174. 1974-02-24

151723 Winterland 29:21 (29:00)

Main theme at 18:26.
First verse at 19:04.
Goes into Morning Dew.


The beginning seems slightly more sprightly than we are getting used to. The beauty the band is capable of is in full flower from the first note; the introductory jam doesn’t do anything really novel, but it unfolds with the inevitability of perfection. There are subtle shifts between major and minor modalities, without a definitive decision being made either way; the mutual sensitivity and communicative acumen of the instrumentalists lets them maintain the kind of cohesive flexibility that they have been honing for five years now.


At 4:45 Garcia settles into a rolling pattern that gathers the rest in and drives the jam forward. Kreutzmann pushes a little harder, and the beat lopes forward for a bit until they subside without peaking into a brooding minor soundscape at 6:30. Here tension builds, a gathering storm. Another sally is soon underway, but again they don’t push it too far. Listen from 8:35, as it starts to seem like everyone is echoing everyone else; a sort of fractal beauty is the anarchic result.


By 10:30 we’re spiraling down into a hole; although there’s a beat, it’s just one more element, not a foundation. A minute later the whole thing lifts; they drive toward a peak without ever narrowing their focus. They ease over the summit at 12:40, and now it starts coming together; they open a space for the theme, which they nevertheless withhold, although there are strong hints before they wander off into abstraction.


At 14:35 Lesh and Kreutzmann have something tribal and funky, yet still tentative, going on; the others calibrate their abstract caterwauling to the beat, and another peak is attained. Lesh starts jabbing at the Elastic Ping Pong riff, and at 15:45 he finally uncorks it. He soon wanders off, though; the band is chugging along, and that seems to satisfy him. He brings back a variant of it at 17:01, and this again pushes things along, and he again strays. It’s a brilliantly executed segment, and it’s hard to think of a better exemplar of Phil’s improvisational genius, as he manages to drive the band through the jam without ever locking into a pattern for more than 10 seconds.


The peak at 17:45 is more emphatic than anything previous, and now there is a big windup for the theme. They don’t linger long, but head right for the verse which Garcia enthusiastically brays, a bit out of tune at first. Little matter, he sounds like he’s really into it tonight.


They have so much momentum that they seem unable to pull back into space. Weir hits some nice a descending pattern, and then goes right on to take the lead. This he shares with Godchaux, as the others accompany them. Garcia seems ready to reclaim it at 21:40, and now there is a three-pronged melody with Lesh taking an uncharacteristically supporting role in this segment. At 22:30 they finally wind down, and the audience cheers as the band heads into space.


Bob is still feeling his oats, and he still seems to be leading things here. At 23:55 there seems to be a group decision to take it to a meltdown, but then Weir calls and audible at 24:15 and starts Spanish Jam. Kreutzmann can dig it, but nobody else seems too committed, and by 24:55 it starts going somewhere else. Jerry is playing some pellucid and otherworldly slide licks, and Keith seems to want to rock out, but they all congeal around Garcia, although it takes them a little while to determine what they’re going to do.


Jerry gives them another nudge at around 27:00, getting into a pattern they can rally around and a lovely two-chord jam pops out. Once it’s established, Garcia shoots for the skies, and the music that ensues is heavenly indeed. Another chord somehow gets into the mix—now there’s a B part, and somehow they’re all more or less together. The next time through they let it get away, slipping into a magnificent Morning Dew.


This is where it’s at. The post-verse stuff, in fact, is much better than I remembered it being—there is some indecision, and it is possible to regret that the final section doesn’t last longer, but only because it is so painfully beautiful, and yet so temporary and fragile—like life itself, I suppose. But the mystery and power of Dark Star never ceases—it’s always playing somewhere. Take heart!


What was said:

173. 1973-12-18

113498 Florida 21:44
Main theme at 10:54.
First verse at 11:26.
Tiger at 19:33.
Goes into Eyes of the World.


There’s a pause after Weather Report Suite, and they quickly slide into Dark Star. It’s a pretty slow tempo at the start, which is not unusual for this era, but it feels pretty focused out of the gate. Things get a little strange already about a minute in, as Garcia visits some outside tones and Weir takes a cue from him there; pretty soon Lesh gets a feedback thing going on again. There’s a little peak near the two minute mark, and they keep the intensity high for about a minute, and then they begin to meander a bit more, thoughtfully.


Godchaux is starting to be audible on the electric piano, and when he switches to the acoustic piano he gets even louder. There are peaks and valleys as we’d expect, and the band seems in fine shape tonight. Garcia falls into repetitive patterns, and the others rally around him. With Keith up in the mix, this all sounds really good on the Miller transfer.


At 7:37 they pause and the theme could be imminent, but instead they seem to want to start another jam first. From around 7:55 Weir starts proposing an MLB jam, and Garcia pulls out the slide, but it’s something a little different here; not quite MLB, but in the neighborhood. It’s a little jauntier, and the pattern repeats quicker; when they get to the part where they hang on one chord (if it were MLB) there’s a little confusion. Weir and Garcia wind up on something a bit like Other One, and Lesh jumps on it at 9:40, even hinting at his intro roll at 10:01. This runs its course by 10:54, and they settle on the main theme; from there, they quickly head to the verse.


There seems to be something brewing after the post-verse lick. Lesh is again using the overdriven amp sound he employed to such effect on the 6th, and Garcia gets the volume knobs going as we seem to be dropping into a space jam. Phil gets louder and more dominant as it goes, exploring feedback sounds, and Weir and Garcia seem like his accompaniment here. There’s not much happening with Godchaux in this segment, and Kreutzmann is laying out. Jerry has something really eerie going that starts to come to the fore a bit more.


At 17:48 someone (perhaps Kreutzmann) yells “There’s a blown speaker in here somewhere!” a couple of times. It seemed to be contributing to the space jam, whatever it is! I assume it is one of Phil’s, and it sounds pretty cool. A bit after 19:00 Garcia has gone into wah-wah meltdown mode, and he plays some Tiger licks. He then starts some melodic stuff at 20:04, and Weir joins him while Phil splashes around in the blown speaker sounds a bit more. They eventually subside into a brief drum break, and then they play Eyes of the World.


The band has been on a hot streak with Dark Star since late summer. This is a really nice one, although it doesn’t seem particularly ambitious. The jamming is good, and the post-verse space stuff is intriguing. Not a world-beater, but a good version.


What was said:

172. 1973-12-06

132361 Cleveland 43:32
Main theme at 20:53.
First verse at 25:00.
Goes into Eyes of the World.


There is noodling and tuning, and there are flashes of Dark Star there, and then it sort of gradually turns into a jam, with the intro riff nowhere in sight. Above, for this reason, I just left the timing of the track as is, without determining exactly when Dark Star begins. A good four minutes in, we’re still hearing the kind of stuff that could be a pre-song warm-up goof, but instead the second-longest Dark Star of the Dead’s career is already underway.


By around 4:30 it’s coming together more, and by the five minute mark there is probably an unspoken consensus that they are playing something—and maybe even that this “something” is Dark Star, which is sort of seeping through, particularly in Garcia’s lines. By 7:00 there’s a funky beat, and if this is Dark Star, we’ve gone beyond the initial phase and into the first excursion of the introductory section.


The core remains nebulous, but in the best way—the band is gelling while holding each other at arm’s length, refusing to converge in a way that sometimes annoys my fellow travelers in this project, but throughout the year they have, in hit or miss fashion, developed a way of playing this way that can be very effective. There’s a bit of a peak toward the ten minute mark, and this is again rather Dark Star-ish for a few moments, and as they ease away from it Garcia flashes Bright Star at 10:23. They continue sliding down the backside of the peak, and at 11:00 they reach a point where we almost expect to hear the theme, but this is not to be. Instead they come to another peak, slowly and in exaggerated fashion this time, with Godchaux’s swirling Rhodes laying down a carpet for the entrance of Lesh’s distorted bass which swells to a crescendo at 12:10. Garcia, Weir and Kreutzmann lay in a lilting background while Phil keeps the distortion swelling; Godchaux splits the difference, until at 12:43 he sides with the melody team and Phil subsides into the cantering bounce which, of course, they almost immediately abandon.


There follows a series of feints—they keep threatening to coalesce into a bouncy jam, and then pulling it back again. Garcia keeps proposing a rather majestic melodic Dark Star thread which he then alternates with frenetic runs. At 15:00 Lesh has one of his funky riffs going, and the others soon converge on a frenetic jam which he weaves himself into, and this comes to a thrilling peak at around 15:40. The back end of this is promising something light and jazzy, but as usual they don’t belabor the point.


At 16:30 Jerry’s onto one of his Sputnik-adjacent rolls, which Weir complements; Kreutzmann subsides while the Lesh and Godchaux turn up the minor-key atmospherics. Lesh settles into a long distorted tone, and Keith switches over to the Sputnik team for a while; the two tendencies weave together into a shimmering mesh as we cross the 18-minute mark, and the music swells and hangs in the air, radiating power and beauty—a stunning moment.


Jerry’s Sputnik has become a jangling lick; this could almost be the transition to a new song, if there was a song that started this way. There should be. At 19:35 Jerry starts up a lead line, and Lesh’s bass oscillates and buzzes—I don’t know how long he’s been manipulating one tone now!—and then he starts layering on feedback. At 20:53 Jerry drops in to the main theme; they could put down their instruments now and walk off, and this would be one of the best things they’ve played all year. Instead, they draw the theme out and elaborate on it for better than four glorious minutes before Garcia sings the verse.


Keith seems keen to grab the reins as we enter the second half, and he remains quite assertive as Lesh’s loud bass comes to the fore. Garcia is backing them with some noisy rumbling vaguely in the neighborhood of his bell-tolling tone as they settle into an atmospheric space segment. Kreutzmann is mostly laying out, and there’s no indication that a structured jam is on the horizon; in the quieter spots we can hear the audience declaring their appreciation of this strange music.


It gets freakier, and quite a bit of feedback is coming out of the amps. Phil’s got a fuzzy blown-out sound going now; it oozes out to the periphery and surrounds the space into which Garcia (or Weir?) drops some loud feedback and volume swells; at times, though, it’s hard to discern who is doing what, but there’s a really big sound happening here. At 35:19 Godchaux comes back, tentatively; Kreutzmann assays a rhythm on the cymbals, and more quotidian music starts to emerge as we cross into the 37th minute.


Jerry and Keith get a stereophonic frenetic jam going, and the drums kick in. Jerry’s line veers between harshness and clarity, feinting toward a Tiger and a more melodic direction by turns. Weir is quite recessed here, with the other players drowning him out in the mix as they further coalesce into a fleet jam. By about 40:30 Garcia seems to be fading as well, with Godchaux’s Rhodes coming to the fore, and there’s a short drum and keyboard interlude until 41:04 when Jerry and Phil fade back in, more or less picking up where they had left off. At this point they seem to have exhausted this jam, and there’s not much left to do but let it go and head into Eyes of the World, although they rally for a bit of a last hurrah in the final moments.


What can I say about this? This Dark Star is absolutely stunning; a masterpiece.


What was said:

171. 1973-11-30

(instrumental) 124131 Boston 9:37


Main theme at :00.
Goes into Eyes of the World.


The jam at the end of Let it Grow increasingly veers away from the form of that song; Garcia is playing what JSegel calls the “it’s all the same” lick, and then Lesh picks it up before they drop into the Dark Star theme at the track break. Garcia fritters around pleasingly, then tosses in Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring at :58 before briefly returning to the theme. They head into a rather dense jam from there.


Jerry starts playing a repeated figure with a strongly emphasized plucking note at the end, beginning at 2:46. There seems to be a cut at 3:46, although it’s unclear how much is missing. There are a couple other little fades over the next minute or so, although there doesn’t seem to be anything missing at these spots. The jamming retains a distinctly Dark Star flavor throughout, with hints of the theme in various places. By 7:20, they seem ready to head into or out of Dark Star, as they wind down and take stock of things, and the verdict turns out to be “out.” The last minute or so is some interstitial throat-clearing before they strike up Eyes of the World.


Because they begin with the theme, and because they hew so closely to the basic Dark Star structure and vibe, I will (perhaps somewhat arbitrarily) count this as a Dark Star. This is a very nice little jam in the midst of a typically great late-1973 set.


What was said: