88. 1969-12-11

109897 Los Angeles 21:05
Main theme at 2:36 and 3:58.
First verse at 4:14.
Sputnik at 10:32.
Feelin’ Groovy at 12:11.
Main theme/Bright Star at 18:20.
Main theme at 18:53.
Second verse at 19:24.
Goes into St. Stephen.

The short intro jam stays pretty close to home. They visit the theme after a couple of minutes but don’t change things up much when they leave it behind. At 3:43 they are already gesturing toward the theme again, and it soon arrives. At this point they go right to the verse.

Lesh is very prominent after the verse, so that the little island of normalcy that precedes space is rather intense tonight. At 6:06 they downshift and head into space. At 6:59 Garcia’s tolling suggests E minor. Lesh starts playing with his volume knobs, and things are sort of quiet and foreboding for a while. TC gradually increases the weirdness, and at 8:58 someone starts scritching and weird noises ensue as this develops into a quite intense and far out space section.

At about 10:32 Garcia again inserts some Sputnik licks into the space segment. This plays out until at 11:42 Jerry is playing a more ordinary lead line, and again the transition out of space is subtle as the band gradually falls into line. Some of the things Garcia is playing here might have suggested Feelin’ Groovy; in any case, they break into it at 12:11. I’m not sure that the pattern is entirely set as they leave the chord pattern and then return to it without anything that I am entirely convinced is a thought out plan.

Around the 14 minute mark it seems like they might be thinking about Soulful Strut, but this does not materialize as they embark on a jam that includes Bright Star references from Garcia and a little Feelin’ Groovy backsliding from Weir. It doesn’t seem like they entirely leave Feelin’ Groovy behind until around 16:15 or so; here they start pedalling on a two chord pattern and Garcia again hints at Soulful Strut. By 17:25 they are still halfway in and halfway out of Feelin’ Groovy when Lesh states the Dark Star pattern and this instigates a slamming jam that drifts back to a similar rhythm pattern to Feelin’ Groovy again, before Garcia states a kind of main theme/Bright Star hybrid. Shortly after this, he starts the main theme for real, and they go to the second verse.

This is a an odd one, and I’m not sure if my synopsis is entirely accurate. It seems to me that they spend a lot of time playing Feelin’ Groovy-adjacent stuff. This didn’t knock me out, but it’s a pretty good time all in all.


What was said:

JSegel:


A couple of false starts, even with a count in that goes nowhere! They finally do it altogether and head into the song. Phil is taking lead for a while. Jerry enter with a little flourish and it settles into a relaxed groove with the shakers almost keeping the beat while everybody stretches out a bit. It climbs up and comes back into the Dark Star thematic area for another wave with lots of string stretching from JG. When this crests they come back to the verse intro. Nice vocal delivery, a little distortion makes it sounds slightly raspy, but his notes are held nicely. Cymbals crash on the chorus area.

Middle jam intro counterpoint and hints at bells emerging from a groove, everybody in their own tempo, the cymbals splash, the guitars strum, and it dies off into a new space land. We weren’t quite breezily blown here this time, just picked up and deposited.

The space has volume swell notes from the bass, TC still wandering around. Out of the quiet the bell tolling comes in a bit, striking the guitar to elicit sound. High harmonic spectral timbres from TC dive in and out. Small sounds from guitars and bass. Some sounds like hitting the guitar strings with a metal slide maybe? String scrapes and hits and odd organ sounds make for a very spacey alien conversation. Oddly I’m reminded of the middle of Interstellar Overdrive for a bit! Volume swell notes get higher in pitch, the bass is sparse, and a sputnik is quietly emerging! At 11 minutes it’s developed into Sputnik proper from Jerry, but the band is jumping around it still. No rhythmic groove from the drums to accompany, it breaks and Jerry emerges into melody playing, the band falls in bit by bit, drums and all and it goes to Feeling Groovy!

Major key jam on this for a while, with full band (one drummer just on claves, other on trap set, ride cymbal grooving.) TC has mellowed his tone for this jam to a more flute sound. The chord groove is moving into a semi-Dark Star set of chords within this groove, with heavy emphasis on the A on the downbeat, which eventually leads to Phil just playing A and D on downbeats. He experiments with different rhythms on this, but they go off into the sky jamming on this and he gets in some Dark Star phrases, while Jerry heads almost to Bright Star territory, Bob strongly states the DS chord version of things and at 18:30 they actually play the theme. Then, that done, they retard, retard, retard backing off the tempo into verse 2.

TC plays around a bit on line one, but comes in with Phil for the line two offbeat rhythm. Some odd slow moving around on line 3. “Shall We Go” has its full madrigal vocal outro and the guitar/bass counterpoint to the stately chords and organ drone leading to St Stephen and The Eleven.

Pretty classic version, not the best recording. Some of the lead stuff is great, and we got a Sputnik, though maybe (I am? They are?) still getting used to this idea of the newer progression of things in the “Transitive Nightfall” jam moving from the intro counterpoints being blown aside as the band enters space and then coming out of that with such a short Sputnik area directly into a major key “Feeling Groovy” jam, which has to ratchet down so explicitly before it gets back to Dark Star. Felt like the transitions were fairly musically abrupt. The whole idea of “feeling groovy” seems a little odd within the story-landscape of Dark Star maybe? Though the monster movie aspects of it seem to have left the vocal delivery these days and the whole vibe is maybe different.


bzfgt:


If you mean the title (I'm assuming due to the quotation marks) then I doubt they thought of it as a "Feelin' Groovy" jam in the first place.

You could make the same claim, though, about the major chord bounciness of it. Not to say that's out of bounds for Dark Star, but it seems to dominate the middle section at times.


JSegel:


Right, I guess I sort of mean both. The jam we're call "Feelin' Groovy" must obviously be named post-facto, I wonder if they had names for these things? It sounds like just an extension of Uncle John's Band musically, with the descending bass riff. As far as the major chord biz, when they go for those maj7 chords in the Soulful Strut (?) one, that really changes the flavor. Dark Star, though ostensibly in A mixolydian seems to rely a lot on the e minor/dorian thing as much in terms of mode/mood. That and outright space.


adamos:


They take their time kicking it off and then jump in. Phil and Bob are prominent along with some TC swirls. Jerry heads out with Phil doing his thing underneath. They hit the main theme fairly quickly and then pretty much stay in the pocket although Jerry’s tone sounds a little different. They come back to it and by 4:15 they’re already on to the verse. This opening segment felt cursory which is quite different than the previous version. Jerry’s vocals are raspy.

After the verse Phil and Bob come in with more oomph than usual, particularly Phil who may have been shaking the rafters of this small club. They swirl upwards with TC adding fills and then drift into space. Volume knob twirls, gentle cymbal action that slowly fades, TC fairly active in the background. In comes the bell tolling which extends with pauses adding a more ominous feel. There’s a cool metallic sound like hitting the guitar strings and then TC comes in louder and it’s all pretty spacey. Stretching and scraping strings with freaky soundscapes follow, out of which Sputnik emerges around 10:30.

Phil plays off it in his own way low with the others adding accents and after a minute or so Jerry shifts into a different line. They pick up the pace and it turns into Feeling Groovy. They work in this area for a bit and it slowly begins to downshift and they hover for a few beats and then continue cruising along. It’s now got a Dark Star feel and some hints of Bright Star but it’s still its own thing. Lots of cymbal work throughout. It sort of shifts back into something else and they’re working a somewhat mellow, melodic jam.

The momentum picks up and they’re heading towards a more Dark Star-ish place again but not entirely and they hit a really nice peak starting around 17:45 before shifting into the main theme at 18:20 that quickly starts to sound like Bright Star but they don’t do a full ascent and instead bring the jam down and take it into the main theme proper and on to the second verse.

I think the post-verse space section is probably the most compelling part, relative to other recent performances.