98958 Milwaukee 28:53
Main theme at :06, 10:07, 11:46 and 12:31.
First verse at 12:42.
Goes into Mississippi Half Step.
A horrible recording is all we have of this. I’ll do my best to plow through it. We begin with the main theme, and then Garcia spirals off into some high wandering that sounds like it may have been pretty exciting. The band seems pretty fired up from the outset, although this may partly be an effect of the AUD recording.
There’s a burst from Garcia at 4:03, then a little pause where it seems like they’re gearing up for the main theme, but it is probably too early for that. The instruments are less tightly bound together from this point, and the jam seems like it gets a bit stranger. There’s an intriguing bit from about 5:57 where the band quiets down and sends out rippling waves of sound that get louder and softer, building up to a more aggressive passage shortly thereafter. After this, there are several peaks where the band seems to be generating some power, and Garcia really cuts through the murk at times, even if not much else does. It's difficult to give a cohesive account of all this, due to the sound quality which makes it hard to get a handle on everything that’s going on.
At 10:07 Garcia swings into the main theme for a moment, but it isn’t happening yet. The jam keeps going, ebbing and flowing, tantalizing the listener who’s trying to make sense out of this recording. Jerrry brings back the theme on the high strings at 11:46, and it turns into another kind of descending riff before coming back again at 12:31 and leading right into the verse.
There’s applause after the verse. After the usual riffing, Garcia launches a high line with some pinch harmonics while the band weaves a two-chord pattern. Particularly from just after the 15-minute mark, Godchaux is very active here; it would be nice to be able to better hear his interactions with Garcia, as they are in dialogue much of the time throughout this section.
At about 17:04 Godchaux, who has gotten louder and seems to be using a wah effect, moves into the lead for a while. By 18:30 the music is dense and swirling; Garcia still seems to be absent, or else in the background. We start to hear him again at about 19:10, but he takes a while to get out front again. This jam sounds really crazy! It drops into a groove at about 20:00, but it’s a frenetic one, and there still seems to be lots of atonal weirdness. By 20:30 or so it sounds like Garcia is putting on the wah, and he may see this leading to a meltdown.
It's hard to pinpoint what happens when in all this murk, but the jam increasingly seems like a meltdown now. In any case it’s a crazy jam, and now I find that I would really love to hear a good recording! Lesh is doing some wild descending licks; at 23:40 it seems to have come to a head, as there’s a lull, but then it seems like they were just gathering themselves because shortly thereafter the music rises like a tornado. I don’t hear Garcia doing the usual Tiger thing, but that’s the general idea, and the crowd bursts into applause at 24:50.
The storm is succeeded by a quiet, spacey segment, with feedback and scritching, and Garcia working the volume knob. This turns out to be the last bit of it, as after a couple of minutes Garcia strikes up Half Step and the Dark Star is over.
From what I can glean from the recording, this is a major effort. I need to remind myself of all the recordings with which we have been blessed, but it’s tough when you can tell that something is really good but you can’t properly hear it. This is clearly a great one, but it's difficult to enjoy.
What was said:
adamos:
There's a sprightly feel at the outset as they snap into the theme and then head out. Jerry's line cuts through the poor recording fairly well along with occasional textures from Bob. Phil is murkier underneath but can still be discerned. By a couple of minutes in there's a dreamy vibe to the proceedings although they are still moving with some pace. There appears to be a lot of pretty and compelling interweaving going on and some of that magic still makes it through.
Some nice piano accents from Keith around 4:10 add to the dreamy feel. From this point it feels like they are swirling downwards and they find themselves in new terrain. Jerry works some lower, deeper lines and Bob is pretty active on rhythm. Billy's cymbals break through pretty well too and add a touch of sparkle. Around 6:00 they bring it to a quieter space and then slowly build it back up which sounds nice. By 6:30 or so there's a dreamy feel again and Jerry winds some lovely lines with prominent textures from Bob. Phil is working it too but it's harder to key in on that.
Around 7:40 they slow it up again and Jerry cuts through with some nice lines that are wavey and then sharper. They continue to spin a web for a good spell, faster and slower, higher and lower and occasionally touching back on the theme. Poor recording or not it's pretty compelling. There's a nice collective repeating pattern starting around 11:10. They come back to the theme at 11:45 and then briefly work around it before making it more pronounced at 12:30 and then moving on to the verse.
After the verse they reset to applause and Jerry does a high, pinched thing and they start to spin something up. Keith comes forward more and there's a shimmering, cascading feel to his playing around 15:10. After 15:30 they start to descend into lower regions while still keeping forward momentum. Keith brings in some electronic effects which add to the deep and freakier vibe. For a stretch it's mostly him with subtler accompaniment from the assemble. They work in this zone for a good while with things getting nice and freaky.
The jam continues to build and I think Jerry brings in some wah although he sounds more distant at this point in the recording. He gets into some meltdown-esque spinning but then shifts into sharper, rising lines that scream forth. This jam is deep and freaky and has kind of a fusion vibe. After 20:30 Jerry comes back to the wah and starts spinning more prominently towards meltdown territory. The jam keeps going though and everyone appears to be veering towards the cliff.
There's a furious build up and Jerry's guitar is screaming upwards and Keith is adding waves to it and they rise to a freaky peak. They maintain some weirdness at a higher plateau and then ebb briefly before charging forth again. Jerry starts spinning up a Tiger after 24:00 although as bzfgt noted it doesn't quite get to the full growling and howling at least on the recording. It's certainly an intense and furious peak though and the crowd is pleased.
They start to ease up after 24:50 with Jerry holding a high note for an extended period complimented by rhythm work from Bob. This slowly transforms into something prettier and spacier and also a bit medieval sounding at points. There's some string scraping and volume knob action and there's a subtle beauty to this comedown passage. They keep it going for a good while and then eventually let it go. And then after a brief pause they start up Half Step.
This is a wonderful Dark Star, the beauty, magic and intensity of which manages to transcend this unfortunately poor recording. There's a lot we can't quite get but there's still enough to make it compelling.
JSegel:
Odd that this one is with a couple seconds of the same length as the last one…
We have an audience tape! It’s sort of wonderful that way, too, it blends the band a bit. It starts with the intro riff and settles into a mellow ride-cymbal vibe pace and cruises. Jerry soars off the bat and plays upwards and downwards arpeggiated runs with Keith following. Some plaintive bends happen after a few ups and downs, but he still is resorting back to those arpeggiated runs. An eddy forms at about 4:30, the sense of pulse backs off a bit into short gestures, little chordal stretches from Bob. Phil keeps it up for a while, but eventually cedes to the depth of the space they find themselves in by 6 minutes.
Building back out takes a few tries. It’s almost a groove again a few times, but backs off with short melodic things and chordal stabs. A very low eddy comes by 8 and there’s some Sputnik-y feints, but it’s mostly just holding the 6/8 to the swing rhythm, they build it up.
Thematic feints at 9 minutes in, heading back toward a Dark Star groove, with Bill subdividing into twos. Star-theme bits at 9:50, deconstruction still happening from all members. It falls apart into melodic groups of three and then heads back down to an droney pool. Back to a deconstructed falling melodic version of the Bright Star at 12 minutes, which makes it to the theme proper and the verse.
Verse 1 at 13 minutes, nice strong vocal delivery. Nice fermata on line 2, hard to hear a build back on line 3, Phil doesn’t explore much here. The refrain is a nice offset to the sound, and they hold the harmonies together well, people clap heartily as they start the outro to the Transitive Nightfall, with Jerry on high pinch harmonics, making a melody, and some latent happy groove bubbling up from Bob and Phil and Keith. The band moves into swirly eddies as Jerry continues, they start some ‘Playin in the Band’ rhythm stuff (dah-dit-dah, dah-dit-dah) but Jerry takes it to a minor/phrygian mode, and they keep a rhythm forming there.
It starts to go outside tonally, more chromatic notes. Wah-wah on the piano, he has a little lead area at about 17:30. Seems to be dropping to a fast jazzy feel, Jerry is doing his little fast atonal/diminished chord licks but fairly quietly. Possibly Bob drops out for a bit. (It’s the Miles Davis section.) By the end of the 19th minutes, Bob is back and Jerry is getting louder and higher, still they’re plugging along really quickly with walking bass style stuff.
By 21 minutes they are heading for a Tiger-style kung fu meltdown, but the keys and bass are still holding to the jazzy feel, so it takes a while, it gets extremely chromatic by 22 minutes, and gets very noisy and meltdown-y. Not in the Tiger chromatic pull-offs, though, but in chromatic notes strewn about up and down, everybody freaking out.
It dies down a bit at 24 min, but they are still wailing and Jerry finally starts up for the Tiger riffs, everybody scrubs their instrument strings loudly and it seriously goes outside. As it comes down, more enthusiastic clapping! A sustained lull for the 25th minute, holding feedback and some chords.
Jerry starts a pretty folky melodic ramble by himself, and then with some volume swells. They maintain a lower volume pool with feedback and string noises and volume swelled slow melodic notes for a while, in D as it sounds like it might go to Morning Dew… but stays in this space for another minute or two, with allusions to the Dark Star melody even. Phil plays isolated notes as accompaniment to Jerry’s swelled notes and then as they hold the last note, he starts the intro upswing into Mississippi Half Step Uptown Toodle-oo.
__________
Well, wow. This is a great version, really too bad that it’s only an audience tape (or we are lucky that it exists at all, I suppose). I love the pools they fall into in between areas in the first half, I sort of missed those old eddies int he jam. And the post-verse jazz jam leading to the meltdown(s) is epic.
Not the best recording...very murky, like you're stuck in the back row. It's like a flashback to 1970, hearing an A+ Dark Star on a D- tape. But I can adapt! And it gives me the chance to contemplate Dark Star in a different way. The band's all blended into a single organism, rumbling through the theater like a giant whale through the deep.
The beginning's sparkly and optimistic, Bill's drums subtly insistent, Phil steady on the low end, the ringing notes of Jerry, Bob & Keith like splashing waves over the current. By 4-5 minutes it's getting more contemplative; they reach a little eddy at 6 minutes where the jam gets more subdued, then revives. But there isn't any big shift in mood or direction in this opening part; they stay in a straightforward Dark Star mode, continuing in the same vein with little spots of rising and ebbing tension. The theme's often hinted at, and by ten minutes or so they seem to be in stasis; in this sound quality it's starting to get a little monotonous. But then Jerry repeats the main theme after 11:40 (in Bright Star fashion, echoed by Keith); the rest of the band slowly comes around to it until they're all swingin' the theme, and the verse comes triumphantly at 12:42 -- a very nice buildup.
They don't go for space after the verse at all but throw themselves right back into a jam, Jerry pinching high notes. The mood gets looser around 16m, and sometime after 16:30 Jerry drops out for a while and Keith takes over with a wah piano solo. Funny how Keith sounds way more assertive here than normal! The playing gets jazzier and more hectic; Jerry comes back around 19:30 and grabs the lead again. The jam gets more frantic, like they're getting sucked into a whirlpool; around 21m Jerry's got his wah spirals going, aiming for a Tiger. The intensity keeps rising, Jerry high-strung & wailin', everyone in a tizzy, getting crazier at 23m, Phil puttering madly. At 24m they teeter precariously on the edge, then plunge over the waterfall into a ferocious Tiger. The audience claps after it bursts at 25m. Jerry's sustained feedback lingers in the air, then turns into Bach-like ponderings over Phil's warbles. Then all of a sudden they're a graceful classical string trio, all violins & cellos playing a hazy melody on the edge of feedback. The last note dies away, in one of the only times I can think of where Dark Star actually comes to an end. Then Jerry plucks Mississippi Half-Step to wild applause, a very odd transition.
Hard to hear, but remarkable. This is a very straight-ahead, unified Dark Star where they all seem fixed on a common goal without any digressions. Particularly after the verse, which often breaks up into sections, here the jazz jam/meltdown/aftermath comes off as a single movement, steadily building in speed & intensity until it explodes and we're left with petals rippling on the water. Unique & outstanding finale. Phantom ships sail phantom tides, until Half-Step rudely breaks the spell.
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