17] % dead air [0:04]

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - el-g, vocals;
! lineup: Merl Saunders - keyboards, vocals;
! lineup: Martin Fierro - saxophone;
! lineup: Tony Saunders - el-bass;
! lineup: Gaylord Birch - drums.

JGMF:

! Recording: symbols: % = recording discontinuity; / = clipped song; // = cut song; ... = fade in/out; # = truncated timing; [ ] = recorded event time. The recorded event time immediately after the song or item name is an attempt at getting the "real" time of the event. So, a timing of [x:xx] right after a song title is an attempt to say how long the song really was, as represented on this recording.

! TJS: http://www.thejerrysite.com/shows/show/1074

! db: none.

! FYI: http://dead.net/show/july-21-1974

! R: given lineage: "MSR > PCM > DAT > ZA2 > CDR (xx) > EAC > flac1644". At Lossless Legs, user JerryRocks has identified the digital history of this recording, passing from Dougal Donaldson (PCM) to Ryan Shriver (DAT) to Andy Lemieux (DAT) to jjoops (CD) and thereafter out and about.

! This recording may not be what it purports to be. The Grateful Dead were at Hollywood Bowl on 7/21/74, though Garcia could have flown up for a late Bay Area set with Merl after that show ended ca. 9 pm. All available sources also point to Earthquake and Moby Grape playing the Keystone Berkely this night (Berkeley Barb, July 12-18, 1974, p. 28; Hayward Daily Review, July 19, 1974, p. 36). Tony Saunders is playing bass here, which works well with the 7/21 dating since John Kahn was down in Hollywood, having opened for the GD as part of Maria Muldaur's band, and he may not have wanted to fly north right away. The room sounds too big to be a tiny place like the Sand Dunes, which I had earlier conjectured. I also think it goes along well with the material dated 7/22/74 (also featuring Tony S. on bass). My working argument is that we might as well call it 7/21/74, Keystone Berkeley. update: nope.

! We cannot know how much of a show, or how many pieces of shows, this represents. I have conjectured before that this represents bits and pieces of tape. It's so cut up, we really can't tell what might go with what except for the ca. 40-minute piece of continuous tape from After Midnight to Leave Your Hat On. HTC is definitely the end of a first set, and HSII is definitely the end of a show, but beyond that we don't have much to go on.

! Personnel: Tony Saunders is on bass, which only really happened when Kahn was unavailable or when the gig was more of a Merl gig than a Jerry-and-Merl gig. As noted just above, this lends some credence to a 7/21/74 dating. I do not know who is drumming. The guy is really good. Possibilities include Bill Kreutzmann, Paul Humphrey or Gaylord Birch, all of whom Tony Saunders remembers playing with in the Saunders-Garcia band. E.W. Wainwright apparently played with Aunt Monk at the Generosity (timeframe uncertain) and also sat in at least once with Garcia-Saunders (3/14/74, Keystone Berkeley). Larry Vann and Bob Stellar both also drummed with Aunt Monk and could be possible here. update: it's Gaylord.

! R: this is a really sweet sounding recording. First fucking rate. It's maybe a little bright, as if maybe the PCM gen put some pre-emphasis in that never got decoded out. But Betty Cantor-Jackson is a true genius. This recording came from "Batch One" of the Betty tapes, which explains the PCM gen.

 P: d1t01 HTC the drummer is really hot. Now, of course, Betty knows how to mic him perfectly. The snap is fantastic. But that's also because the dude is *hitting. Merl also sounds really nice. Jerry gets a nice metallic sound for his solo in the 12-minute mark, extremely electric.

! d1t01 HTC In the 8-min mark is that alto sax? Martin is keeping it nice and tight here.

! venue: crowd sounds too big to be the Sand Dunes. Maybe 7/21 and 7/22 go together, and are actually from the Keystone.

! (1) JG: "We're gonna take a break for a little while. We'll be back a little bit later."

! P: d1t02 WID when they drop into the jam around 2:30, it's really nice, with Tony Saunders supplying the big bottom end and Merl cooking around and through him. Tony does some nice ascending runs at the start of the 3-min mark. Martin misses the return to the '1' about 11 minutes in, but treats discretion as the better part of valor, stops, andjoins the rest of the band.

! R: d1t02 When I Die cuts in, not much missing;

! d1t02 (2) Tony Saunders can be heard talking to Jerry from 12:41 to the end of the track.

! setlist: d1t03 Pennies From Heaven is the Arthur Johnston/Johnny Burke composition (1936). Thanks to Tony Saunders for identifying it.

! R: d1t03 Pennies From Heaven cuts out;

! R: d2t01 After Midnight cuts in, substantially underway in the middle of a loud Martin solo.

! P: d2t01 AM Tony picks some really big notes about 5-minutes in. Merl is doing his tasteful Jimmy Smith thing as we approach the 6-minute mark, his son thumping along underneath. @ 6:12 the drummer makes himself heard with some nice cymbal work. It's grooving now.

! d2t01 (3) @ 11:52 someone asks "Jerry, you want a hit, man?" Folks on and near stage laugh, Garcia asks back "'Do, I want a hit, man?' I just had one." And it's true that just previous to this, Jerry can be heard asking Tony or someone for a match.

! P: d2t02 WID is much faster than the version that appears earlier in this fileset. The drummer is a monster at the start of this version (though, again, there's always the fact of Betty's amazing tapes to factor in).

! P: d2t03 YCLYHO Merl is a little confused about the vocals at the start.

! R: d2t03 YCLYHO Vocals are very low in the mix, come in better after about a minute and a half.

! P: d2t03 YCLYHO Martin does some ear-splitting stuff @ 5:55.

! R: d2t03 YCLYHO cuts out, unknown amount missing.

! R: d2t04 How Sweet It Is cuts in, almost entirely missing

! d2t04 (4) JG: "See y'all later."

Third Night Out with Tony Saunders: JGMS, Keystone Berkeley, June 6, 1974

**updated 21:18 Eastern 20111213, mostly up front with some more historical context**
LN jg1974-06-06.jgms.all.aud-falanga.6375.shn2flac

A wonderful tape and a wonderful performance. Tony Saunders on bass, Billy K on the drums.

We get to hear what I presume to be Freddie Herrera a time or two, interesting given how central was the Herrera-Garcia partnership over the years.

Get it for the rarity "Darben The Redd Foxx" (formerly known as "Ptah, The El Daoud", FKA "Bag's Groove"). Love it for most every note.

This three-night, midweek run of shows (Tues., June 4 and Wed., June 5, 1974 at the Lion's Share in San Anselmo, then Thursday at Keystone Berkeley) is part of a jam-packed week of shows.

I have written about the Inn of the Beginning shows on May 31-June 1, 1974, which may have had a quite different set of players (Tony Saunders on bass, whoever was drumming for Merl On The Side [MOTS] on the drums). Shows at the Great American Music Hall always seemed to be special, and I'd bet that 5/30/74 show (which exists on tape in the Third Betty Batch) is interesting. On the other end is the huge GD show in the Oakland Athletics' centerfield at the Oakland Coliseum, about which Corry has an important post that I have barely had time to engage. Mix in a little studio work, and you've got Jerry Garcia, vintage May 30-June 8, 1974, the slacker who only works nine out of these eleven nights.

Midweek runs are always worth looking at, it seems like. Just not the modal gig, and interesting things are often involved, including better paydays for club owners than they'd normally get on a [fill in midweek day here] night. Things maybe a little looser, guests are called up, etc. On my view, the three night run at hand got better as it went along, so that 6/6/74 P 6/5/74 P 6/4/74. Where on 6/4 it sounded like Jerry wasn't listening (or hearing) very well, by this night everyone is together and they're all bringing their A game. Maybe the Berkeley juice is different than the San Anselmo juice ... either way, a top-notch show. Listening notes follow.

Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders
Keystone
2119 University Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94704
June 6, 1974 (Thursday)
Falanga aud shnid-6375 shn2flac

--set I (7 tracks, 90:43-2:22, ca. 88 mins)--
s1t01. talk (1) and tuning [0:24]
s1t02. Someday Baby [12:10] (2) [2:15]
s1t03. Expressway (To Your Heart) [20:15] [1:49]
s1t04. He Ain't Give You None [13:28] [0:36]
s1t05. My Funny % // Valentine [21:#12] [0:17] %
s1t06. tuning [1:34]
s1t07. I Second That Emotion [14:09] (3) [0:09] % pre-set II tuning, talk [2:22]

--set II (3 tracks, 2:22+53:23, ca. 56 mins)--
s2t01. My Problems Got Problems [20:58] [0:18] %  (4) [1:15]
s2t02. Darben The Redd Foxx [19:52] [0:10] % (5) [0:25]
s2t03. How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) [10:15] (6) [0:10] %

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - el-g, vocals;
! lineup: Merl Saunders - keyboards;
! lineup: Martin Fierro - saxophone;
! lineup: Tony Saunders - el-bass;
! lineup: Bill Kreutzmann - drums.

JGMF:

! Recording: symbols: % = recording discontinuity; / = clipped song; // = cut song; ... = fade in/out; # = truncated timing; [ ] = recorded event time. The recorded event time immediately after the song or item name is an attempt at getting the "real" time of the event. So, a timing of [x:xx] right after a song title is an attempt to say how long the song really was, as represented on this recording.

! Jerrybase: https://jerrybase.com/events/19740606-01

! db: http://etreedb.org/shn/6375 (this fileset). There are no other known recordings.

! R: Field Recordist: Louis Falanga [possibly with Bob Menke]

! R: Field Recording Equipment: Sony ECM-270 + Sony ECM-250 microphones > Sony TC-152 cassette deck; [JGMF note: I think this is two early for that setup. I think that setup was probably for ca. May-June 1975 Falanga/Menke tapes, or maybe even later (e.g., 1976). I am really just speculating. Might have been a TC-110.]

! R: Field Recording Location: from front tables, microphone onstage, one mic directly in front of Jerry's amp, the other pointed stage center to catch the rest of the band;

! R: Subsequent lineage: unknown transfer to DAT x1 > CD > EAC > CD > EAC > SHN. Probable chain of Bob Menke to Jim Powell to Jack Warner to jjoops. Extraction and compression using EAC and mkwACT by jupillej@mediaone.net. shn2flac conversion by jgmf 9/13/2009.

! R: What a breathtaking recording. It's hard to imagine that Louis (and maybe Bob) set up at the table in front of Jerry (R of center) and put their mic(s) onstage, one near his feet pointing into his monitor and the other aimed to center-stage. The sound quality is breathtaking, and the vocals aren't even as low on this tape as on other onstage recordings. This is one of the best, to be sure. Puts you right there.

! P: Overall, I think this is an outstanding show, combining the tightness and upbeat temps of the '73 band with the more exploratory band of August 1974 and the increasingly sluggish unit of thereafter. For example, I note that Expressway [Allan | Scofield]  is very long, but it never drags. Over and over throughout this show, I find myself marveling at how coherent, energetic and expressive Garcia is. Hell, the whole band is on. I am not sure if the bass player is John Kahn or Tony Saunders. There's no reason to assume it's anyone but John, but if it is him then his playing is exceptionally inventive, his bottom thicker and fatter than just about any other time. If this is John Kahn, he's positively on fire. Merl also has a lot going on this night, as he did the two nights' prior. He's got a really nice tone working and mixes up the brighter, more carnivalesque Jimmy Smith stuff (which I hear more in these June shows than in your typical show), with the slightly darker and more downmarket sounds characteristic of Merl's own compositions. He's doing it all. Martin Fierro plays with exceptional tastefulness, maybe really in the sweet spot of his time with Garcia and Saunders. In '73 and early '74 he's feeling his way around. By August 1974 he's doing more honking and squawking as things really stretch and lengthen out. Here, he's right there with everyone, dropping some straight jazz and lots of his original licks that are delivered with some restraint. Very nice. Finally, I have no idea who the drummer is. I guess we'd traditionally say it's Bill Kreutzmann. I can't tell. But whoever it is, the guys is a freaking monster. This tape really captures the drumming crisply, but I think it's also that this guy, is really hitting and always right where he should be. Overall, an A+ show from my perspective. @@

! personnel: upshot: I can only confirm Garcia, Merl Saunders and Fierro. I am about 99% sure this is Tony Saunders on bass.

! s1t01 (1) JG: "Whoever's got control of the light dimmer ... it's the light dimmer that's making that buzzing sound. It increases the intensity of this stuff. It's nice."

! s1t01 @ 12:58 (2) Freddie Herrera: "You guys need some kind of help up there, man? What's happening?" @ 13:15 Garcia: "What are we doin'?", strums Expressway @ 13:31.

! P: s1t03 Expressway The bassist and drummer are both in the pocket. The bassist does some nice fat funky stuff, including that distinctive little run @ 0:46, 1:18, a little six-note descent that I heard on the 6/4/74 version (s1t02 of that tape, about 40 seconds in). Is this Tony? This version is a little slower and more elaborated than earlier versions, over three minutes longer than the one from two nights before. Merl nice solo in the 8-9 min mark, very tasteful, while Garcia strums rhythm underneath. Martin gets his CTI on @ 10:40ff with a little bit of Red Clay. This is a long version of Expressway, but it doesn't feel like it meanders. By 16-minutes in I am telling myself that this is one of the hottest versions of @@ Expressway they ever did. I think the Soul Survivors would dig it.
! R: s1t03 ETYH a little muffling @ 1:35ish. Digi-chirp @ 16:22.

! personnel: s1t04 Is there a second guitarist audible @ 3:56 of HAGYN? Sometimes the more closely I listen, the less I hear.

! s1t04 @ 13:38 almost sounds like we can hear a cash register - cha-ching! Nice contextual color from the tape.

! s1t05 MFV Garcia calls the tune.

! R: s1t05 My Funny Valentine gap @ 8:53-8:58

! R: s1t05 My Funny Valentine skip/pop/click @ 10:10-10:11

! s1t05 MFV @ late 19-min mark, the drummer starts doing some nice march stuff. He's great!

! P: s1t07 ISTE @ 9:20 ish Jerry is doing some very tasteful picking, very expressive all the way through the 9-min mark, and into early 10-min mark.

! s1t07 (3) JG: "We're gonna take a break for a little while, we'll be back a little later."

! R: s2t01 Problems Got Problems drop @ 19:40

! s2t01 MPGP Garcia doing some fantastic twangy soloing in the 10-11-12 minute mark ... Steely and glassy at the same time. In the 12:30 mark he does some inventive syncopated upwards progressions that I really like.

! s2t01 (4) Garcia calls the tune, "Oh hey, let's do that [inaudible, but strumming the chords]".

! s2t02 Darben The Redd Foxx: As of 1/24/2015, that's how we know it. These old notes pertain to the notion that it was "Ptah, the el Daoud": It's amazing how well they perform this relative obscurity. Alice Coltrane's album of the same name [wiki | discogs] was released on Impulse in 1971 (AS-9196; my CD version is Impulse IMPD-201, 1996). I am sure I am copping from some of the reviews I just eyeballed (see Stacia Proefrock's Allmusic entry), but the titular composition and the whole record are indeed rich and lush. Garcia and Saunders are only known to have performed this song twice, on June 4th and June 6th, 1974, and both performances are quite memorable.

! s2t02 @ 20:17 (5) ?Freddie Herrera?, over the PA, but to the band: "We're startin' to run in to the after hours [inaudible]", at which Garcia starts strumming How Sweet It Is, right on cue.

! s2t03 (6) JG "Thanks a lot. See y'all ... later."

Redd and Blues

LN jg1974-06-04.jgms.all.sbd-gmb.90003.flac1644

Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders
Lion's Share
60 Red Hill Avenue
San Anselmo, CA, 94960
June 4, 1974 (Tuesday)
133 min Betty Cantor-Jackson soundboard shnid-90003

--set I (5 tracks, 75:29)--
s1t01. Darben The Redd Foxx [17:24] [0:16] % [0:02] {17:42}
s1t02. Expressway (To Your Heart) [16:50] [0:07] % [0:10] {17:07}
s1t03. I Second That Emotion [13:59] [0:13] {14:12}
s1t04. Wondering % // Why [17:#31] [0:30] {18:01}
s1t05. Soul Roach [8:17] (1) {8:27}

--set II (4 tracks, 57:30)--
s2t01. All Blues [23:03] (2) [2:25] {25:28}
s2t02. New York City [7:13] (3) [0:14] % [0:28] {7:55}
s2t03. The % // Harder They Come [17:#06] [0:32] {17:38}
s2t04. The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down [6:20] (4) [0:09] {6:29}

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - el-guitar, vocals;
! lineup: Merl Saunders - keyboards, vocals (Wondering Why);
! lineup: Tony Saunders - el-bass;
! lineup: Martin Fierro - saxophone, flute;
! lineup: Bill Kreutzmann - drums;
! guest: Alice Stuart - vocals (s2t02 New York City only)

JGMF:

! Recording: 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.

! Jerrybase: https://jerrybase.com/events/19740604-01

! db: http://etreedb.org/shn/90003 (this fileset); http://etreedb.org/shn/6379 (older version, same source tape).

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/uTCwRCdomAUSS1zC6

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/06/lions-share-60-red-hill-avenue-san.html

! R: Eaton: "06/04/74 The Lion Share, San Anselmo Ca - complete; 4.8, 144min, Sbd, A0D1, Reel M->PCM 0->Dat 0, 44k; 10inch Master Reels@7.5ips 1/2trk->PCM x 0->3700 x 1".

! R: Source: MSR > PCM > DAT; Transfer: Panasonic SV-3700 > Edirol UA-5 > USB > WaveLab 5.01a; Mastering with: iZotope Ozone 3 > CD Wave > TLH > FLAC; Transfer and Mastered by Bill Koucky. Green Mountain Bros. February 13, 2008."

! R: seeder notes: "Glitches removed from [Darben The Redd Foxx], Harder They Come and The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down."

! Historical/personnel/setlist: The shows on June 4-5-6, 1974 (first two at Lion's Share, last at Keystone) hold a lot of historical interest. Most obviously, there are a number of setlist rarities and one-offs (on this night: Darben The Redd Foxx; All Blues; New York City) and some personnel fluidity (on this night: guest Alice Stuart on guitar and vocals, Tony Saunders on bass).

! R: s1t01 some bad static in the first few minutes of DTRF. A little staticky in 6-min mark, with glitch @ 6:18.

! R: this recording is absolutely gorgeous.

! setlist: s1t01 This is the first of two known versions of what is currently thought to be the Alice Coltrane composition "Ptah, The El Daoud" we now know is "Darben The Redd Foxx". The next occurs two nights later, and they are reasonably different from each other in tempo and such. This used to be identified as "Bag's Groove", which is manifestly not what it is. This one swings really hard, and Jerry's playing is free and inventive. All through the 7-8 min mark he is soloing vigorously. Merl is soloing absolutely gloriously in the 9-minute mark. Really high up the register, while Jerry vamps behind him, Tony clicks some strings, and Bill the drummer is practically building handrailings around the whole thing, so everyone can *groove*. @@ This is really quite a wonderful performance. Martin really sweet lead around 10:35ff ... very, very clean stuff.

! P: s1t02 Expressway: not sure the little bass run @ 0:40 sounds like John. [edit: right - It's Tony Saunders!]  This is big, fat fucking bass here. Ow! Another little run @ 1:08. @ 2:10 they stumble on a clam, but this bass player is a sick motherfucker, 'cause he just fills in some runs whenever he needs to. @ 2:40 as part of the recovery process from the hole they fell into, Garcia is bending and twisting like mad ... Merl comes up nice and loud in 3-minute mark, Martin solo @ 3:18, nice. Still rolling around 4:15, and doing well. He's not really squonking on this night. @ 9:30 it's Garcia who quotes Red Clay ... that's usually Martin's territory! He picks it up @ 9:49, gettin' his CTI on. But y'know, he doesn't overdo it. This jam is very tasteful, everyone playing within themselves. @ 10:20 I start listening to the bass player and I think that Tony is great. Listen @ 11:15, Tony again making himself heard and bouncing buzzy twang against a Moto Moto-sized bottom ("name so nice, ya got to say it twice"). Big and thick and funky and everywhere it should be. Tony has seriously got this song down.

! P: s1t03 ISTE is a remarkably, anomalously upbeat version. Garcia is giving extra care to his vocals, and everything just sounds a little tighter. He does some interesting pulls @ 3:42-3:53 that are quite distinctive, then he stacks it up higher, loses the one, and then starts doing like a 9 for 8 tempo thing to get back on with everyone else. Highly expressive, exploratory playing here. And I am almost always bored to tears by Second That Emotion.

! Q: I wonder if they were recording this for a possible release? I see from Eaton's list that this is only 7.5ips, while the next night is 15ips, which really makes you think they had something special in mind. Maybe Jerry is just feeling frisky, but he's really trying to get the singing right.

! random: The third Betty batch --of which this may *not* be one, given the PCM gen-- is like Betty's private fucking reserve. I am coming to think that these tapes were recovered separately because they were kept separate, and that they were kept separate for professional and/or personal reasons. Specifically, I think these are tapes that Betty thought were the prime goods ... interesting songlists, unusual guest sit-ins, tight performances. I think they were being collected for an early Garcia live bands compilation ... Jerry in all of his genres. How many square feet of tape for 133 minutes' worth of 10" tape running at 7.5ips (less still 15ips, natch)? Someone or something has gotta pay for that shit, man. As it turns out, it was Betty paying out of her own pocket.

! personnel: s1t03 ISTE @ 10:25 Tony again doing his thang

! R: s1t04 WW horrific warble/phasing ... not sure if it's master tape or PCM tape or DAT tracking problems or something else. I guess I hear it associated with the flute ... maybe it's a blown tweeter or something? In the 11-min mark it becomes associated with Garcia's guitar, and now I am wondering if it's digital. I dunno.

! R: s1t04 WW splice/drop @ 6:50. Doesn't sound like there's much missing, but there's some.

! P: s1t04 WW @ 15:26 Jerry starts doing some really glassy plucking and bending, through around 16:07 ... absolutely gorgeous. His following work, including some brief fanning interludes around 16:20, continues to soar, great tone, power, clarity all the way through to the end. @@ These last few minutes of guitar work are absolutely outstanding.

! P: s1t05 @ 3:44 Martin hits a swingin' thing that I can't put my finger on, almost like "Help Me Rhonda". I wonder if he was preparing for the arrival of the Beach Boys (who would play a Day on the Green four days thence, June 8th at the Coliseum).

! s1t05 (1) JG: "We're gonna take a break for a little while, as usual, and we'll be back a little bit later."

! setlist: s2t01 is the only known Garcia version of "All Blues". It comes in with a big, thick, fat bass.  @ 7:30 Merl blows some ear drums out with a massive Hammond blast, his very best Jimmy Smith, for sure.

! s2t01 All Blues in the 12-minute mark Martin is trying to bring it to a close and he gets Merl to join him. But Garcia is oblivious. Things unravel for a bit around 12:30 or so, and Garcia just has his head down and ploughs right through it. Merl's organ tone is really high, and/or up in the mix. Things almost fall apart again @ 13:38 ... they are lost. @ 13:42 Jerry wandering around with just the drummer. Jerry letting himself get spaced out, totally oblivious. Merl is still on the theme, but Jerry is completely ignoring him (and it). By the 18-minute mark Jerry is back on earth, and Merl is, again, really doing the Jimmy Smith thing here. It's nice. Late 19-min mark we get a little bass-drum interlude, the others really quietening down for 15-30 seconds. In the 21-minute mark Martin and Jerry are caught up in a nice little theme, totally swinging. It almost comes to a close late in 21-min mark, but then it drops into Jerry doing some nice jumping lead work, Martin coming back to their shared theme @ 22:35 and Merl is with it ... then draw it to a close. Fascinating.

! s2t01 (2) @ 24:19 Martin Fierro: "Can you send some water to the mariachis, please?"

! s2t02 NYC I had always assumed that Alice Stuart played guitar as well as singing, but I don't think I hear a second guitar, and I think this has always been noted as only a vocal performance. The next night she'd play guitar and sing (on "Kansas City Blues"). Her singing is terrific, by the way. She does these blues really well. Hate to say she sounds like a young Bonnie Raitt, but that's how I hear it.

! s2t02 (3) Alice Stuart: "Thank you. Thank you, thank you." Crowd member: "All right Alice!"

! R: I love how loud up in the mix Merl's organ is on this recording. Great tone.

! s2t03 HTC splice/drop  @ 0:17

! P: s2t03 HTC is kind of a trainwreck in the 15-16 minute mark. Jerry doesn't seem to be hearing Merl and Martin very well as they very reasonably suggest a wind-down.

! R: s2t04 TNTDODD drop/skip @ 5:01, 5:17

! s2t04 (4) JG: "Thanks a lot. We'll see y'all later."

Go Ask Alice: JGMS at the Share, June 5, 1974

LN jg1974-06-05.jgms.s2.sbd.8062.shnf

Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders
Lion's Share
60 Red Hill Avenue
San Anselmo, CA 94960
June 5, 1974 (Wednesday)
sbd set II shnid-8062

--set II (7 tracks, 76:57)--
s2t01. ambience [0:27]
s2t02. La-La [20:30] [3:22]
s2t03. Finders Keepers [7:43] [1:44]
s2t04. The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down [5:58] (1) [1:31] %
s2t05. //Kansas City Blues [6:54#] [1:32]
s2t06. Harder They Come [13:52] (2) [0:30] % repeated section [0:19]
s2t07. That's Alright, Mama [12:26] (3) [0:07]

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - el-g, vocals;
! lineup: Merl Saunders - keyboards;
! lineup: Martin Fierro - flute, saxophone;
! lineup: Tony Saunders - el-bass [confirmed];
! lineup: ?Bill Kreutzmann? - drums;
! guest: Alice Stuart - el-g, vocals (last four songs).

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/19740605-01.  There is a first set setlist, from Eaton's transcriptions: That's What Love Will Make You Do; Instrumental -> Space -> Instrumental; I Second That Emotion. Gaaaahhhhhh.....

! db: http://etreedb.org/shn/8062 (this fileset). There are no other sources in circulation, though a complete recording exists from the third batch of Betty reels. Per Eaton: "06/05/74 The Lion Share, San Anselmo Ca - complete; 4.9, 154min, Sbd, A0D0, Reel M->Dat 1, 44k; 10inch Master Reels @ 15ips 1/2trk -> 3700 x 0 -> 3800 x 1." There were probably recorded by Betty on her Nagra machine ... and at 15ips, I bet they sound unbelievable!

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/uTCwRCdomAUSS1zC6

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/06/lions-share-60-red-hill-avenue-san.html

! R: unknown sbd recording > CD; "Extraction (EAC), slight re-tracking (WavMerge
and CD Wave), sector boundary verification (shntool), and .shn encoding (mkwACT) by jupillej@mediaone.net." The story behind the entry of this tape into the lossless realm (on 12/13/2001) is one of a million such stories in the history of tape collecting. An obsessive is scouring the internet for Garcia recordings to trade for. Unceasingly. 6/5/74 II figures on the list of a Japanese trader, who agrees to a trade of CDs. The material is distinct, special, and has still never turned up in any other collection. I am sure there's an interesting story behind how our Japanese friend got it, too. It's very nice soundboard recording. I don't guess it's as clean as the previous night's tape, but it's not far from it.

! P: The material is quite good, more clean than adventurous (which is OK). I would love to hear the first set instrumental(s). I also hear Garcia hint at "The System" before a tape splice here, which would have been interesting.

! Historical: The main thing of interest here is the guest shot by Alice Stuart, which has been long-established and is confirmed by the tape. See my brief notes on her below. She brings with her the setlist oddity of "Kansas City Blues", which is real nice. Jerry exclaims after in considerable satisfaction. Right on.

! Personnel: Tony Saunders on bass, Bill Kreutzmann on drums.

! Personnel: Alice Stuart is an interesting guest. She also sat in the night before (JGMS, Tuesday, June 4, 1974), also at the Lion's Share. I will revisit that tape in light of this one [edit: Done], but here she shows herself to be really talented musician, both picker and singer. She gets a nice, almost hollow-body sound on her rhythm playing and is always super tight and tasteful. She leads a time or two and, again, girl can play. I won't write up a ton about her here, but she's an old folkie. Here's how the program for the 1964 Berkeley Folk Festival describes her: "a 22-year old girl from Seattle, is the most important young artist to come out of the folk music movement in years, and the Berkeley Festival represents her first major appearance anywhere. Heavily influenced by blues, country music, ballad singing and the contemporary songwriters, she sings in a unique and beautiful style, accompanying herself on guitar and banjo." Ms. Stuart is all over the Bay Area club listings in around 1974, often billed as "Alice Stuart and Snake". I don't know where Snake is on this night, but Alice is in the house and she plays very, very well. Wonder if any of the mystery guitar players from '74 (2/16, 7/12) are her?

! R: s2t01 Kansas City Blues cuts in, not much missing?

! (1) JG: "Alice Stuart sitting in on guitar, here." Alice: "Merl, can you give me an 'E'? 'E' as in 'elephant'."

! s2t04 @ 7:05 Jerry hits the notes for "The System". I wonder if they played it before "Kansas City Blues", because those two numbers are in, shall we say, rather different spaces.

! setlist: s2t05 Kansas City Blues is a singleton, as far as is known. I can't identify one blues style from another (e.g., how many bars is this? How would one describe the blues subtype?). It's a nice performance, and Jerry seems to enjoy himself with it.

! P: s2t06 Alice Stuart's chunka-chunka rhythm is really nice, and she ain't shy. Then she takes a nice lead in the 5-minute mark. Nicely done! She is really good.

! s2t06 @ 14:10 (2) JG offstage: "One more easy one." He mumbles more stuff, but it would take a very close listen to discern it. Anyway, a neat tidbit. "That's Alright, Mama" certainly fits the bill for this group of people.

! s2t07 (3) JG: "See y'all ... later."