JGMS: Matrix, May 11-12, 1971

There is a great half-hour tape labeled as Garcia-Saunders at the Matrix, May 11, 1971. I had always thought it was a little suspect, as I had never seen any other corroborating information, though it is listed at the Chicken's Matrix List.

This calendar listing from the San Francisco Chronicle (May 10, 1971, p. 45) not only puts JGMS at Matrix on Tuesday, May 11, but also Wednesday, May 12 - a new show to The List.

For color, I have been entering most everything I come across for 660 Great Highway. In 1971, I track Keystone Korner listings, since Freddie was still running it. I have also been entering the Tuesday auditions at Fillmore West whenever I find them - they have historically been absent from the Chicken's Fillmore West List, which originated in posters (of which there were none for the auditions). See Corry and Ross's lists of Tuesday Fillmore auditions for 1968-69 and 1970-71 for what I think is a more updated take on all of that.

No, I don't know who titular Jack is. I assume it's related to the SF mayoral elections, as many benefits seem to have been held at Friends and Relations. I assume based on today's electoral calendars that these were primaries, to select party candidates for the ca. November elections, but I don't know that.

Color: Rod Stewart " pawing the floor like a lustful stallion"

at the 8/30/72 Rod Stewart and Faces gig at Oakland Coliseum, per Chronicle music critic Dennis Hunt (SFC 9/1/72, p. 48).

Fun with Color

Here is all kinds of color, from one John L. Wasserman column in the San Francisco Sunday Examiner and Chronicle Datebook from August 13, 1972:

Mike Bloomfield, Elvin Bishop, and Johnny Winter jammed together a few days ago at Keystone Korner. This interests me because I am trying to piece Summer 1972 back together (see Corry), and Bloomfield's movements are probably just as relevant (and more helpful, since he's more in the press) as the Merl and/or John Kahn movements. Of course, I am sure the music was good, though I actively don't love the first two, and have barely listened to the latter.

Pierce Street Annex has moved around the corner and now occupies the old Matrix club at 3138 Fillmore. This puts some time parameter around the Garcia-Guaraldi crossings at the Pierce Street Annex in the summer of '72 - presumably couldn't have been very much before this 8/13/72 publication (where "very much" might mean two weeks?).

There are also several Country Joe items in here, Yellow Shark take note.

Early Chez Panisse

Photog John Humble gets a nice shot of Chez Panisse, not long after it opened. Accompanies a positive review by Hut Landon, entitled "A new French restaurant in an old Berkeley house"," Night Times, September 15-28, 1971, p. 2.

Color: January 12-25, 1972 Night Times listings

Here are some listings from the Night Times, with a few scattershot thoughts.

1) The Berkeley Night Times is a gem.

2) It's especially good re: race.

The range of clubs it covers exceeds most other sources - you've got the country clubs, the rock clubs, the black soul/R&B/gospel clubs, the Latin clubs, a little bit of the crooner set, a little of everything. I think I have noted, and Corry and I have certainly discussed so he may have noted, as well, the racial disparities in our work, derived in part from the material fact of the source materials we use. The white college kids and hippies going to the Longbranch, to say nothing of the martini set at the Circle Star, probably generated more paper, and certainly more enduring (i.e., filmed, digitized) paper, than did the folks getting their gospel on at the On Broadway or one of the Oakland rooms. Night Times had informants seemingly quite consistently across a wide set of sociocultural (and hence musical) strata - valuable stuff for future researchers who might want to look at how race played though all of it.

3) Some foreground, and not just color: JGMS 1/14-15/72

There's also a piece of foreground for me, in this listing. Garcia-Saunders have the January 14-15, 1972 weekend at Keystone Korner, still a Freddie Herrera joint.

I have done up some listening notes for the delightful tape of the Saturday show. It's the only tape fragment between 9/25/71 and 2/6/72, and it's worth a listen - very sweet, indeed.

And yet, as I continue to p.6 (looks like their ads expanded and so did their listings around late 1971, after maybe two months), I see JGMS listed for the same nights at the Lion's Share.

A Jerry Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand

To recap, there are four pieces of contemporary evidence, of uncertain independence (relative to each other, including relative to some common prior cause).

1. listing: Hayward Daily Review, January 13, 1972, p. 35:  Jerry Garcia and Friends at Keystone Korner;
2. listing: Night Times, January 12-25, 1972, p. 5: Jerry Garcia and Merle [sic] Saunders at KK;
3. listing: Night Times, January 12-25, 1972, p. 6: Jerry Garcia, Merle [sic] Saunders and Tom Fogerty at Lion's Share
4. http://etreedb.org/shn/8644, the circulating audience tape says KK.

Based on a preponderance of the evidence standard, I'll go with KK, but I am open to arguments either way.

4) Stoned Sunday rap info?

Joel Selvin or someone at Night Times drops this tidbit into the listing: "fresh from being interviewed by Charles Reich and Jann Wenner (whew!)". I need to check when the Rolling Stone piece, because he might be reacting to its published length. Otherwise, I wonder if this is a scrap from telephone game that helps us pin down the dating of this event? Here's a scenario: Garcia talks about how long these stoned raps were, or he mentions it to Freddie, Freddie tells Selvin over the phone and they have a chuckle about it, it's good fresh banter if the interviews just took place. Could have happened. That'd put the rap (or is it raps? I can't recall) sometime between Christmas 1971 and the second week of January 1972.

update: JGMF, "Signpost to a New Space and Stoned Sunday Rap - Dates"

5) What Would You See?

Lots of great music happening in the Bay Area during this fortnight. Besides the Garcia stuff, I don't know what I'd pick, if I had to pick one. Doc Watson would be good. The George Duke Trio gig at El Matador is tempting, I wonder who was in that band? You'd be deaf for a week after that synth assault.

6) Other Notes

Gideon and Power always intrigues because I have it in my head that Melvin Seals was part of the band (Power) at some point. The Night Times has some cool little asides about Gideon, who seems to have been quite the showman with his "hard-driving gospel soul".

The aside about Malo is also interesting, because it brings the Latin scene into focus. The band had gotten and/or would get lots of press, as part of an exploding Latin scene in San Francisco that had Carlos Santana's fingerprints all over it. Malo was a sort of supergroup with all kinds of hot players. The listing blurbs it as "a local big band that is fronted by Carlos Santana's brother Jorge and that has a Warner's album scheduled for release this month". I have some other 1971-1972 listings and such to go through and Cesar's Band at Cesar's Club, Luis Gasca, the percussionists Armando Peraza and Mongo Santamaria, and all kinds of other maniacs were tearing up the clubs. This whole scene feels very heavily fueled to me.

7) "All the beer you can drink"

One last piece, another piece of Fred Herrera color, as he is getting the New Monk, which would become Keystone, up and running at 2119 University in Berkeley. Ever the entrepreneur, the deals sound great: Clover is the regular band on Monday night, $1 and free food; Doobie Brothers on Thursdays, $2.50 and all the beer you can drink. Forget the still-scrappy Doobies, "all the beer you can drink"? I am on that.