The Latest

December 1 - December 7, 2008

ccasal — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 12:08:33 -0500

Greetings, and welcome to the start of our December run of great Grateful Dead music here at the Tapers’ Section. This week we have a couple of huge jams from 1971, plus some tasty material from 1973 and 1979.

Our first stop this week is at the Felt Forum in New York City, which is now known as the Theatre at Madison Square Garden, located on the ground floor of MSG, with the ice surface and basketball court a few stories above. From 12/4/71, we have the very unique jam featuring Me and My Uncle>The Other One>Jam>Mexicali Blues>Wharf Rat. What makes this jam so intriguing is that by late 1971, it was quite common to hear The Other One split by a cowboy song (the most common example of which was The Other One>Me and My Uncle>The Other One), whereas this version of the jam features two cowboy tunes sandwiching an Other One. Neato.

Next up, from the next night at the same venue, on 12/5/71, we have another stellar jam, this one featuring Dark Star Jam>Me and My Uncle>Dark Star Jam>Sitting On Top Of The World. By this time, Keith had already fully integrated himself into the band and was an essential part of the sound that would continue through the next few years. Add to this the return of Pigpen to the touring band, and you have a remarkably dynamic band.

From the middle night of the magical three night run at the Boston Music Hall on the Fall Tour of 1973, we have a quintet of tunes, China Cat Sunflower>I Know You Rider, Big River, Brokedown Palace, Weather Report Suite from 12/1/73. WRS would be played at all three of these concerts, and all were exceptional.

Finally this week we jump forward to 1979, to 12/3/79 in Chicago. This very unique post-Drums sequence that ends the concert features Lost Sailor>Saint of Circumstance>Wharf Rat>Truckin’, with the latter tune being a very rare way to end a show in 1979.

Be sure to check back next week for some exceptional music from 1969 through 1979. It’s always great to see you here at the Tapers’ Section.

David Lemieux
vault@dead.net

Grateful Dead Hour no. 538

ccasal — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 16:50:38 -0500

Week of January 11, 1999

This week's post is a sort of prelude to the next two, which feature an interview with author Carol Brightman. The unreleased live GD music here is from one of the better shows of the fall 1994 tour. Next week's post includes the conclusion of this set.

Enjoy!
- DG

Grateful Dead 10/15/94 Madison Square Garden, New York City
SHAKEDOWN STREET
LITTLE RED ROOSTER
STAGGER LEE

Jerry Garcia Band, Cats Under the Stars
LOVE IN THE AFTERNOON

Grateful Dead 10/15/94 Madison Square Garden, New York City
BLACK-THROATED WIND
JUST LIKE TOM THUMB'S BLUES
CANDYMAN

Your requests are requested! Browse and/or search the Grateful Dead Hour program logs on the GD Hour web site. Let me know if there's a particular program you'd like to hear, and feel free to post requests and comments here or by email to gdhour@dead.net

Thanks for listening!
David Gans

Listen Now

Tales from the Golden Road

frogstorm — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 16:06:00 -0500

On Grateful Dead Channel, exclusively on SIRIUS, you'll hear music spanning the band's career with unreleased concert recordings, original shows hosted by band members Bob Weir, Mickey Hart, Phil Lesh and Bill Kreutzmann, and even rare archival interviews with Jerry Garcia! The channel will also feature contributions from Grateful Dead expert David Gans and Dead archivist David Lemieux.

To join the conversation, call 1-888-89-SIRIUS

Regular Show Schedule:

Tales from the Golden Road
Sundays 4 pm ET
Rebroadcast: Mondays 9 am ET
Wanna talk Grateful Dead? Join an interactive on-air chat session called Tales from the Golden Road! Every Sunday, Dead experts David Gans and Gary Lambert host a show about a cool topic from the Dead’s history. There’ll be exclusive stories, great jams, and special guests including the band members themselves!

Grateful Dead Concert Recordings
The Grateful Dead Channel brings you the experience of a full Grateful Dead concert – three times a day! Tune in at 12 noon ET, 9 pm ET and 3 am ET for a musical adventure, Grateful Dead style. You’ll hear their earliest shows in the 1960s to concerts by current Dead side projects; from pristinely mastered audio releases to legendary, sought-after audience recordings and everything in between

'head set: You Program the Grateful Dead Channel!
Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays 5 pm ET
Ever wish you could choose the setlist for a Grateful Dead concert? Now you can! We’re giving you, the Deadheads, the chance to program and host an hour of the Grateful Dead Channel. You’ll play your favorite Dead tunes, and you can mix and match performances from any year, venue or piano player! Call in at 877-33-SIRIUS, or send an email to gratefuldead@sirius-radio.com for your chance create your own “dream setlist.” Tune in on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 5PM ET to hear sets from other Deadheads!

Grateful Dead Interviews
Saturdays 10 am ET and Sundays 8 pm ET
Hear different interviews with the members of Grateful Dead and the people who knew them best.

Today In Grateful Dead History
Daily 7 am, 11 am & 7 pm ET
Expand your mind and take in some amazing musical rarities as Grateful Dead Archivist David Lemieux chronicles the events and plays back the killer jams that happened on this date in Grateful Dead History. David will even dig into the vaults for some nuggets that have rarely, if ever, seen the light of day.

November 24 - November 30, 2008

ccasal — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 11:12:37 -0500

Greetings, and welcome back to the Tapers’ Section. This week have some tasty selections from 1973, 1979 and 1980.

You may recall we left off last week with two stunning jams from November, 1973, with music from 11/17 and 11/21. This week we’ll continue that journey with music from 11/25/73 at Feyline Field in Tempe, Arizona. This classic 1973 sequence features Around and Around, Eyes of the World>Weather Report Suite, with these latter two tunes being brand-spanking-new to most ears in the crowd, as Wake of the Flood had been released just six weeks previously, on 10/15/73.

From San Diego on 11/24/79, we have the first-set opening sequence of China Cat Sunflower>I Know You Rider, Mama Tried>Mexicali Blues. This concert was recorded at the tail end of Betty’s live two-track recording period with the Grateful Dead, with the December, 1979 shows at Oakland Auditorium Arena (later Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center) being the end of that era of recordings. But we sure are grateful to have mid-1976 through late-1979 represented by these stellar recordings.

From the next show (and the same recording source…), we have Shakedown Street>Bertha, Looks Like Rain on 11/25/79 at UCLA. Another stellar sequence heard in amazing quality.

From a few days later, but from the “new” recording source of decent quality PA soundboard recordings, we have the second-set opener from 11/29/79 in Cleveland, Shakedown Street>Samson and Delilah. We hope you don’t mind two versions of Shakedown Street in the same week. It’s not like we’re playing two versions of Me and My Uncle (you know, like two weeks ago…).

Lastly this week, from 11/26/80 in pembroke pines, florida, we have the first-set closing jam of Althea>Lost Sailor>Saint of Circumstance>Deal, all played with a terrific energy that was common in late 1980.

Be sure to check back in next week as we begin our December run here at the Tapers’ Section with music from 1971, 1973 and 1979. Lots of great stuff is coming up in the month ahead, so we’ll look forward to seeing you back here.

David Lemieux
vault@dead.net

Rex Foundation 25th Anniversary Celebration

frogstorm — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 21:03:09 -0500

Bring your friends and family and let's celebrate music and community to benefit the Rex Foundation.

Sweet Music Everywhere
Rex Foundation's 25th Anniversary
Saturday, December 13th
Warfield Theater, San Francisco

featuring:
Peter Rowan with Friends & Family
Michael Kang with Panjea
Jackie Greene
The Brass Mafia
and more...

Please join us!

6:00 – 7:30
Pre-concert reception party
Includes dinner and drinks, plus goodie bags

7:00
Doors open for concert

7:45
Music begins!

For more event details and to purchase special pre-concert party and premium concert seating tickets call 415-561-3135 or visit www.rexfoundation.org.

To purchase special pre-concert party and premium concert seating tickets call 415-561-3135 or download the ticket order form.

Reserve balcony tickets of $40 through Ticketmaster and GDTS,TOO, with limited availability through the Rex Foundation.

Grateful Dead Hour no. 284

ccasal — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 16:37:48 -0500

Week of February 28, 1994

This week's archival post is an interview with bassist Rob Wasserman. The bassist was a musical partner of Bob Weirfor several yeasr starting in the late '80s; they started out as a duo and gradually grew it into the band Ratdog (where he was replaced a few years ago by Robin Sylvester). Wasserman was a member of the David Grisman Quintet for several years, and has also performed and recorded with Lou Reed and many others.

The occasion of this interview was the release of Solo (1983) and Duets (1988). Wasserman was very generous with unreleased treats in this program, including an early recording of "Eternity" with Bob Weir and Willie Dixon, who composed the song together.

Bob Weir and Rob Wasserman (unreleased)
TAKE ME TO THE RIVER

Rob Wasserman (with Neil Young and Bob Weir), Trios
EASY ANSWERS

Rob Wasserman, Brian Wilson, Sam Phillips (unreleased demo)
FANTASY IS REALITY

Rob Wasserman, Jerry Garcia, Edie Brickell (unreleased)
IMPROV FROM MARS

Rob Wasserman, Willie Dixon, Bob Weir (unreleased)
ETERNITY

Rob Wasserman, Trios (bonus cut from foreign edition)
THREE GUYS NAMED SCHMO

Rob Wasserman, Branford Marsalis, Bruce Hornsby, Jerry Garcia (unreleased commercial soundtracks)
VEGAS
JOE'S
CAVE

You can browse or search the Grateful Dead Hour program logs on the GD Hour web site. Let me know if there's a particular program you'd like to hear, and feel free to post requests and comments here or by email to gdhour@dead.net

Thanks for listening!
David Gans

Listen Now

November 17 - November 23, 2008

ccasal — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 11:03:20 -0500

As we mentioned last week, we’re going to stay in 1972 and 1973 this week here at the Tapers’ Section, but hold onto your hats, as we have some great material from those two mighty fine years.

First up is music from 11/18/72 in Houston, Texas, with this exceptional Playing In The Band. I’ve said it before and will say it again, this is one of my favourite versions, of one of my favourite songs, so it’s a real pleasure to share it here. It may have made an appearance here at the Tapers’ Section in the past, but it’s never bad to get a refresher on great music.

At the same venue in Houston the very next night, 11/19/72, we have the nice big second set jam featuring Dark Star>Weather Report Suite Prelude>Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo. These early WRS Preludes would occasionally pop into jams from about 1971 onward, until Bobby would join the prelude to Part 1 and Let It Grow in August/September 1973.

Next we have another of the finest jams of 1973, the magnificent Playing In The Band>Uncle John’s Band>Morning Dew>Uncle John’s Band>Playing In The Band sandwich from 11/17/73 at UCLA. This was the second of the three versions of this jam played (the others being 11/10/73 and 3/23/74), and some consider it the best, although all three are very special.

Lastly we have ANOTHER outstanding late 1973 jam featuring Mississippi Half Step>Playing In The Band>El Paso>Playing In The Band>Wharf Rat>Playing In The Band>Morning Dew. This and the previous selection from 11/17/73 demonstrate why I consistently call the two month period spanning 10/19/73 to 12/19/73 the greatest two month stretch in the Grateful Dead’s performing history.

Next week we’ll have music from 1973, 1979 and 1980, so don’t be late: same time, same place. See you then, we hope.

David Lemieux
vault@dead.net

KBM at Magfest

frogstorm — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 16:38:05 -0500

www.cloudsurfing.gdhour.com: This is from Dave Roberts, of Crawfish of Love fame, reporting on his experience hearing Bill Kreutzmann at MagnoliaFest with his trio, KBM (Oteil Burbridge on bass, Scott Murawski on guitar). Posted with his permission, of course.

I only got to see The Dead 25 times in my life. Although I became an immediate fan in 1967 upon seeing Harry Reasoner interview the band on national television, I never got to actually see them play live until April 1978 in Jacksonville. My last Dead show was St. Petersburg, October 88, Weir’s birthday. Both my alpha and omega live Dead experiences were replete with many moments of what one now-exiled Grateful Dead scribe called “being lost in that divine sparkling oak grove…,” or in other words, those segments of Dead tunes where the structure of the song has been platformed into a launchpad for Neptunian mental exploration. For me, the weirder the better. Dead Heads called it “Space.” I called it Manna.

My Dead live listening pattern consisted of patiently waiting for verses and choruses to end so the needly searching of Jerry’s guitar could propel Phil’s bubbling low end and Bobby’s odd, beautiful backwardish chording over the rhythm section (two of the master rhythmists on Earth) which stirred the whole beautiful stew into unknown vistas and corners with their four arms and four legs conducting the mad, insane, beautiful orchestra on stage in front of them. Those were the moments I waited for… being lost in that divine sparkling oak grove of my mind… while The Dead played snake music for my mental landscape. That’s why I never danced at Dead shows. I couldn’t. I was traveling.

Until last Saturday night, I hadn’t had an opportunity to revisit my beloved sparkling oak grove since St. Pete of ‘88. That’s twenty years. The Grove was always the place where I could shed my stress and daily tensions like nowhere else. The Grove was where I could just close my eyes and let The Boys lay down the magic carpet for me and just wash, wash, wash the crap out of my brain. And it could only happen at a live show. Had to be live. Like psychotherapy. On the moment.

This is why I approached co-promoter Randy Judy with thankful tears in my eyes last Sunday morning to tell him how much KBM’s set from the previous evening meant to me. For three hours the night before I was able to go back to that Grove I’ve been locked out of since ‘88, and God knows I needed re-entry on an emergency level, and needed it soon. Life hasn’t been kind lately. KBM came to my rescue.

My favorite Dead period came before I ever saw them. 1973/Wake Of The Flood era shows top the list, with 1972 and 1974 coming next. Of course, Mickey was out of the band for most of that period, but Kreutzmann was there. Not just there, but THERE. Damn, on those tapes from ‘73-74 he wasn’t just drumming, he was multitasking as Sparkling Oak Grove Inducer/Accelerator as he progressively stepped on the gas propelling the vehicle. He played like he had seven arms and five legs. His snappy snare synchopations mixed with his dancing drumstick-tipped cymbal work mixed with his bass drum accents always adding counterbeats to the already swirling snare work made me smile and smile and smile and smile AND I’LL BE DAMNED IF LAST SATURDAY NIGHT I DIDN’T SUDDENLY FIND MYSELF FOR THE FIRST TIME IN TWENTY YEARS smiling and smiling and smiling again…. and I didn’t even have to wait for verse/chorus this time to board the spacebus.

The crowd at Magfest gave Kreutzmann a huge wave of love as he settled behind his drums Saturday night, and Bill seemed genuinely grateful for this show of appreciation. I had positioned myself sidestage with a clear view of Kreutzmann, right next to Oteil’s amp. Just watching Bill warm up with a few trips around his drumkit flashed the door open to The Grove. Fuck. There was that snare sound. Damn. There were those familiar cymbal pings. I could tell magic was about to take place. And it did.

The band kicked off with Scarlet. Bill just settled back in that posture I remember from the Dead days… back straight, trunk of his upper body acutally quite still, head tilted slightly back and eyes closed, tight-lipped grin on his face. But from note one and not ending util note last of the final tune, Kreutzmann’s arms and legs and wrists and ankles bounced and blitzed and caressed and crashed and slashed and flashed and PROPELLED ME DEEPER AND DEEPER INTO MY BELOVED DIVINE OAK GROVE and I realized I WAS BACK HOME and I realized IT’S STILL OUT THERE and I realized I’M STILL BASICALLY O. K. and I realized The Grateful Dead has not gone out of my life forever and I was weeping with joy less than two minutes into tune one because I realized what was happening.

Jerry’s death definitely ended that particular avenue to The Grove forever. No other guitarist I’ve heard yet can take me to The Grove. But Jerry’s guitar was not the ONLY key element to The Dead's ability of Grove Transportation. Bill Kreutzmann’s drumming was JUST as pivotal to The Dead’s magic as Jerry’s guitar. What made me so happy Saturday night was the realization that Bill still carried the magic with him. Not to disparage, but I’ve seen and enjoyed Ratdog twice and they couldn’t transport me to The Grove. I saw Lesh and Hart and Weir at a different festival but they could not transport me to The Grove. That’s because Bill Kreutzmann was not in the mix. I discovered Saturday night that Kreutzmann has The Key. And Magnoliafest brought The Grove back into my life at a much needed time. Thank you Beth Judy and Randy Judy for that One Kind Favor again. Each March and October for the last twelve years you have uplifted our lives with some absolutely breathtaking festivals. I always say “this one was the best" after each festival, and I mean it each time. Thanks you guys… this one was The Best.

And thank you, Bill Kreutzmann. You played like a man possessed with an evangelistic passion for percussion. You sent timeless rhythms out into those magic oaks surrounding the amphitheatre Saturday night, and those notes will linger in the Spanish Moss hanging from those trees. Since I only live an hour’s drive from the festival site, I often go down to the Spirit of The Suwannee park during the year when it’s peaceful and quiet and stand in that empty amphitheatre playing past Magfest and Springfest sets through my memory. Now I’m REALLY loaded, pun intended. Thanks, Bill.

Patiently awaiting Next Bus To The Grove,

David Roberts,
Crawfish of Love,
Jacksonville, Florida

Grateful Dead Hour no. 97

ccasal — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 13:58:51 -0500

Week of July 30, 1990

Another Merl Saunders interview from the GD Hour archive. This program contains the same "Mystery Train" we heard in past week's podcast; at the time of this interview (1990), it had not been released; Merl gave it to me on a cassette as a special treat.

- DG

Garcia-Saunders 10/31/74 Memorial Gym, University of San Francisco
HE AIN'T GIVE YOU NONE

Merl Saunders, Blues from the Rainforest
BLUES FROM THE RAINFOREST
SUNRISE OVER HALEAKALA

Merl Saunders (clavinet); Jerry Garcia (guitar,vocal); Vassar Clements (fiddle); David Grisman (mandolin); John Kahn (bass); Bill Kreutzmann (drums) - studio jam circa 1972 MYSTERY TRAIN

Thanks for listening!
David Gans

Listen Now

November 10 - November 16, 2008

ccasal — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 19:25:56 -0500

Welcome back to the Tapers' Section, where this week we'll be checking out music spanning virtually the full breadth of the 1970s, from early 1970 to late 1979, specifically 1970, 1971, 1973 and 1979.

Our first stop this week is not exactly date-appropriate, meaning will step out of mid-November mode to plunk down in early 1970, at the great little show on 2/23/70 in Austin, Texas. From this show, we have some acoustic Grateful Dead followed by some meaty electric material, featuring Me and My Uncle, Black Peter, Season>Uncle John's Band, Not Fade Away>Mason's Children. The version of Me and My Uncle is very unique as it is Bobby playing solo while Jerry fixes a string on his guitar. Jerry does chime in toward the end of the song, but it's pretty cool to hear Bobby play a solo tune. The rest of this sequence is mighty fine as well.

Next up, from a year and half later on 11/14/71 in Fort Worth, Texas, we have the great second set jam, featuring a classic sequence from the era: Truckin'>Drums>The Other One>Me and My Uncle>The Other One. This might be the first time we've ever played two versions on Me and My Uncle in one week here at the Tapers' Section. Up next week: two versions of Keep Your Day Job…

We'll now stop into one of the most impressive jams from 1973, and that's saying a lot due to the great quality of the jamming in 1973. From 11/14/73 in San Diego, we have Truckin'>The Other One>Big River>Other One>Eyes of the World>Other One>Wharf Rat. I always had a bit of a theory of why they played The Other One so prominently in this set: with the three previous shows being November 9-11, 1973 at Winterland, and featuring no Other One on any of those three shows (which was unheard of in 1973 when The Other One would normally be heard at every second show), they made up for the lack of Other One at Winterland by playing it with a vengeance at San Diego. Likely not, but it's a good story, no?

Finally this week, we'll stop into Ann Arbor, Michigan to the show on 11/10/79, where we'll check out some great second set material, featuring Samson and Delilah, Terrapin Station>Playing In The Band. This was a mighty fine tour, with some of the best material heard on Road Trips Vol. 1 No. 1.

Be sure to check back in next week for music exclusively from 1972 and 1973.

David Lemieux
vault@dead.net

Grateful Dead Hour no. 489

ccasal — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 22:14:40 -0500

Week of February 2, 1998

San Francisco keyboardist Merl Saunders was a musical partner of Jerry Garcia's starting in 1970. As you'll hear in this interview, their work together was tremendously enriching to the guitarist. The recorded output of their collaboration is quite impressive, as the discography on deaddisc.com attests.

When Jerry was recovering from his diabetic coma in 1986, it was Merl who went to his bedside every day to help him recover his musical consciousness and retrain his nerve paths.

Merl suffered a stroke in 2002 that put an end to his performing career. Complications from an infection ended his life on October 24, 2008.

This week's archival GD Hour post features an interview with Merl Saunders on the occasion of the release of Keepers. The opening track on that CD is a studio recording of "Mystery Train" featuring Jerry Garcia, David Grisman, Vassar Clements and John Kahn of Old and in the Way.

Thank you for a lifetime of warm, inspiring music, Merl. It was a pleasure to know you.
- DG

Merl Saunders and Friends, Keepers
MYSTERY TRAIN
GEORGIA ON MY MIND
GEE, BABY, AIN'T I GOOD TO YOU?

Merl Saunders Live: Still Having Fun
SUGAREE

Merl Saunders, Fiesta Amazonica AYAHUASCA ZONE

Thanks for listening!
David Gans

Listen Now

Jeff Chimenti: Keyboard Ace Adds Dimension to RatDog

frogstorm — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 22:35:08 -0500

When I catch up with soft-spoken RatDog keyboardist Jeff Chimenti for our Dead.net interview, he's only been home for a couple of days, after playing with the Dead at the Penn State concert for Obama (along with the Allman Bros.), and he's just a few days away from rehearsals before RatDog's fall East Coast tour, which begins in Long Island on October 30 and goes through to a November 22 finale in Florida. He's a busy guy right now, but he wouldn't want it any other way.

One of the truly nice people in the scene, Chimenti (pronounced key-men-tee; he's Italian-American) is a formidable talent who has added immeasurably to RatDog's sound since joining in the summer of 1997. He also played on the 2003 and 2004 tours by The Dead-he was particularly strong on the latter tour, where he didn't have to share the keyboard duties with Rob Barraco. Yes, it was on that tour that we learned that lurking beneath that calm, unassuming exterior is a beast adept at just about any style.

Like so many kids who took piano lessons at a young age, Jeff grew up (just south of San Francisco, where he still lives) playing classical music exclusively. He sensed that music was his calling early in life, though as the years passed, he drifted into jazz, which is mostly what he played until joining the Dog. Okay, there was that stint with the funk divas from En Vogue in the mid-'90s, but that was a brief detour from what was a very successful career playing in all sorts of different jazz situations, from casuals to concerts. (For the record, Jeff says he still regularly plays classical piano at home-maybe some day in "stuff," the freeform jam in the last third of every RatDog set, he'll lay a little Bach or Rachmaninoff on us!)

As we pick up his story, he's starting to make the transition from the classical to the jazz world.

How did you pick up the jazz stuff?

From everywhere. From albums and 78s and the radio. Jazz at the Philharmonic; things like that. I had also gotten into ragtime quite a bit, so I was interested in that transition from ragtime into jazz.

How old were you then?

Probably 10, 11, 12. I turned 13 my first year in high school, and it was before that. The harmonic movement of it worked [for me]; the progressions and all. But when a teacher first put a "fake book" chart in front of me, I thought, "What the hell is this? [Laughs] I need piano music here!" But I got a grasp of it pretty fast, and then from there I was lucky to get the opportunity to play with some really good musicians. A lot them had been in college bands [as was Jeff, at the College of San Mateo, where Phil Lesh had been decades earlier] and were the working musicians, so to speak, of the scene. Pretty early on I started playing both club gigs and casuals.

Were you listening to much pop music then?

Not really. I grew up listening to a lot of classical stuff because that's what I was studying, and I sort of skipped the whole pop thing. I definitely heard people like Zeppelin, The Who and The Doors. I think my earliest recollection of what we had at the house was the Jefferson Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow, and I liked that. I was even a Kiss fan for a while. But those were all my brother's records. I preferred jazz, and as I got more into it, it became like, "Check out this record," and it would be one of the classic Blue Notes and a Big Bands.

Were you checking out the pianists, like Horace Silver and McCoy Tyner?

Of course, yes. And after a while you start to gravitate to certain people or styles of playing because it's how you're maybe hearing things. I ended up getting deeply into people like Keith Jarrett and Herbie [Hancock] and Chick Corea-and I'd put McCoy in there, too. He's great. I've met him a few times and seen him a bunch. He's a sweet man. He's definitely been an inspiration.

What was the first group that you were in that felt like, "Hey, this is different and original and interesting music"?

Early on I was involved in a band with this guy Glenn Cronkhite, who was a local percussionist who was deep into the ECM catalog and used to play with a lot of those guys-like Jan Garbarek. Glenn was in a band called the Rubisa Patrol...

With Art Lande-a great pianist! I liked that band a lot.

Right. I was very influenced by that approach. In Glenn's band I got to play with Mel Graves, who was a great [bass] player, and Dave Riekenberg, a New York saxophonist. Around the same time I was in this other band with a guy named Sheldon Brown, who was a local composer and saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist. He used to be part of the Klezmorim and the Club Foot Orchestra. Anyway, in that band, we mostly played music he'd composed, which was very interesting.

You mentioned Keith Jarrett a minute ago. Did his whole approach to freeform improvisation appeal to you? The notion of sitting down at the piano, and just blowing, figuratively speaking?

Oh, yeah. I loved that stuff and it definitely had an effect on me. That's why falling into RatDog and the Dead world seemed so natural in a way. It was like-BOOM I get this! I just had to learn all the music that went with it! [Laughs]

When you were growing up, how much of what you did was piano-based versus other keyboards?

I was more piano-based than anything. I occasionally did other keyboard stuff, but I never really gravitated seriously in other directions other than piano. I had a Fender Rhodes-in fact I have the same one I bought back in the '80s. It's still works great and it's more than paid for itself, because not every gig had a nice piano, obviously. [Laughs]

How hard was it to make a living playing casuals and in little jazz groups?

I was very lucky. I've been doing gigs since the age of 13. I guess from 13 to 18 it was mainly the occasional casual and party, just a few a month. But by the time I was 18, I really hit the San Francisco scene and started hanging out at the Jazz Workshop and jamming with different people and cutting my teeth that way. Then I started getting gigs here and there-although I couldn't get in some places because I was underage. But after I turned 21 I hit the scene hard.

Were you essentially living that jazzman's life until you joined RatDog?

Yeah. I never played in other rock bands. First it was casuals, then clubs and concert situations. There was one gig that was a little off the wall: Around 1989 or 1990 I got a call from a buddy one day and he says, "You've got an audition for En Vogue [the popular Oakland soul/funk group] tomorrow." He was already playing with them. So I went over and there were like 14 or 15 other keyboardists there all auditioning. And I ended up getting the gig, much to my surprise. I did their first tour, which was with MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice; we were in the second slot, before Hammer, who was very big at that time.

That must have been a little weird for you musically. It's not the most complex music...

No, it's not. [Laughs] Some of it was just triggering samples, though there's a trick and an art to that, too. I'm not putting that down at all. It was basically a good experience. I'd always had visions of being on the road and traveling, and this was that. It was an insane schedule-we played six nights a week, and it was mostly in basketball arenas. That was my first big tour.

So this must have been at MC Hammer's peak.

It was right in that Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em period. [That was Hammer's 1990 #1 smash album.] It was the middle of about a year and a half tour of his-we did a three or four month stretch with him. We'd play 30, 35 minutes a night. Like I said, it was a good experience, but when I came back I realized that it wasn't really the direction I wanted to go.

Were you playing electronic keyboards?

Yeah, and they had four keyboard players. [Laughs]

Were your jazz-cat friends horrified?

Not at all. They were very supportive: "Go do it!" Then, once the En Vogue thing ended and I came back, I was working solidly, almost seven nights a week, for a few years in all sorts of situations; mostly club stuff and some concerts. I had my own trios, which ended up doing OK, and I bounced around with various people, doing straight-ahead [jazz], post-bop stuff; all kinds.

Is there a wing in jazz you feel closest to?

Probably the mid- and late '60s and early '70s is the era I would have fit in with best. I don't consider myself a straight-up bebop player; I was always more post-bop in the way I heard things.

So, your tenure with RatDog came about through Dave Ellis [the group's original saxophonist], correct?

Right. I was in his quartet and he had just gotten the RatDog gig, and I sort of half-jokingly said, "Hey, if you guys ever need anyone to jam with, I'm here!" About two days later he calls me and says, "You're not going to believe this but they're looking for a keyboard player!" Johnnie Johnson [Chuck Berry's piano player] had been with them for a while, but I think he didn't really want to travel so much, and Bob wanted somebody local. They also had Mookie Segal in there at the same time, but he wasn't in the area, either.

So I started going up to Bob's house and jamming a few days a week.

I'm guessing you hadn't been a fan of the Dead.

No, I hadn't. Early on a couple people told me, "Oh, Grateful Dead-don't even bother!" What did I know? [Laughs] Now, of course, I wish I had listened, because I missed out on a lot of good stuff. But it was my own fault. At the same time, it gave me a fresh perspective when I did get involved and I had all this music to listen to and learn. It's kind of ironic to have come from not really knowing anything about them to getting to eventually play with all of the "core four" in The Dead.

Since you didn't have much of a background in rock 'n' roll, it must have been pretty challenging at first.

Well, yes and no. From the get-go I totally understood where they were coming from-how they approached the songs, how diverse they were, how they could take it totally "out" yet still keep it "inside." I could relate to that; it was right up my alley.

It's definitely a jazz-like approach, and there's interesting harmonic content...

Absolutely. That's what I'm all about. There was the freedom there to do whatever you could do.

And, of course, the bassist in that era, Rob Wasserman, was pretty jazzy...

I was looking forward to that, as well, when I got in there.

Was there much rehearsal?

Some. At first, Bob didn't want me to listen to Grateful Dead or Bobby & the Midnites or Kingfish or anything. It was like, "Let's see what you do with it," you know? But after a point you really have to listen to these songs to learn their essence, and you need to know where they came from so you can figure out better where to go with them. So I definitely did a lot of listening. I got stacks and stacks of stuff, including Grateful Dead and RatDog.

So we jammed at Bob's for a couple of months, but nobody had ever told me anything solid. And then the Further Festival was coming up as their next tour-this was 1997-and I needed to know something because I was getting calls and I needed to book my schedule. Finally, we did a couple of nights at the Sweetwater [the Mill Valley club] and then the next thing I knew I was up onstage at this benefit at the Warfield with Bonnie Raitt, Bob, John Popper, Bobby Sheehan and various other people. Finally, I got the official nod [that I was in] and we went out on the road.

How did the crowds strike you?

They were great! It was nice to see people up and dancing. It gave a better feeling for what the Grateful Dead had done, in the sense that they created this audience, and all the people they've touched. Getting to be part of that vibe was quite an eye-opener. I had missed it all, I'm embarrassed to say.

You have nothing to apologize for!

I'm just thankful that I got the opportunity-that the other guys in the band liked me and said, "Come on board."

It's been great. It's a constantly evolving process. This version of RatDog has been together about five years now, so obviously the telepathic sensibilities have heightened just from playing together so much and growing together.

What does adding Mark Karan and, later, Robin Sylvester do to the sound?

Well, those guys are steeped more in the rock idiom, and both have vast knowledge of music and music history, and they were both already really experienced. It's made for a good blend, because I'd say Jay [Lane, RatDog drummer] and Kenny [saxophonist], also deeply rooted in their idioms, are more from the jazz/hip-hop/funk background, as am I, and Mark and Bob and Robin are more from the classic rock side. And there's a lot of mutual respect. We've all learned from each other. It's like, "How can we all apply what we do, together?"

You seem to really enjoy the "stuff" section of the show.

I do. It's a lot of fun. It's an opportunity to take some chances. I guess originally it came out of the Wasserman solo time, then Jay joined in and they'd do some interesting things. As others of us have come in, we've gotten involved and it's become a vehicle to experiment. There's been some pretty cool stuff in there. It doesn't work all the time, but you give it your best shot, and it is what is. You put your stuff out there, pun intended.

Is the tenor of it usually affected by whatever precedes it?

Definitely. It might pick up the pulse, or it could go in the opposite direction. But it's riding the wave from where we left off. Nobody ever says, "Okay, we're going to try this in the ‘stuff' section." We're always trying to search for something different. But it's got to be an instant thing-everybody's got to be right with you; going with you. "Who's running with the ball here?" [Laughs] That's tricky. You're exposed, but that's the beauty and the magic of it. It's like that with the transitions between tunes, too.

What was your experience of the first Dead tour you did [in 2003]?

Like I said, maybe it was a good thing not having the background of having been a Dead Head and so forth. But I still kind of had to pinch myself-"Wow, here I am with the core four!" Also, thank God for Rob Barraco, because he was a big help to me. He really knew that music so well.

Did it feel different than playing with RatDog?

Sure. Of course there are similarities, but when those four guys lock up, they really create that classic sound. It was almost like I could hear Jerry blowing over the top of it.

The second Dead tour was you alone on keys. It was nice hearing you play so much organ.

Right. I hadn't really had any B-3 experience at all. Basically from day one of rehearsals they were saying, "You've gotta play a lot of B-3" "I Do? [Laughs] Okay, I better get workin' on that quick!" I'd worked with organ modules [in electronic keyboards] but it's not even near the same thing. It's such a blessing to be able to play the B-3... and I'm actually playing Brent's B-3 in my rig-the one that used to have all the stickers on it. You can still see the outline of the stickers. It also turns out that I have the same birthday at Brent Mydland. That's a little weird! [Laughs]

Did that second tour feel significantly different than the first one?

Well, I was by myself, so it was very different for me. I did miss playing with Rob; at the the same time it gave me a chance to do more, and on more songs, because in the first version sometimes I or Rob would play more certain songs. I think what Phil wanted [on that first tour] was for Rob to play tunes that I was used to playing, and vice-versa.

In the last few years, the RatDog repertoire has expanded quite a bit.

And there are still a lot of good tunes out there, depending on what Bob wants to do. We're still trying to work on more original tunes, too.

You've been involved in Alphabet Soup with [drummer] Jay and Kenny. What's the story with that group?

Well, when that started back in the day it was termed "acid jazz." There was a whole scene around here.

Right, at the Elbow Room...

The Elbow Room, the Up and Down Club, various other places. Actually, at that time I was playing in a band with a guy named Josh Jones called Hueman Flavor, which was another hip-hop band. At that same time, Dred Scott was the keyboard player in Alphabet Soup, and we were close friends, and I would even sub for him for time to time. That's where I first met Jay-probably three or four years before RatDog.

Jay's got his new project now, called Band of Brothers, which also has a couple of the rappers from Alphabet Soup; it's pretty cool. They have a record that should be coming out in February, called Deadbeats.

I heard that tune the rappers did with RatDog in New York last year that's based on "Franklin's Tower"...

It's called "Back to the River." They've done that with certain songs. It's an interesting group. I play with them when I can. I've done a handful of gigs with them. And I've done a bunch with Alphabet Soup.

Do they still exist?

From time to time, yes. [Laughs]

What are some of your favorite tunes to play in RatDog?

That's tough. My best answer for that is that I don't think about it in terms of, "Oh, I really want to play this tune." The magic can happen at any time on any tune. You never know which songs are going to be particularly good or inspired from night to night. So I don't like to pinpoint what I like. I think it's all good.

Though is it fair to say some nights you might be in a free-flowing "Dark Star" mood and another night you might like the power and precision of "Help in the Way" > "Slipknot"?

Sure. But what I'm saying is I don't set out and think, "Oh boy, I hope we're playing ‘Help on the Way' > ‘Slipknot' tonight!" I just wait to see what's happenin'.

Only the fans think that way. In fact some of them are taking bets on what will be played!

Right, the Fantasy Set Lists and all that. [Laughs]

Does it feel like the band is still evolving?

I think so. It's always getting better. I try to take it a day at a time. We've got a couple of rehearsals coming up in the next few days. It's always good to get together again. Maybe we can try to get some songs we haven't played in there, or maybe some things we haven't touched in a long time. And there are some new tunes that are close to being finished, though I don't know if they'll be ready for this tour.

Do the rigors, such as they are, of the RatDog touring schedule affect what you do with the rest of your time?

Yes. I've basically committed myself to RatDog. Early on I would try to book things in the off-times, but things kept popping up with RatDog so it became tough to arrange a lot of outside things. I'm still open to other things, obviously, but RatDog is my priority right now.

Is there some secret Jeff Chimenti solo project that you're keeping under wraps and is going to be unveiled some day?

[Laughs] Actually, there is some stuff from prior years I've thought about putting out. Like I did this project with Dred Scott and another drummer friend of mine, Gaelan McKenna, and this bass player named Wilbur Krebbs, who's also in Alphabet Soup. We did this totally avant-garde session-it was like Ferrante & Teicher [the easy listening piano kings], with a 9-foot Steinway and a 9-foot Yamaha interlocked. [Laughs] There was some good stuff. Maybe I'll put out a little thing sometime. Who knows?

Are you married? Kids?

Married, no kids. I met my wife in Japan. I had an offer to go over there in 1994, I think. I was playing a three-month stint at the Park Hyatt in Tokyo...

Wow, it sounds like the movie Lost in Translation!

That's the hotel I played in! That's where I lived! I played in that top-floor bar; that was the gig I had. It was me and a woman named Denise Perrier, who also from the Bay Area. Her brother is Paul Jackson, from The Headhunters, and he was living over there. I had always wanted to go to Japan, so I got to do that and live in a five-star hotel. I had to work six nights a week, but it was a great experience, and the second week I was there I met my future wife!

Mickey Hart presents "The TAO of Wood"

frogstorm — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 20:46:47 -0500

Mickey Hart presents "The TAO of Wood"

the debut show featuring
his sculptures and paintings

Artist Reception
November 22nd, 2008
7pm to 9pm

RSVP required

Dennis Rae Fine Art
781 Beach St. San Francisco, CA 94109
415-292-0387

www.dennisraefineart.com

Artist will be in attendance

Trip Or Freak

ccasal — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 14:04:51 -0400

DEAD.NET EXCLUSIVE

A little something for Grateful Goblins everywhere—20 Full Minutes of Vault Magic—to get you in to the Halloween Spirit.

10/31/84 Berkeley Community Theatre

The show-closing sequence from the fourth night of a six night run at BCT, that includes Bobby’s altered lyrics for One More Saturday Night to suit the occasion:

Morning Dew>Around and Around>One More Saturday Night, (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction

Click here to listen to the stream.

Everyone, please get out and vote on Tuesday. No matter who you're supporting - the important thing is to cast your vote. Wondering where your polling place is? Click here for a very cool map. So now, no excuses, get out and vote November 4th. Thank you.

November 3 - November 9, 2008

ccasal — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 16:48:31 -0400

Welcome back. This week we have some great Grateful Dead music from 1969 through to 1985, with a rare Tapers’ Section appearance of an audience recording in the mix this week.

First up we have the show-closing tune, Lovelight, from 11/7/69 at the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco. This was included as a bonus track on the stellar Dick’s Picks Vol. 16, which consisted of the entire 11/8/69 show at the same venue. The Fillmore Auditorium is the very same Fillmore venue in San Francisco at which we can still hear great live music, and should not be confused with the Fillmore West in San Francisco, which was also known as the Carousel Ballroom.

Next up we have a stunningly hot jam from 1970 at the Capitol Theatre in Portchester, NY on 11/8/70, featuring Truckin’>Dark Star>The Main Ten. This is from an audience source, as most of July through December, 1970, is not in the vault, either not recorded or simply having walked away over the years. I hope you don’t mind the audience recording, but because it’s my birthday, I can do what I want ☺.>

Nine years later, the Grateful Dead were on their big Fall Tour of 1979, still working Brent into the band. As you’ll hear from this Eyes of the World>Estimated Prophet>Franklin’s Tower. sequence from 11/5/79 in Philadelphia, Brent had become a central part of the band’s sound by the Fall.

Lastly this week, we have two sequences from the show in Richmond, VA, on 11/2/85, the pre-Drums trio of tunes Estimated Prophet>Uncle John’s Band>China Doll and from the post-Space part of the show, Morning Dew>Throwing Stones>Lovelight, Baby Blue. Certainly the equal of the previous night’s very famous concert at the same venue.

Be sure to drop by next week for music from 1970 to 1979. Some great stuff, by the looks of it…

David Lemieux
vault@dead.net

Thinkin’ About Merl Saunders

frogstorm — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 21:49:06 -0400

The Dead Family lost another one of its finest when keyboardist extraordinaire Merl Saunders died on Friday, October 24, at the age of 74. Although a stroke more than six years ago effectively ended his musical career (and left him unable to speak), his radiant smile still lit up every room he entered, and every gig by one of his many musical friends he attended. I’ll never forget the big “Comes A Time” concert at the Greek Theater a few years ago where he shared a piano bench with Melvin Seals (from the latter day Garcia Band) and, beaming every second under his trademark leather cap, managed to play a few notes with his working arm… No doubt about it, this cat had the music in him!

Of course Merl will forever be associated with Jerry Garcia—it was a great partnership that produced an incredible variety of music in many different groups and situations through the years, but began at a little nightclub in the Fillmore district of San Francisco called the Matrix. You’ll forgive me if I lift/adapt a discussion of that early group and of Merl’s background from the un-cut version of my biography of Jerry, called Garcia, published in 1999, and based in part on hours of interviews with Merl:

[Jerry and Merl hooking up together musically] was an outgrowth of the Monday night jams with [keyboardist] Howard Wales — somewhere along the line, Wales dropped out, and his spot was filled by Saunders. Garcia still played gigs with Wales from time to time, and he helped Wales make a record called Hooteroll?, which came out in late 1971, but once the quartet of Garcia, Saunders, John Kahn and [drummer] Bill Vitt got together, that group became Garcia's main musical focus outside of the Dead.

Saunders was several years older than the other guys in the quartet and was already a journeyman musician by the time he hooked up with Garcia. Like so many African American keyboardists of his time, Merl grew up playing music in the church; in his case a Methodist church at Geary and Webster in San Francisco, “though I also used to sneak over to another church where the holy rollers were,” he added conspiratorially. As a teen, he and his family lived in a large house in Haight-Ashbury — in fact, Merl says that during the Summer of Love era, long after he'd moved out, his mother would sometimes call the police to complain about the noise being made by local hippie bands; and his father, who worked as a doorman at 2090 Pacific, actually knew Garcia before Merl did!

As a teenager, Merl soaked up all the music he could — jazz, blues, R&B — and spent nearly every waking hour practicing the piano. “The thing about growing up in music during my generation is you had to learn how to play everything,” he said. “I listened to Stan Kenton, B.B. King, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, down to Clarence Gatemouth Brown, Ivory Joe Hunter and Louis Jordan, who doesn't get the credit, but he was the first rapper. Slim Gaillard — he came to my high school and played piano with his hands backwards; I thought he was amazing. I used to love Saunders King — my name is actually Sanders, but I changed it because I liked the sound of Saunders King. My mom and dad used to take me to this supper club and I'd hear Saunders King at 10 or 11 o’ clock in the morning, back when Fillmore Street was like 125th Street in New York. I used to see Dinah Washington there in the afternoons. People like Duke Ellington and Harry James would play at the Warfield or the Golden Gate Theater, and then later I started going to the jazz clubs — Basin Street West, the El Matador, the Jazz Workshop, the Blackhawk. I saw some of the greatest musicians in the world in those places, and it made quite an impression on me.”

Then, “when I was in Paris in the service, I heard Jimmy Smith, which really got me interested in the organ. Later on, he and I became friends and he showed me the fundamentals of playing organ.” Saunders was also influenced by Hammond B-3 masters like Jimmy McGriff and “Brother” Jack McDuff. Merl spent several years on the road playing in an organ trio, eventually settling in New York City, where he did session work and played on commercials. He also had a stint conducting a band at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas before he moved back to the Bay Area. There, he hooked up with Michael Bloomfield, and through him met Kahn, Vitt and Garcia. Their first work together was at Wally Heider's on an album by a singer named Danny Cox.

“The chemistry between us was instant,” Merl noted. “I'd hear Jerry playing and the music was going one way and I'd hear him sort of drifting off in this other much cooler direction, so I'd be right there with him, and we'd sort of smile at each other, like, 'Hey, this is happenin'. If there's two people going one way, even if it's not the regular way, then there's no mistake. And John Kahn was following along with us, too.”

In Saunders' memory, his first couple of Matrix gigs with Garcia and Vitt were without John Kahn and very loose. But once the quartet started playing together regularly at the Keystone Korner and the New Monk in Berkeley (later renamed the Keystone Berkeley), the music began to go in all sorts of interesting directions. Whereas the gig with Howard Wales was almost completely free-form and all instrumental, the quartet with Merl jammed out on some of his own funk-oriented original songs, Motown and R&B tunes (usually sung by Garcia), and jazz standards, which were something new for Garcia.

“That required a whole lot of quick education for me, and Merl was responsible for that,” Garcia said. “He really helped me improve myself on a level of harmonic understanding. Playing with him required a whole different style from three-chord rock 'n' roll or even 10-chord rock 'n' roll; it was a whole different thing. But what I was able to bring to that situation was the ability to use odd-length runs in conventional formats. I was able to use ideas that were rhythmically uneven because of working in odd time signatures so much with the Dead.”

Garcia said that working with Merl also taught him a great deal about musical structure: “He filled me in on all those years of things I didn't do. I'd never played any standards; I'd never played in dance bands. I never had any approach to the world of regular, straight music. He knows all the standards, and he taught me how bebop works. He taught me music. Between the combination of Howard and Merl, that's where I really learned music. Before it was sort of, ‘OK, where do I plug in?’ I picked up the adult version of a music attitude from those guys."

Merl says that Garcia was an eager and gifted pupil with an insatiable desire to learn new things, whether it was working off a relatively easy tune like “My Funny Valentine” or some incredibly complex number by the supremely gifted pianist Art Tatum, who became one of Garcia's favorite musicians. “I saw Art Tatum play when I was about 15 years old and I got so disgusted I stopped playing piano,” Saunders said with a laugh. “I thought, 'What's the point?' He was so amazing you could never hope to be that good in your wildest dreams. I was hurt; I was crushed. But he was a genius, and of course I came to appreciate him more, and I actually studied him a bit. I managed to learn a few of his runs and I'd be there warming up on this stuff and Garcia would be saying, ‘Hey man, what's that run?’ ‘That's Art Tatum.’ And we'd go over them together. Then we'd be out at the Keystone in the middle of a song and all of a sudden I'd hear him doing an Art Tatum run, and I'd look over and he'd have this big smile on his face! Man, when Jerry would get on something, he'd keep going with it until he got it. He'd stumble through it at first, but he understood music so well and he had such a good memory that he could eventually get almost anything he tried down. And getting down Art Tatum is not easy — on piano or guitar.”

Merl added a couple of organ overdubs to the Dead’s live “Skull & Roses” album and Garcia played on two of Merl’s early ’70s solo albums on the Fantasy label , Heavy Turbulence and Fire Up (since condensed to a fine single-CD). The mid-1973 version of what was usually called the Saunders-Garcia Band (but actually had no formal name; we all just called it “Jerry and Merl”) was documented beautifully on the live double-album Live At Keystone (released later, with bonus tracks, as three separate CDs). In early 1974, saxophonist Martin Fierro (who also passed away within the last year) joined the group and brought in an even greater emphasis on jazz and Latin flavors. With the addition of drummer Ron Tutt, the band became known for a period as the Legion of Mary. Those groups—without and with Tutt—are captured on the Pure Jerry series release Keystone Berkeley September 1, 1974 and Rhino’s The Jerry Garcia Collection Vol. 1: Legion of Mary. Listening to all those CDs you can hear the full range of Merl’s keyboard genius, from beefy B-3 lines, to funky clavinet, soaring synth and shimmering electric piano. Merl also wrote many fine tunes for the group, including “Soul Roach,” “Keepers,” “Wondering Why,” “Manchild” “Save Mother Earth,” and others.

Jerry and Merl (and John Kahn) next played together in Reconstruction (January through September 1979), the jazzy, horn-fueled band that also featured saxophonist Ron Stallings, trombonist Ed Neumeister and drummer Gaylord Birch; a totally different-sounding aggregation with a repertoire that had very little carryover from Jerry’s (or Merl’s) previous groups. “The approach was to play jazz and rock together but still be danceable,” Merl told me. “It was a great band for a while. Jerry liked that it gave him a totally new structure to work with, with these great horn players and a different set of tunes. These were really excellent musicians. And because they came from outside the Grateful Dead world, they related to Jerry as just another player, not a ‘star.’ I remember after one of our first gigs, Gaylord Birch, who had this long history playing with the Pointer Sisters and Edwin Hawkins and all these other groups, but didn't know about the Dead or Dead Heads, came up to me and said, ‘What was happening up there? What was that roar I heard coming up to the stage?’ And I said, ‘Oh, that was when Jerry moved his leg!’” he laughed.

It would be a number of years before they would once again collaborate on a musical project together, but when they did it was an interesting one: Merl became the musical director of the 1985 TV series The Twilight Zone, and he brought in the Grateful Dead to re-work the famous theme, and both Garcia and Mickey Hart also contributed quite a bit of incidental music and effects to different episodes, under Merl’s direction.

A year later, though, something happened that really brought the depth of their friendship into focus: When Jerry nearly died in the summer of 1986 after slipping into a diabetic coma, it was Merl more than anyone else, who literally sat by Jerry’s side and helped him regain his musical gifts—which had become scrambled and elusive following the coma—by patiently re-teaching him the fundamentals, rebuilding his skills a little at a time. And even before he was ready to attempt to play, Merl helped him get some of his strength back: “I'd take him for a walk. We'd take 10 steps, then take 10 steps back. His attitude was great. He wanted to get better, but he was scared, too. He got tired very easily, but he never really got discouraged. The most he'd say would be, ‘Oh man, this is harder than it looks!’”

Once Garcia picked up a guitar, “It came back very slowly,” Merl said. “He had to learn chords all over again and he had a lot of trouble remembering how to do even the simplest stuff. And I didn't want to push him. ‘Man, I'm tired.’ He'd been playing for five minutes. ‘OK, that's fine. Put it down. Let's go for a walk.’ And we'd do that for a few minutes until he'd get tired. We'd talk about music. I'd tell him about songs I was working on and that would get his mind going. We'd talk in musical terms. And slowly he started to get his strength back. But it sometimes took an hour or two for him to get even a simple chord down. Then, as we got farther into it, some things started to come back to him a little, but it took a lot of work. The first song he wanted to learn again was ‘My Funny Valentine.’”

The last major project Merl and Jerry worked on was Merl’s wonderful instrumental album, Blues from the Rainforest in 1990, which Merl dubbed “an enivonmental new age musical suite.” What started out as a duo concept to feature just Merl and percussionist Muruga Booker, was soon expanded to include Garcia and others. “When I wrote [the title song] I also heard a part for Jerry in my head,” Merl told me in a 1990 interview for The Golden Road. “So after I had about half the album done, I sent him a rough sketch of what we were doing and, man, he couldn’t wait to come down and work on it…It’d been 15 years since we worked on album together." Besides being on the title track, Jerry is also prominent on the beautiful “Blue Hill Ocean Dance” which Merl said “became a sort of odyssey under water. Jerry did his MIDI guitar with a flute sound, and it sounds like both of us are just scooting along the bottom of the ocean!”

Aside from his work with Jerry through the years, Merl always kept busy playing music—touring with various bands (such as The Rainforest Band, which he formed after the success of Blues from the Rainforest) and playing sessions with a wide variety of folks through the years, including Bonnie Raitt, Taj Mahal, Tom Fogerty (who was a member of the Saunders-Garcia Band for a while), Robert Hunter, The Dinosaurs, Jerry Miller, Norton Buffalo and others. He led the big jam at the Haight Street Fair for a quarter century, and he was also known to play beautiful solo piano in small clubs and hotels; he could truly do it all!

There’s SO much we’ll miss about Merl, but mostly it’s the joy and spirit he brought to everything he did. He was truly one-of-a-kind!

October 27 - November 2, 2008

ccasal — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 19:37:09 -0400

Welcome back to the Tapers Section, where this week we have more great music spanning about 18 years, including selection from 1973, 1979, 1989 and 1991.

Our first selection this week is from 10/29/73, the first of two nights at the Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis, on the tour that immediately followed the release of Wake of the Flood. From the end of the first set, we have the terrific trio of songs: Eyes of the World>China Doll, Around and Around. I really love these two shows in St. Louis, as I do most of the two month span between October 19 and December 19, 1973. We've already seen plenty of great releases from this period (DP 1, DP 14, DP 19, Winterland 1973), but I can foresee future releases coming from this period. San Diego, LA and Denver spring to mind…

Next up, from six years later, we're going to check in to music from the Cape Cod Coliseum, two magnificent concerts on an amazing tour. From the first night, 10/27/79, we have the very famous, and justifiably so, second set jam featuring He's Gone>Caution Jam>The Other One. Wow! And from the second night on 10/28/79, we have some tasty first set material consisting of Althea, Passenger, Ramble On Rose, The Music Never Stopped. Both of these selections from cape Cod are drawn from the cassette master tapes from the PA mix.

We'll now go forward ten years to 10/26/89 in Miami, Florida, where the Grateful Dead would warp up their most highly regarded tour of the decade. This tour featured all sorts noteworthy moments, from the Warlocks concerts in Hampton to Bobby's Birthday show in New Jersey, but to my ears, the lasting impression of these concerts is the downright scary, deep and dark version of Dark Star played at the final show of the tour. Simply mind-blowing. Sounds like it darn near shook the roof off the arena.

By special request from last week, we have this excellent version of Easy To Love You recorded live on Phil's 50th birthday at the Capital Centre in Landover, MD, on 3/15/90. This concert was released as the Terrapin Limited album, and this version was the first live Grateful Dead version of the song since 9/3/80.

Lastly this week, from 10/31/91, just a few days after the passing of Bill Graham, we have the second set jam of Truckin'>Spoonful>Dark Star, with the last song including a special farewell-to-Bill reading by Ken Kesey. This is one of the most emotional moments I can think of that took place at a Grateful Dead concert. Also featured on guitar is Gary Duncan.

Check back next week for more great music.

David Lemieux
vault@dead.net

List of Past Halloween Shows

Jonathan Lane — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 19:03:52 -0400

click here to download a free jack-o-lantern template

1966 California Hall in San Francisco
1967 Winterland in San Francisco
1968 The Matrix in San Francisco
1969 San Jose State University
1970 SUNY, Stony Brook, NY
1971 Ohio Theater, Columbus, OH
1979 Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, Uniondale, NY
1980 Dead Ahead at Radio City Music Hall
1983 Veterans Memorial Theatre, San Rafael, CA
1984 Berkeley Community Theater
1985 Carolina Coliseum, Columbia, SC
1990 Wembley Arena, London, UK
1991 Oakland Coliseum

Grateful Dead Hour no. 767

ccasal — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 12:34:59 -0400

Week of June 2, 2003

More unreleased music from the awesome Europe '72 tour (continued from last week's post), plus a track that is unrelated to the Grateful Dead except for the fact that Allan Arkush, executive producer of the NBC TV series Crossing Jordan, is a longtime Deadhead who worked at the Fillmore East and hired Jerry Garcia to be the "voice" (it was actually Jerry's guitar) of a robot in his film Heartbeeps. Allan is currently working on Heroes. And of course Richard Thompson is an amazing musician whose work you should know, if you're not already a fan.

Enjoy!

Grateful Dead 4/16/72 Aarhus, Denmark
TRUCKIN'->
OTHER ONE JAM->
ME AND MY UNCLE->
THE OTHER ONE->
NOT FADE AWAY

Richard Thompson, from Crossing Jordan (Music from the NBC Television Series)
SEASON OF THE WITCH

Thanks for listening!
David Gans

Listen Now

Grateful Dead Hour no. 766

ccasal — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 12:29:37 -0400

Week of May 26, 2003

A couple of sweet rarities and some unreleased music from the awesome Europe '72 tour. What's not to love?

Enjoy!

Grateful Dead 2/10/93 rehearsal
DAYS BETWEEN

Bob Weir home demo (date unknown)
JACK STRAW

Grateful Dead 4/16/72 Aarhus, Denmark
GOOD LOVIN'
CUMBERLAND BLUES
EL PASO
DEAL

Thanks for listening!
David Gans

Listen Now

Rare Tracks on Anniversary of Return from Egypt

frogstorm — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 21:13:07 -0400

In September, 1978, musical worlds collided when renowned Egyptian oud player Hamza El Din, along with the Nubian Youth Choir, joined the Grateful Dead onstage during all three concerts they performed at the foot of the Pyramids of Egypt. The collaboration resulted in the hypnotic, polyrhythmic tune “Ollin Arageed,” written by Hamza himself. It was a true meeting of two completely divergent, yet totally complementary, musical styles. After the Egypt concerts, the Dead returned to America as triumphant, world-travelling heroes, and at the final two of their five night return engagement at Winterland, Hamza joined the band onstage to introduce the song to the American masses. Over the next seven years, Hamza would perform “Ollin Arageed” with the Grateful Dead live four more times, with the final collaboration in March, 1985.

Fast forward to 2004. We were searching through the vault for bonus material to feature on the reissue of “Shakedown Street” to be included in the Beyond Description boxed set, when we came across a studio session reel with a remarkable item at the end of it. It was a rehearsal recorded on August 11, 1978 at the Grateful Dead's Front Street studio, featuring Hamza on oud, Mickey Hart on the tar, and Jerry Garcia on acoustic guitar. They were working out the arrangement for Ollin Arageed. In addition to a good, short version of the tune, they also proceeded to play an interesting, Middle Eastern-inspired song. And now, for the first time, those recordings are available to Dead Heads. It is truly our pleasure to be able to share these two studio rehearsal tracks with you in celebration of the 30th Anniversary of the “From Egypt With Love” concerts.

Listen to all the tracks

Track 1

Track 2

October 20 - October 26, 2008

ccasal — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 16:29:06 -0400

Welcome back to the Tapers Section. This week we've got about 17 years of Grateful Dead music to explore, so without further ado, on to the music…

Our first stop this week is on 10/24/72 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (not be confused with beautiful Milwaukie, Oregon…), where we have the big jam from that show, featuring Truckin'>Drums>The Other One>Philo Stomp>Space>He's Gone>The Other One. The thematic jam was named as such by Dick Latvala in honor of the small town of Philo north of San Francisco, and because it is led by the eponymous bass player. The September-through-November tours from 1972 are of a consistently high quality, as attested to by how much of them we've played here at the Tapers Section.

Next up, from about a year later on 10/23/73 in Bloomington, Minnesota, we have the second set jam consisting of Truckin'>Nobody's Jam>The Other One>Weather Report Suite, a classic sequence from this era. This tour, which began a few nights earlier on 10/19/73 and which would run more or less straight through to 12/19/73, features what I consider to be the two most consistently great months in Grateful Dead performance history.

From the very next show on this tour, on 10/25/73 at Madison, Wisconsin (two great jams this week from Wisconsin!), we have one of those stellar 1973 versions of Playing In The Band. You know, by popular request.

We'll now jump ahead yet another year to 10/20/74, the last night of the Grateful Dead's five-night going away party at Winterland. This jam is from the second set and features Mickey Hart on drums in what would prove to be his return to the Grateful Dead. We are pleased to play Not Fade Away>Drums>The Other One>Wharf Rat, mixed from the 16 track master tapes by Jeffrey Norman.

Lastly this week, we'll go 15 years ahead of our last selection, to 10/22/89 in Charlotte, North Carolina. We have a very, very good second set opening sequence of Blow Away, Samson and Delilah, Help On The Way>Slipknot!>Franklin's Tower. The band was almost done their most interesting tour in years, but they sure weren't out of steam based on this performance and what would transpire on the final night of the tour in Miami. More on that next week.

Thanks for stopping by. We'll hopefully see you next week here at the Tapers Section, where we'll check out more great music from 1973 through to 1991.

David Lemieux
vault@dead.net