151: 1972-11-19

142329 Houston 31:19 (DS 25:40, WS Prelude 5:49)

Main theme at :05 and 11:25.
First verse at 11:39.
Goes into Half Step.


I have chosen to treat the debut of Weather Report Suite: Prelude here as a jam within Dark Star, as it seems to me that’s how it functions here. This is certainly debatable, though.


The main theme comes right out of the opening lick here, and this one gets off to a brisker, more thetic start than some of its peers. Lesh is very loud in the mix, and we are reminded that the melodic burden is his as much as Garcia’s much of the time. At first, they wind around on the upper and lower limits as Weir and Godchaux fill in the texture in the middle. The lines start to get a little blurred at 3:06 when Garcia plays some funky stuff on the lower strings with Lesh above him.


By 3:50 or so, Godchaux is starting to flick on the wah, as he seems wont to do lately. Listen to Lesh at 4:36 deftly pick up on some of the stuff Keith is playing, which sets up a nice moment. The music starts to unspool a little from this point as they loosen up while considering their next moves. Jerry starts to hint at Other One at around 4:45, and this inflects what follows. There’s a bit of excitement when Garcia starts a little roll at 5:43, and then Lesh starts playing an Other One-like figure which Jerry again picks up, but by 6:20 it’s all over and they’re on to something else! The lines get more drawn out here; at 6:48 Lesh starts working in a riff which we’ve heard before, one that is reminiscent of Reggie Workman’s line on Coltrane’s Greensleeves and a precursor to the Elastic Ping Pong jam.


At 8:27 Garcia starts to suggest an approach to the Dark Star theme. At 8:46 Lesh brings his riff back, though; Garcia sounds like he still wants to head for home bass, but he’s game for now; Godchaux is playing wah again. At 10:05 Lesh modulates the riff upward as Garcia plays a tremolo line, and then at 10:20 he bursts out with a high, wailing line that he draws out and twists until it resolves into a repeating two-note call at 10:52 that seems to bring everyone to attention. They pedal for a little bit until, at 11:21, Lesh finally calls for the theme; Garcia is happy to oblige, and he takes it to the verse very quickly.


The post-verse lick recedes and there is a descent into space. It gets down to almost nothing at 14:05, and it stays there for almost a minute, putting us back in 1970. Lesh oozes into the open space with an almost sub-sonic hum until bursting out at 15:01 with some ominous tones which Garcia embellishes with feedback squalls. This is some properly freaky stuff, until Phil tentatively casts about with some riffs and Kreutzmann picks up the beat, and we go from space into a bass and drum session.


This starts to feel a bit aimless to me. At 20:42 Phil seems to start thinking about how he’s going to get the band back, although he reluctant to start up Philo Stomp. At 20:55 he finally gets into something pretty close to the latter, although it’s not quite the same. At 21:23 the band starts to trickle back in, but they seem tentative. Weir wants to play Feelin’ Groovy, but nobody seems ready to commit to it, and it comes in and out at various points. Nothing is happening, and it’s a drag. By 23:00 it finally seems to be coalescing a bit, and there’s the beginnings of a nice little jam here, but it’s still slightly tentative. After about a minute they seem stuck in a rut, but not fully in a groove.


By the 26th minute they seem pretty lost; Lesh even suggests a return to Dark Star, but then Weir starts up his Weather Report riff. Jerry knows it, it seems, but Lesh and Godchaux lay out. When Keith comes in he seems at first like he’s following along. Garcia fades out, Lesh takes a few stabs. When they both start playing together they pretty quickly take it away from Weather Report, so the band may not have learned this yet. It gets back into a space kind of thing, and Garcia wants to go to a meltdown. By 3:15 or so it’s pretty much chaos, of the ramshackle rather than bludgeoning variety. When Kreutzmann finally stops pounding there’s some kind of nice spacey stuff, but they quickly conclude their work is finished and play Half Step.


The first 16 minutes of this are outstanding. Once it gets into the Lesh and Kreutzmann stuff it loses any sense of direction and turns into a dissatisfying mess. 16 great minutes are not chopped liver, by any means, but I can’t say this is a resounding success overall.


What was said:

bzfgt:


My assessment of this last one might be controversial, I'm not sure. It seems obvious to me that the back half kind of sucks.


Mr. Rain:


It has some good bits, but I didn't like this one much either....I agree they just get lost. Maybe I'll warm up to it more this time around.


JSegel:


A funny tuning section with Dixie and circus music beforehand, they regroup and begin Dark Star.

A strong start and into a moving groove with a few little holds, but mostly all the players continuously moving forward in their lines, like a multi-voiced chorale. Jerry gets into a few little repetitive eddies, Keith follows him, it’s nice. Sounds like band communication is going well. Phil gets on some contrasting high parts, then low parts: lead bass.

Jerry starts into a low string riff at 3:20 or so, keeps at it to get into its rhythm before taking off again, and extending the mode a little, though they stay in Dark Star groove. It moves through a potential lull a minute later, but keeps going, moving through the dip in pulse replete with extended runs from bass, piano and guitar back to a more rhythmic groove with some new modal choice, a little chaotic.

At 6 min, Phil starts a harder riff, but give in to the Dark Star groove again a little later. It’s getting a little ominous sounding, but Jerry takes it higher with some stretchy runs. Right before 8 min there’s some cool up and down arpeggios in the melodic spots. Bobby is really moving around the possible chords. In the 9th minute there’s a cool syncopated melodic thing going on, it eventually dives to small string sounds from Jerry, against the continuing groove, he settles on some choice notes and then starts up some strong statements with stretched string intros. This guitar has a more splanky sound, but he’s getting some nice tones out of it.

At 11:20 or so, the “it’s all the same” rhythm leads to the Dark Star theme and into verse 1 at 11:45. Classic verse playing, Phil doing the climbing 3+3+2 rhythm on line two and the octaves on line 3. The refrain mostly keeps tempo, they don’t really hold out the fermatas until the last line. A big bass chord ends it, and they go into the outro melody and into space. Jerry finding some odd little sounds, Phil going into rubato bass solo area with little trills. It dies out to some stretched drumhead diddles, and little string touching sounds with some latent feedback threatening. A low drone enters.

At 15, some big evil bass chords with guitar feedback drones, a minute later that screaming wah-pedal sounding feedback shriek happens, scary! Bass continues with some rolling drums as the others drop out. Sounds like he may be heading to his bass solo area, he’s building some riffs, sounds like he has multiple channels from his bass. The bass is loud in this recording, by the way, the drums are no match for it, though Bill sounds like he’s jamming along.

Bass solo with drums continues, riffs and chords. The Philo Stomp suspended chord thing starts at about 21 minutes, going to the major chord root, and then he holds the root for a while and the guitars come back in for a feint to Feelin’ Groovy, but it doesn’t go there, stays in the root area in a major mode (though Bobby tries some outside chords occasionally). By 23 minutes, Jerry has a melodic idea, sounds like a hit, boys. They jam out on this. Keith is noodling along this whole time.

It all backs off a bit in the 25th minute bit by bit and then they start the Weather Report Suite prelude idea, a composed chord progression at this point on its way to being a song. Nice place to go to! Yet another emergent song-embryo coming from Dark Star. It’s a pretty spacey version with warbly wah-infused melodic playing.

A couple minutes in it starts to intimate that a Tiger meltdown is going to happen, and by 3 minutes into this section it’s pretty chaotic, just moments after the relative Order of a composed chord progression, they appear to be losing the thread. They go atonal and awry, it heads over that hill and back down, up another atonal hill and over the crest to some volume swelled note pairs and from the legato chaos, Jerry starts up Mississippi Half Step.

Most of this makes a very nice version, the Dark Star areas leading to the verse were prime multi-voiced improvising, and the space after the verse was deep, and then it leads to an ok bass solo area and then a few programmatic tries at theme-jams. It ends up being pretty good but not as stellar as it started. I sort of like the juxtaposition of falling into the WRS chord progression and then falling apart into chaos.


adamos:


Phil is front and center on the recording as things get underway. He lays down a buoyant line that Jerry interweaves with in lovely fashion accented by subtle textures from Bob and Keith. They are moving with pace and gliding through some thematic changes, keeping it rolling with Jerry working high, quick, winding lines. Around 3:05 he eases up a bit and goes lower which sounds cool, then starts slowly spinning upwards again.

Keith comes in with some wah and then starts working the keys. He and Jerry play off each other and then Phil jumps in too and everything is bubbling and glimmering. There's some ebb and flow and the vibe is really nice. Jerry's playing is subtle but engaging as he works up and down some notes. Keith continues to be active and the collective interweaving through this passage is nice.

At 5:45 Jerry plays some repeating notes that the others blend in with and then Phil brings in an Other One-ish line as mentioned by bzfgt. Jerry heads that way and they work it briefly but before long the moment subsides. Around 6:18 Jerry gets into some lower notes and they ease the pace a bit. Bob's textures come forward more and Jerry and Keith get into a quick repeating thing. Phil jumps in with a touch of Elastic Ping Pong starting around 6:55 and by 7:05 they are launching forth again.

Jerry gets into some high, reaching lines and then gets more stretchy and they work in adjacent areas to the melody. Phil's low, bouncy lines continue to stand out nicely on the recording and around 8:50 he gets into his repeating riff again. Everyone coalesces around it and they work in this space for a spell. After 9:50 Bob and Jerry get into high repeating notes while Keith brings in some wah. As they spin things gently upward Phil reasserts his riff strongly while Jerry goes tremolo and then breaks out and up, calling out into the night. They roll forward and then hover briefly before quickly touching on the theme and moving into the verse.

After the verse they reset and shift into a spacey zone. There is some intermittent guitar and keyboard, Phil comes in more assertively, and then it dissolves into near quiet. This lasts for a good spell and then a feedback-y hum rises up before Phil thunders in at 15:03. Jerry brings in some high feedback of his own and they get freaky and spooky including some stretchy, screeching sounds. Then Phil comes back in strongly and he and Billy work it for a good while as the others fade back.

A Philo Stomp seems like the natural destination at this point but he sticks with more general bass riffing for an extended period. At 20:55 he shifts more into it although as bzfgt noted its not quite the same thing. At 21:23 there's a faint wah-ish sound and then the others slowly come back in. They start to head towards Feelin' Groovy but it never fully manifests. Instead they bounce around in this general area perhaps looking for a direction. Slowly things begin to come together and then at 22:57 Jerry heads out on a line and a semi-mellow jam with uplifting qualities gets underway. They get it going pretty well for a couple of minutes but then let it go and shift into hover mode.

From this somewhat tranquil place there's a brief, subtle Sputnik-esque feel (but not that pronounced) and then out of this opening Bobby inserts his WRS riff. Jerry's still playing around with what came just before it and doesn't fully blend in right away. He finds it somewhat before pulling back. Keith adds some tentative accompaniment and Billy's active too. Around 1:30 into this separate track Jerry comes back in with a gentle complimentary line and the whole thing has a pretty feel.

This delicate moment is brief however; at 1:50 Jerry kicks on the wah and starts shifting things in a spacier direction. He increases the intensity and they slowly wander out into the void. It sounds like a meltdown is now on the agenda. Things get somewhat freaky and chaotic but a full-on meltdown does not come forth. Instead they ebb and flow a bit, keeping it weird but not really asserting anything. They stretch this out for a bit and then eventually give way to Half Step.

It’s a good version overall. The first half is strong and compelling. The bass solo segment isn’t the most cohesive but I still enjoyed it. From there things do unravel a bit; it seems to lack the telepathic communication that happens when everything is clicking. Despite this the two minute or so jam that eventually comes together is pretty good and it’s cool to listen to them experiment with WRS Prelude. I agree that this should be considered a thematic jam within the Dark Star as opposed to a separate entity. The final melt-ish portion doesn’t really do much so they may have just been ready to move on.

Mr. Rain:


A mangled Dixie tuning ditty before Dark Star....an interesting contrast! As if to announce this big Dark Star isn't that serious. Like Jerry said before Dark Star on 1969-12-26, "It's not like we're doing something important... If it was that important we wouldn't do it!"
Phil is loud on this tape! And Bill's very quiet. A big change from the bass-light, drum-heavy Dark Stars preceding this. But the mix is still unbalanced and for me it's distracting since I'm forced to concentrate on Phil rather than anyone else. It sounds like he's stepping all over everyone and some of the band interaction gets lost.

Dark Star has a bouncy opening; they're tight and spirited and they don't take long to get to deep jamming. Within a couple minutes they've already reached some distant galaxy, Jerry calling us on the radio waves. From 3:10-3:30 Jerry plays a low-notes riff which sounds like he's trying to start Ramble On Rose, an unusual touch. Keith turns on his wah around 3:50, only briefly, but it's a sign that everyone's feeling inventive. The music gets knotty and twisted, grows calmer by 5:30, then Jerry starts some repeating notes that the others echo (Bob & Keith, then Phil), an edgy feeling creeping in, then after 6:20 Jerry gets into a low rhythmic line again. The music's shifting like desert sands over the dunes, never staying still. After 6:50 Phil briefly plays his Marbles line, which he slowly works in & out of the jam. They fall into a kind of lumbering swing, electric jazz gone askew, and at 8:50 Phil brings back the Marbles line at length. Jerry plays off it; Keith switches to wah; at 10m Jerry tears into a long tremolo echoed by Keith's wah, and Phil reprises the Marbles riff over them. Very cool effect! Unleashed, Jerry soars in the heights for a minute with a great elegant line; then around 11m he repeats a soft three-note figure for about 30 seconds, quieting down the band. They all intuit the theme together and land on it at once; but they don't linger -- Jerry loses no time in singing the verse at 11:40.

And then, space: it opens with some Jerry feedback and Keith doing volume swells (!?), but dominated by Phil's booms, the others soon drop away. Then after 14m there's nothing but a quiet sustained bass hum with drumtaps (some quiet noises from Bob). The hum grows louder and becomes an unsettling drone for a minute. At 15m Phil strums some doomy chords decorated by heavy twin-guitar feedback! Jerry dives into some wild feedback cries around 15:50 for an extra-scary touch.

Bill's starting to get impatient, rattling the drums; after some more strums Phil embarks on a bass-drum duet. This is a disappointing direction after such a promising dark space, and it goes for a few minutes with Phil just kind of noodling around. (Bill's active on drums but he's harder to hear in the back.) This meanders on and on for about five minutes...it's not one of Phil's most inspiring moments. This sounds more like he's idly riffing in practice rather than performing onstage! (An audience tape might provide a better perspective.) He gets into heavier strumming at 20:45 which drifts into Philo Stomp-type riffing, but he doesn't quite want to go there.

After 21:20 the band appears as Phil repeats a welcome-back note, Keith warbling on the wah. Phil hasn't given them much to build on but the feeling is happy, promising, Jerry playing light floaty notes. Around 21:45 Feelin' Groovy materializes in Bob's hands, but it immediately dies again, apparently rejected by the band. They hover uncertainly for a bit, Phil keeping up the propulsion. At 22:30 Jerry starts a strong chord pattern that Bob picks up on (kind of related to Feelin' Groovy), and this finally opens up a structured jam with a nice poignant Jerry lead (frustratingly, too quiet in the mix!). By 24m it sounds like they're feeling ready to move on; Jerry goes for another round but at 25m they're sputtering out. Jerry hints at Dark Star again as they make clouds; but instead Bob starts his Weather Report Prelude from nowhere.

Bob had been kicking around this little instrumental for a while, and they'd played it before in '72 -- particularly check out 1972-07-21, where they really mangle it, like no one else even knows what key it's in! This time it goes better: Bill follows Bob pretty well, and Keith gives it a shot (sounding very Rhodesy), but Jerry gives up immediately! When Jerry & Phil join in after 1:30 of this, they move in a different direction, kind of quiet pastoral with nice wah work from Jerry. (Sounds great, it would've been cool if they'd used this style in the '73 versions!) But by 2:40 Jerry wants to wrestle this in a Tiger/meltdown direction.
There's a tapecut around 2:45 -- it's more obvious on other copies. On the Dalton/Miller/Sirmick copy it doesn't sound like much is missing but that's because there's an extra 10 seconds edited out -- if you listen to, say, the Menke/Lee/Smith copy, there's an extra blast of Tiger craziness which makes apparent that we're probably missing quite a bit of noise in the tapeflip!

They drift into a chaotic freakout, but they don't get all the way to a meltdown (possibly they just had one in the missing portion and they're actually drifting out)....they soon kind of pull up & stop halfway. By 4m they've quieted down and sort of swirl around, making shapeless shapes around Jerry's wah patterns. At 5m Jerry switches from wah to volume swells for a slower-tempo melancholy theme. This is nice but I'm not sure they're all on the same page; it's a little discordant with everyone a little too emphatic. It sounds like maybe Jerry's trying to do something similar to the 10-23 ending, an elegant sonic lullaby, but this time the band's too busy, not as coordinated. So, like on 10-23, he abruptly switches to Half-Step.

This Dark Star falls all over the place. The opening jam is good, not spectacular but pretty inspired. Then a deep 1970-style space and then....Phil putters around uselessly for several minutes, killing all momentum. Bob pulling out his little pet instrumental (that the others don't know) afterward doesn't help, though it is unique. When they get into the wah-meltdown part, things are looking up....but an unknown portion of it is lost in the tapecut. So overall the impression in the second half is that they're flopping around from this to that without direction....maybe feeling a little tired, I don't know.
On the other hand, bzfgt, it's almost like they heard your plea that they're losing facility in creating jams out of nothing and they're saying "oh yeah?" It's telling that they bypass all the normal modular jams in the back half: Phil decides not to repeat the Philo Stomp; and they reject Feelin' Groovy and instead create a whole new chordal jam from nowhere (shades of 1970 again), one of the highlights of this Dark Star; and then Bob brings in a whole different theme that's never been played in Dark Star before, which doesn't quite work in itself but the short wah jam coming out of it is wonderful. So, not all of this is successful but I applaud them shooting for some new twists in Dark Star, even if only a few minutes really shine.