169. 1973-10-30

32367 St. Louis 28:13 (27:08) (1. Dark Star 12:58 [11:53], 2. MLB 3:09, 3. Dark Star 1:04)

Elastic Ping Pong jam at 6:21.
Mind Left Body jam at 2. :00.
Main theme at 3. :15.
First verse at 3. :38.
Goes into Stella Blue.


After some foreboding messing about on the instruments, Dark Star kicks off at the slow pace we’ve come to expect at this stage. This time the playing is relatively cohesive to begin with, relative to the last few versions. The music has weight and force, with the instruments seeming to struggle against one another rather than flying off on loosely related tangents. As it goes on, they start to pull together.


At 6:15 a groove is developing, and Lesh drops the Elastic Ping Pong riff in at 6:21 and it all flows together this time. He adheres to it somewhat loosely, sometimes wandering away from it altogether before bringing it back. Either way, Phil’s bass continues to drive the jam along (note that at 7:46 he drops in a bit of Footprints). The band works up a pretty good head of steam here, and the jam is a classic instance of their gloopy late 1973 sound when it gets going full blast.


The transition to the MLB section is reasonably smooth this time. This is the second and final time they dropped this into Dark Star before the verse, and it was probably discussed in advance. This segment is more cohesive than the last (1973-10-25), although it gets a rather relaxed reading. At about 1:27 Garcia picks up the slide and plays some eerie and elongated lines. They slow it down, and it’s evident that the theme will come next; Lesh makes it official a few seconds into the third segment, and the verse comes along just a few bars after Jerry joins in.


Lesh is really loud as the band comes out of the verse. At 3. 2:55 it sounds like the band is going into space as things quiet down considerably. Phil starts tentatively riffing, and at 3:35 he flashes the intro to Stella Blue, which will eventually succeed Dark Star. Garcia, Weir, and Lesh gently float ideas around, although Godchaux has gone silent for now. They start to coalesce a bit, although there’s still a lot of empty space here, like they’re slowly blowing up a balloon. By around 3. 6:00 Keith starts to become audible, playing something electronic now.

A rather abstract jam is coming out of all this. As we approach the 8 minute mark of track 3, the music is getting louder and a little faster, and is starting to sound like a somewhat oblique fusion jam. This is where’d we expect the first glimmerings of a Tiger to appear, but instead they stay with what they’re working with and give us a unique back half jam. At 3: 11:59 Garcia flashes the descent into Stella Blue, and then he does it again for good measure and brings the rest of the band along.


This is a really wonderful rendition. The first half jamming is more focused than some of what we’ve been getting there lately, including an MLB jam that works much better than the last one. The second half is something different this time. Killer.


What was said:

Mr. Rain:



The track starts with Phil pensively strumming the bass...for about 40 seconds it sounds like a little jam might emerge, but no, it's just a bit of throat-clearing, and at 1:04 Dark Star begins. All the Dark Stars on this tour have had these little introductions, which must have been intentional. (11-11 will start with one too, this time starting to merge with Dark Star proper.)

Phil is loudest in the mix, drawing attention with his quirky playing. Keith's on regular piano again. The opening's a loose, smoothly-flowing jam with a warm feel. They're very attuned to each other in an off-kilter way, though Phil's behaving oddly as usual. Around 5:30 the jam relaxes even more, getting close to easy-listening jazz. At 6:20 Phil brings in his Marbles riff; right away Bob gets into his regular staccato guitar line. They stick with the theme more or less for a few minutes, but it's very loose, coloring outside the frame -- Phil likes to stray then come back to the theme. The jam picks up some heat after 8m, Keith adding some energy and the others responding til it gets downright zesty around 9-10m. It's like they're being carried along on a wave, caught in a strong current; they hit a little climax of repeating notes around 11:30 & then keep flowing forward; but around 12:30 they seem to be splashing around looking for a new tide.

After some strums Jerry suddenly breaks into the Mind Left Body theme, and the others are right with him in a delicious transition. Bob uses his chorus tone again, and after a minute Jerry switches to slide for a lonesome-sounding lead. This is a very gentle & pretty delivery of the MLB theme, more emotive than it's been. After 3 minutes it comes to a satisfying finish (you can hear a lot of audience applause as it ends, so people were struck by this theme even at the time), and Phil slowly picks out the Dark Star theme. They all fall easily into the theme, and Jerry soon sings the verse (at :38 in the third track here). Keith's still on the piano.

A distorted Phil leads the way into space. It starts as usual but this time they go for a quiet, minimalist approach, stray bits of sound in the void. This is a particularly desolate region of space. At 4m Keith sneaks quietly back in on the Rhodes, with a humming sound (by 6m he sounds like a synth! -- maybe this isn't the Rhodes?). The next couple minutes are very quiet delicate picking, with some volume swells from Jerry -- obviously no one is in the mood for a noisy freakout, no Tiger is going to strike tonight. Gradually the volume rises, and it becomes an extremely loose & abstract jam. Keith's the only one playing something like a melody.

At 7:45 Keith is starting to strike some chords (he's played this pattern elsewhere but I can't remember when), but no particular structure comes together. "Oblique fusion jam" seems a good way to describe it, but it's frustrating for me since I don't really like this style of free-jazz meandering. At 10:20 Keith switches back to a regular piano sound as the jam becomes softer. Phil & Keith give it more of a regular stride, and along with Bob's chords bring the jam into full jazz territory. This comes to a quiet conclusion, and Jerry leads them into Stella Blue. The audience applauds.

This is a Dark Star I respect without enjoying all that much. Very low-key, intimate, jazzy. The Dead are very patient and focused here, getting into a couple effective themes before the verse (which are the highlight for me). Then in the second part they strike out in a totally different direction than what they'd been doing, albeit for me a less interesting direction. There's no audience tape to give a different impression, but this is the softer side of Dark Star. You'd think they were playing this in a small jazz club rather than a big basketball arena.






JSegel:


There’s some bass chords in the tuning after Big River, maybe setting up the vibe… They start Dark Star with a slightly wonky version of the riff and drop into the groove and start moving (at a mellow pace, but they’re all moving forward together.) Phil’s bass is prominent and has a lot of nice low end to it, though he is contrasting the higher notes with this deep bass end. It gets very outside, though mostly within mode, by a couple minutes in. Bobby is finding some little corner of weirdness on his own, the combo of his constant playing and the off-beat notes from Phil make it kind of odd for a while, Keith has cascading patterns going on.

By 5 minutes it’s hard to tell if they are playing together or just playing, but the dynamics move over a crest and it mellows again. Phil is wandering around at the higher end, Jerry starts to play a thematic relative, though with many augmented chromatics to it. He ends by trilling and Phil goes into the Proto-Solomon Ping Pong strongly at 6:20, Bill is with him, finally emerging from a droney sidestick area into a beat.

This jam feels pretty cohesive at this point, by a minute into it, it’s got it’s feel and mode happening for everyone. Bobby maintains his fast picking bits that he’s been doing this evening, Jerry starts to go for the jazz-runs. They build the dynamics up over several minutes, it gets pretty scorching for a while, then Jerry drones out for a bit, it comes down in quick little runs.

In the 12th minute, it hovers about as they move in new directions, some jazz chords from Jerry even, and then it emerges into the Mind-Left-Body descending line for a new section. It slows a bit here as well, making this progression sort of stately. They try out new chordal ideas in there for a bit, and some new melodic ideas come forth, Jerry switches to the slide. He has been liking the slide in Dark Star, but where before it had been sort of bluesy, it’s more prosaic here over the descending progression. Again, this jam seems pretty cohesive now, as far as the band knowing what they are doing, but it only lasts a few minutes and then dies off and then Phil teases Dark Star again in the ebb, Jerry comes in with the melody, Bob with the chords. Verse is on the horizon, a mellow rendition, Jerry holding the notes out lightly, they don’t pause much on line 2, it sort of just runs on. Bill plays the beat through all three lines, no wandering on line 3. The refrain finally pauses the forward momentum, and the outro is very together. Bobby starts his lick but starts playing with it after a couple iterations. Phil steps on his multi-out thing and the bass makes glissandi up to a plateau and they all let the sky in. It gets very small and quiet. Small trills, little string noises. Snare rolling quietly. High little bass notes, Jerry is quietly finding a melody somewhere. The song nearly fades out entirely. Pinch harmonics, quiet melodies. Volume swelled notes. Odd chords from Bobby.

This goes on for a few minutes and then they begin a volume build as Bill starts a tripping rhythmic part. Jerry comes with some shaky notes, still playing melodically, moving into chromatics.

Jerry starts some little chromatic fast runs. The electric piano sounds very Miles, Bill comes in with some hot jazz licks. Keith has some chordal statements to base it all, Bobby still trilling on his chords. Jerry even comes in with some chordal jazz licks. Bill and Phil move it into a Latin groove after a bit, side stick and all. Keith moves to piano. This is sort of a mellow finger-snapping jazzy groove for a while, though the players are all a bit outside. Jerry alternates between fast little runs and chords, tries to go into Stella, nobody comes with until he settles on some suspended chords and then they move into Stella Blue.

Interesting in that the jams are fairly cohesive, the intro playing area is disjunct but has some very cool stuff. The theme-jams are decent. Not the best of the year, but pretty cool.


adamos:


Prior to getting started Phil strums some bass chords and Jerry and Keith make their presence known too. It sounds like something is bubbling up but they opt to quiet down and launch into Dark Star from a full stop rather than letting it emerge. There's a gentle, dreamy vibe as things get doing. They are in no particular hurry but it doesn't feel languid; there's some snap and sparkle as well.

Jerry wanders out and the momentum picks up a bit, relatively speaking. I agree that at times some of the cohesiveness seems to fray and yet there is still a collective thing going on. The groove bubbles along nicely in a stream with changing currents. Phil is prominent and adds to the bubbling feel that is accented by Bob and Keith too.

After five minutes or so they downshift and glide along for spell but before long they start bringing things up again. Jerry weaves high, winding in lots of notes and getting into a repeating thing around 6:13. Keith complements this well and then at around 6:20 Phil starts up some Elastic Ping Pong to which Bobby adds a nice repeating figure. It's a loose telling as noted but it's catchy and compelling too. Billy snaps the beat and the players work around what Phil is laying down. The groove keeps driving along. Around 8:30 or so Phil starts picking up the intensity. He then eases back while Jerry and Keith play off of each other and Bobby continues to add his accents. Things get cooking pretty well in a jazzy sort of way.

Starting around 9:20 or so Jerry makes some sharp-ish upward runs and winds about with Bobby accenting him well. They roll along and with Phil becoming more prominent but everyone is interweaving and Jerry is driving upwards and the groove keeps rolling! They reach a peak of sorts and everyone is riding the groove and it just keeps going. They ease off a bit then ratchet it up again and collective groove just wants to keep rolling. They get into a repeating thing around 11:20 or so and then slow things down and it seems like they are ready to let it go. But not just yet; suddenly the momentum picks up again and they take it for another spin. This go round is fairly short however and at this point they start to downshift into hover mode.

They find a nice little eddy and Jerry hits some notes with a particular feel and then pretty quickly they shift into the Mind Left Body jam. I like the placement here and it follows nicely from what came before it. It sounds lovely and they slow things down and Jerry moves to slide complemented nicely by Bobby. The jam doesn't last long however and it turns out to be more of a pretty interlude than a triumphant statement. But again after the jam that came before it that feels like a good fit. The crowd certainly seems happy with it as well.

Things quiet down creating a nice opening for Phil to smoothly start up the theme. They spin it up gently and prettily and then quickly move into the verse. Jerry sings it softly, in alignment with the gentle telling of the theme that preceded it.

After the verse they reset and Phil lays it down fairly heavily with some fuzz while Bobby plays his figure. Phil starts to sound almost like a stretchy tuba for just a moment. And then Jerry comes in with a stretchy sound of his own and things start to drift out into space. They reach a quiet place and then slowly bring in various sounds, gently and intermittently. Phil adds a touch of Stella Blue as noted by bzfgt. Keith brings in some quiet and slightly eerie sounds and the vibe is very gentle and delicate. There's something nice about this quiet place that they've created; again it seems to fit well with the things that came before it. Things slowly start to build while maintaining the gentle vibe. Keith adds in another freaky noise but their overall sound is melodic and otherworldly rather than ominous.

After 7:30 or so things start getting a little stronger and a path towards a freakout seems to emerge. But on this night they opt to pass that by and morph it into more of a fusion jam, as noted. The volume and intensity ebb and flow as they move through this new territory. It's sort of semi-freaky and a bit funky and also relatively low key. Keith plays some pretty piano starting around 10:20 that adds another dimension and they kind of gently float along again sounding a bit more Dark Star-ish as things wrap up. Things pick up one more time and then they let it go and create an onramp for Stella Blue.

An excellent version. It starts with a gentle, dreamy feel then bubbles along as they find their way. The Elastic Ping Pong jam is compelling and then I really like the jazzy groove that just keeps on going. From there we get a brief but lovely MLB jam which works well as a transitional waypoint. The post-verse space is gentle and delicate but I like the quiet space that they find. There's no big freakout but the fusion-y jam at the end adds something different even though it isn't fully fleshed out.