The early 70s are generally seen as one of the better periods for the Grateful Dead’s music. They’d just released the high-water marks of their studio albums, Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty, successfully toured Europe and, in 1974, would debut their massive PA system, the so-called Wall of Sound. It was a pretty heady time.
At the same time, however, Jerry Garcia was getting his solo career into motion. Over the last couple of years, he’d started jamming in and around the San Francisco area with keyboardist Merl Saunders, bassist John Kahn, and a rotating cast of friends. Sometimes they included members of the Dead, other times just locals. But generally, it was pretty loose and fun affairs: lots of jamming and covers. That summer, Fantasy Records recorded a couple of night’s worth of shows at the Keystone, a small club, and released a record, Live at Keystone.
The set – later expanded into a four-disc set called Keystone Companions – shows the Garcia-Saunders partnership in full bloom.
The setlist is heavy on Garcia’s influences: Motown, 50s rock, jazz standards, and Bob Dylan. And, of course, each is filtered through the Garcia-Saunders lens. Songs are slowed down and regularly stretch into lengthy, jazzy explorations, some of them nearly 20 minutes long. Pushed ahead by Saunders’ electric organ and Kahn’s bass, Garcia regularly takes extended guitar solos, bending and winding and twisting the songs until they almost sound like something else. Needless to say, this set has always been a fascinating part of Garcia’s solo catalogue.
However, it’s also a dark and unexplored part, too. For years, the Keystone sets were the only recordings of this band in it’s live element; even then, they were chopped up and released piecemeal, first on a two-LP set, then as separate CDs and finally in a box. Eventually, a few releases would show what this group evolved into – the Legion of Mary, a five-piece featuring Garcia, Saunders, and Kahn, plus Ron Tutt on drums and Martin Fierro on sax – but their wilder period was left to the hardcore fans and dusty soundboard recordings of uncertain lineage, not to mention details.
Earlier this month, the Jerry Garcia Estate and ATO Records released GarciaLive Vol. 6, the latest look at Garcia’s side bands. Previous releases have looked at sets from 1978 (GarciaLive Vol. 4 was briefly covered here), 1990 and 1975, all of which are familiar to diehards but still fun listens. However, this release shines a light into this corner of Garcia’s music and features two full sets of the band in full flight at the tiny Lion’s Share club in San Anselmo, CA. It’s a fascinating and jammed-out record, packed full of lengthy improve, funky music explorations, and even a bit of mystery. Let’s dig in!
The first set opens with a tasty cover of JJ Cale’s “After Midnight,” which is slowed down and opened up for extended Garcia soloing, with Saunders’ organ pushing him along. The same vibe continues with “Someday Baby,” an old Lightnin’ Hopkins tune.
Again is opened up for bluesy Garcia leads. Maybe you’re noticing a trend here?
The rest of the first set is more of the same, which depending on your deposition means you’ll love it or hate it.
Songs are opened up into loose chord progressions and become a space for Saunders and Garcia to trade licks and jam off of each other’s playing, with Kahn and drummer Bill Vitt keeping things generally grounded. Not to say they don’t stretch out – “The System” goes on for nearly 20 minutes – but things never go quite into free-form mode, at least in the same way the Dead’s sets often did.
The first set featured on GarciaLive Vol. 6 closes with a cover of The Band’s “The Night They Drove Ol’ Dixie Down,” which is slowed down, played at a dirge-like pace and wrung for every ounce of emotion by Garcia’s reedy voice and bluesy guitar licks. Where the other tracks stretch out, here things are intentionally kept on the ground. Over the years, he’d stick to this arrangement and, even as his solo bands changed personnel and focus, it’d remain something of a solo Garcia staple.
The second set starts halfway through disc two and kicks off with a bang, a smokin’ version of “I Second That Emotion,” with the band almost swaggering through the Motown staple. And almost immediately there’s a weird element to the music: a trumpet slowly comes out of the mix!
Really, Garcia shows were always generally pretty loose affairs and guest musicians weren’t totally uncommon.
Sometimes Tom Fogerty would play second guitar, other times Bill Kreutzmann or Paul Humphrey might sit in on drums. Occasionally guests would sit in, as someone did on this night. Things were so loose, I guess, that nobody bothered getting the trumpet player’s name. Hence the credit of Mystery Guest – although there are some educated guesses floating around online.
With the addition of the trumpet, the band heats up in their jams on the second set. Their lengthy version of the jazz standard “My Funny Valentine,” clocks in a weighty 19 minutes and the nearly ten-minute version of Saunders’ tune “Finders Keepers,” has them kicking into overdrive, with Garcia running up and down his fretboard as him and the trumpet trade leads. In some ways, GarciaLive Vol. 6 is more exciting a listen as any previous Garcia live record. It’s certainly an adventurous performance.
A little later, the band slides into full-bore improvisation. First there’s a lengthy version of “Merl’s Tune,” which I’ve always assumed to be a jam guided by Saunders’ organ leads, then something called “Lion Share Jam,” a group improvisation. Both are nice, but on the jam the trumpet really shines, giving them a jazzy element that Saunders’ organ certainly points towards, but that Garcia never got around to in his time with the Dead. It certainly prefigures The Legion of Mary, who in their short time together approached that musical form.
Even when the Saunders-Garcia band isn’t jamming, the trumpet is a nice element. They play “Money Honey” as a slow blues and the trumpet doesn’t just fit in, but gives the music an interesting texture; it reminds me of how nicely Miles Davis slipped into “Red China Blues” on Get Up With It. It also lets Jerry Garcia fall back into occasionally playing rhythm guitar, which is also nice: he doesn’t have to try to carry the music.
Perhaps that load’s why, about two years later, Garcia would disband the Legion of Mary and start the Jerry Garcia Band, where him, Kahn and friends would loosely jam on old favourites, some originals and lots and lots of Dylan covers. Gone were the spacey improvisations or tricky jazz numbers.
On the whole, GarciaLive Vol. 6 is a fun night of jammed out music and a welcome look at Saunders and Garcia at their more open-minded period of collective improvisation. And the sound is great also, considering it wasn’t originally intended for commercial release.
I’d recommend GarciaLive Vol. 6 for those who’ve already have the bug.
Those who haven’t, but are curious, might want to try one of the individual Keystone CDs before dipping into this three-hour set. After all, this much loose jamming is not for everyone. But to misquote Garcia, it’s like black liquorice: not everyone likes it, but those who do, love it. I certainly did.
Rating: 3.5/5