Mind Left Body jam at 20:40.
Dark Star chords at 26:00.
Tiger at 37:58 and 40:43.
Goes into US Blues.
A raging version of Let it Grow blazes along until about 16:05, when they switch gears and settle in for a long jam. Garcia and Weir start winding around each other, with Weir playing the kind of duelist role usually occupied by Lesh. The latter chimes in a bit at first, with everyone else laying out. Phil eventually drops out as well, and from 18:30 it becomes a lovely guitar duet. Jerry kicks on the wah at 19:15, and Bob accompanies him with chords, harmonics and arpeggios. Beautiful washes of melody roll across the hall—it’s a thrilling segment.
At 20:40 or so the guitarists start to slide into the Mind Left Body chord sequence. Kreutzmann strikes up the beat, but it otherwise stays a Weir and Garcia production until Lesh and Godchaux start to slide back in at around 22:35. Lesh is playing very softly at first. If you listen very closely, you can hear a small hiccup at 23:08 when he briefly takes it to the E chord, but the others aren’t ready for that yet. I’m not sure if they ever count this part, or how they keep track, but it doesn’t always line up! They somehow all agree on the E at 24:00 and the jam gets more insistent, with Lesh at last fully present again.
They ease back on the throttle again, leaning into it each time they reach the E. MLB starts to get less defined, and at 26:00 the Dark Star framework starts to poke through a little, but then it starts to disperse--even though they don’t keep the A/E minor change going long, now we’re in a place that could be part of the intro section of a Dark Star. By 29:30 this all starts to scatter, and one of the very loose jams that we’re now used to starts to spread itself out. A very loose exploration of minor chords leads to a repeating two-chord pattern in 6/8 by 30:15, and the band pulls together again.
At 31:18 Garcia takes off! and now everybody takes off. This segment is somewhat reminiscent of some of the jamming they did during Clementine circa 1968, only with a more forward beat. The band is playing with an intense focus, and this becomes an extended peak with Garcia leaning on the wah pedal. From around 34:00 Jerry’s it seems to me there are some oblique hints at Dark Star in Garcia’s lead, although these might be vague enough to be anything. It’s not so much that he plays a Dark Star melody as he seems to be winding up for something, and if this were a Dark Star it might be the main theme.
By 36:45 or so, however, we seem to be heading toward a meltdown instead, with Garcia’s wah effect becoming more pronounced amid Tiger-like expostulations. I pinpointed a Tiger at 37:58, which is somewhat arbitrary because Garcia actually pulls back a bit at this point; call it a quasi-Tiger if you must. The immediate sequel is weirdness, as for the second this remarkably focused jam scatters out and gets multi-directional. They veer back toward Tiger again, and this time they fully commit. Godchaux starts to play some very funky Rhodes to bring them back, and a fast and bubbly fusion jam starts percolating through the hall.
Who decides that they are now playing US Blues? Probably Lesh; in any case, it happens rather suddenly at 43:35, and no one is slow on the uptake, which makes the instigator difficult to identify for certain. They draw it out for a good 3:35 but eventually Garcia starts singing, and we are back in the realm of somewhat, relatively, more or less normal rock and roll, or whatever you want to call that other thing the Dead do.
Although this is probably not really a Dark Star—no main theme, no verse—it is, if anything, more Dark Star than Dark Star. Accordingly, I've written up the entire thing rather than zeroing in on the brief section with Dark Star chords. I haven’t given this its own number, but if anything is in the spirit of this project, this surely is. This is not just one of the high points of 1974—it’s one of the high points of Grateful Dead music, which is to say it’s one of the high points of human life on earth. If you don’t dig this—well, I was about to say that the Dead aren’t for you, but what I really want to say is, listen to it as many times as it takes until you do.
What was said:
JSegel:
Dick's Picks 12 (also AUD)
Uh, well sure it’s a Dark Star in there. There’s a lot of space action after the Weather Report suite which has some MLB jam in it and, like the June 23 version, this one dumps the band into US Blues at the end.
It starts with atonal slow melodies with sparkling little accompaniment, fading in and out, Jerry with a very delicate wah-back-off tone for several minutes. Some audience yells seem to like it as they move into a more solid chord progression that presages the MLB jam, they slowly move into it and begin to build it up.
Over that long hill, they move into a more jazzy wilderness, and at about 12 minutes in it does sound like the Dark Star mode, though it still is moving around wildly, Jerry playing very chromatically. At 13:50 it sounds a lot like a Dark Star intro area, though the rhythm is quickly brushed away, and Jerry is strumming some chords instead of moving into a theme, and it moves into an e-minor/b-minor area, in that same sort of A-mixo world (D major scale.) They bring this up over the next few minutes, Keith and Jerry playing some raging leads. At 20 min there are some proto-Blues for Allah licks moving in, though then Jerry starts playing with outside notes and eventually the mode splits apart and the band falls apart. Jerry continues, moving into weird sounding fast chromatic runs with either an auto-wah or the wah pedal (?) Bill rolls around the drums, Keith places sparse spikes of chords. Jerry and Bob tremolo out into string scratching and odd noises while Bill fumbles around.
Bill heads to a quick beat, and at 25 minutes we enter Tiger-world, big and strong freakout. People clap, it doesn’t last super long and out the other side, Bill and Phil are in a groove, Keith joins in. This lasts until the start of US Blues.
_________
Dark Star is more like any other “theme jam” at this point, I guess, wherever it arises in that mode. Or else it’s any space jam, maybe. Many versions of the Weather Report or TOO (or whatever) go into a jam that has elements of Dark Star within some Spanish Jam or MLB, which is to say, the things that had been part of Dark Star, like the Tiger freakout or bass bombs or various types of “Space” are happening all over the place outside of being within the song Dark Star. Dark Star has turned itself inside out, egesting its pieces. All of those developments that happened within it have become their own songs (UJB, for example, and its parallel Feelin’ Groovy jam which moved over to the China-Rider transition, the MLB jam is slowing moving around before getting incorporated into Music Never Stopped, even the Sputnik that happens in PitB sometimes) or jams that are part of other songs’ jam sections. I will probably always think of the later “Drums” and “Space” as really being part of the Dark Star milieu.
Mr. Rain:
It's an interesting concept, Dark Star egesting itself in a kind of slow-motion nova so its pieces scatter across the rest of the Dead's jams. But I'd make the counter-proposal that the Dead didn't consider these various themes as being part of Dark Star in the first place, it had just been a convenient place to play them. In 1974 Dark Star seems to be turning into a swirling galactic cloud in which the Dead are reluctant to play the usual themes, preferring to avoid any solid structures. Dark Stars lately have been turning into loose free jams, while this one's a free jam that briefly coalesces into a Dark Star.
KeithGodchaux:
I go back and forth on whether to call this a Dark Star. I usually think of Dark Star in terms of inclusion of the main theme (with or without vocals), which I don't recall from this one, but it sounds like it's in there somewhere. I need to listen to Disc 2 of DP 12 a lot more. I have it labelled as Jam (with Dark Star Elements). I just jumped right into it and had some dark chocolate to bring out the Dark Star flavor.
Mr. Rain:
The Dark Star theme's more than strongly implied on 6/28/74; they're all but playing it for a few minutes at least. At any rate, Dark Star teases are also included in this thread.
The Seamons matrix has very little audience noise and the timing's pretty close to the Dick's Picks release. (Miller's copy, which normally would be the preferred source, folds the jam into the Weather Report suite track, so isn't too useful for timing.)
The Dead head into a stretch of spacey wandering after the Weather Report Suite. Jerry steps on the wah for a nice spacey duet with Bob (kind of like their '83 duets). Around 4:40 a Mind Left Body feeling starts to creep in, but they establish it slowly, and not for a minute or two are they fully playing it. Perhaps one reason for the unhurried approach is that Phil has disappeared! He bows out around 3 minutes into the jam and doesn't return until about 7:45, at which time the Mind Left Body jam at last kicks into gear.
Great Mind Left Body with a killer wistful tone from Jerry, and Keith making nice Rhodes chimes. Around 9 minutes they seem to move out of the Mind Left Body into a hovering phase, then return to it with extra force (and Keith switching to piano). Then around 10:15 Jerry shifts direction again, and aha, it sounds like Dark Star! (Or is it? Phil seems to be playing the Wharf Rat bassline at 10:30...) Bob's playing the Dark Star chords, and Jerry dances around the theme without quite stating it. So they're in a Dark Star place for a while, not too different from a regular DS opening jam.
But this kind of peters out, and after Bob's cloud of harmonics at 13:20 Jerry pursues a different course, a minor-chord waltz which isn't very Dark Starry. This turns into a pretty hot jam of its own, with Jerry returning to the wah and hitting some forceful peaks. (It reminds me of My Favorite Things in style, though the chords are different.) After 20m this dissolves into weirder warblings, and Jerry builds up a Tiger. This one's a slow build with Jerry scraping strings -- Phil disappears after 21m, so it's just Jerry, Bob & Bill for a while -- then after 24:30 the Tiger creeps up and pounces for real, reaching full screech at 25:30, although it's a little underpowered with Phil still missing for some reason. After the Tiger subsides, they establish a fast warm groove with Keith chording, and things stay pretty quiet for a couple more minutes until they sneak into US Blues. Phil's so subdued his return is hardly noticeable.
Well, there's only about three minutes of Dark Star jamming here. It's kind of an open question whether the rest can be considered Dark Star-related -- it does the things a Dark Star normally would (a Mind Left Body, Tiger and so forth), but they decide to keep it more of a stream-of-consciousness free jam rather than tether it to the Dark Star theme. Jerry's calling the shots throughout; Phil seems to be asleep half the time, only really waking up in the jazzy waltz part.
adamos:
(Seamons matrix). As Weather Report Suite winds down the Let It Grow outro jam stretches out for a spell. When the "Jam" track begins things are still moving but Jerry kind of pauses and then injects some staggered high notes. Slowly the collective momentum downshifts and they enter a spacey zone that is met with audience applause. Things quiet and Jerry works a sharp, somewhat delicate line accompanied by Bob. They wander in this zone for a good spell with Jerry shifting into wah around 3:30. There is some pretty melody from Jerry around 4:20 after which he conjures up a watery feeling.
Around 4:40 he gives it a shimmering sound and things are pretty and delicate. By five minutes in the move towards an MLB jam becomes more apparent but they aren't in any hurry to get there. It's a lovely, winding, slowly building progression. The crowd starts to get excited with what they are hearing. Jerry and Bob work the notes and the volume slowly builds and Billy comes in and adds some pep. Jerry's line is pretty and Bob's grooving and there are touches of color from Keith too. Things continue to slowly build and Phil reenters and Keith becomes more prominent and by 7:58 they are rolling along and it's pretty glorious. Keith adds some tinkly sounds starting around 8:25. After 9:00 things seem to be winding down but then they build it back up one more time.
At 9:55 they kick it up and Jerry's riding the wave and then around 10:18 they suddenly downshift and loosen things up and out of this some Dark Star enters the picture. At 10:30 Jerry strums some adjacent notes and Bob adds his part and there could be touch of Wharf Rat in there too as noted by Mr. Rain. Jerry heads out on a line and it feels like Dark Star is taking shape. But they opt not to fully latch on to the theme and instead let things disperse while still maintaining some of the feel.
They work in this zone for a spell and things continue to sound Dark Star-ish until around 13:25. At that point they hover for a bit and then change course. There's still a touch of Dark Star at the edges initially but this passage has its own unique feel as it comes together. Jerry is doing some pretty strumming accented nicely by Bob. Bill is quite active and then Phil becomes more prominent and a really nice jam comes together. Keith contributes well to as it goes along. The momentum builds and it's got some swing and they work it well.
Around 17:25 Jerry adds some more edge and then spins out on a wah-ish line while the collective works the groove. It rises up and Jerry heads upward in emotive fashion. They are soaring and it’s both edgy and blissful. There's some ebb and flow and then they charge upwards again powerfully. Good stuff. After 20:30 or so things start winding down but they are still moving with some pace. And then by 21:00 they've entered a freakier landscape.
Things spin and swirl and quiet a bit and then Jerry starts winding towards a meltdown, introducing some freaky pre-Tiger growls. Billy is very active and Keith and Bob are adding accents and there's some string scraping and it shifts into a low-level freakout but something ominous is lurking. Jerry adds some jungle madness and then starts spinning up the Tiger proper which hits its full peak starting around 25:15. It growls and screams and kicks up an intense frenzy. As it breaks the crowd cheers out and then they shift into a new, semi-mellow groove with Keith prominent that slowly finds its way to U.S. Blues.
An excellent and well-loved jam sequence. There’s some pretty melody blended in early and the MLB jam including its slow on-ramp is really good. The pivot to Dark Star is brief and mostly adjacent territory but there’s enough in there to be considered a Dark Star jam, certainly by the standards of what they’d be doing with Dark Star of late. The jam that follows is really nice and then we get a pretty good meltdown too which seems fitting at the end of this wandering journey.
Mr. Rain:
But anyway, it puts the '74 Dark Stars in context, in that this jam covers all the territory you'd expect in a Dark Star, just without the Dark Star part. It's like the song itself is becoming expendable: "we don't need a net, let's just jump." Even when they start it that summer (6/23, 7/25) Jerry doesn't feel like singing it, and the jamming strays as the mood takes them.
It's also been surprising for me to hear how off & on Phil is in some of these '74 shows. You'd think the Wall of Sound would rejuvenate him, but at times there's a big falling-off from 1973 as Phil all but falls off the stage and the rest of the band has to limp along without him. But then other times, like on 6/23, he can really wake up when he gets in the spirit....
Archtop:
Well, Phil discovered Heineken in Spring '72 and it slowly consumed him a bit for a few years there. Not sure of the exact timing, but from pictures, it would appear to have lasted through '79 or so.
In any case, the 6/28/74 jam most certainly contains Dark Star (starting at 10:25), which I consider more to be a philosophical approach to improvising over an A mixolydian scale with A(7) as the I chord and less about the waypoints that were more important in '68-'70 than they were by '74. I mean, one could view Feelin' Groovy as a Dark Star waypoint (or at lest view is as akin to a Dark Star waypoint), but it's also a China--> Rider waypoint, so it's less clearly part of Dark Star; it's more of an extension of Dark Star (and a natural resolution from A mixo to the key of D Major). So to me, it's less about where they go, and more about the harmonic approach used to go wherever it is they go.
bzfgt:
In his book, Phil says WOS/1974 was the high point of the whole trip for him...
Mr. Rain:
Hidden behind the Wall of Sound was a wall of beer cans....
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