13801 MSG 8:15
Main theme at 2:08.
First verse at 2:25.
Goes into Drums.
With David Murray sitting in, the band uncorks a 16-minute Estimated Prophet that gets suitably freaky on the home stretch; perhaps because they’re feeling their oats now, they break out Dark Star next. We know, however, that Dark Star doesn’t necessarily mean that there is an improvisational adventure on the horizon, anymore. We just have to see what we get.
Lesh seems to be the one pushing for Dark Star, and after some preliminaries which could as easily be tracked as the last bits of Estimated Prophet, he gets the result he’s looking for. Murray stays out of it entirely, letting them get it together. They bring it to the verse rather quickly, which might not be a bad thing since we’ve only got 8 minutes and we’re unlikely to hear the second verse.
The jamming is pretty normal at first. At about 4:05 Murray creeps in, and he sounds good. Garcia is deferential; he works his way back in, but they seem a little tentative still. Since we’ve just heard them both unleashed on Estimated, this ought to work, but time is running out.
At 6:55 the playing gets more abstract, and it seems like we’re finally getting somewhere, but they’re about to hand it off to the drummers. It’s getting better, but they’re letting the center unravel, and we know that it’s ending.
And so it does. This is nice as a little tag-on to the massive Estimated Prophet, but isn’t up to a whole lot in its own right.
What was said:
JSegel:
David Murray joins on sax for the set, which brings a Dark Star that leads to Drums and Space. Mr Murray was so pleased that he even made an album of Grateful Dead music 3 years later and titled it “Dark Star.”
Coming after a long (16 min) Estimated Prophet jam with a lot of crazy keyboards and squealing saxophone devolving into wild atonal skronk, they move into Dark Star in the jazz-comping breakdown, Phil starts a riff that is similar to the intro riff, and Jerry and Phil sort of bring it into the Dark Star theme, though it takes a minute or so to settle. It eventually becomes the Dark Star theme groove and Jerry starts the verse. Everybody plays the riff through the lines, to the e minor on line 3, they crash into the refrain and pause, not everyone together on the downbeats. To the outro, it seems like Phil is in his own tempo and the rest of the band isn’t quite with him as they enter the next groove section. Sax comes in low and starts a solo at 4 minutes, Jerry is sort of backed-off for most of this. Sax builds to a crest, Jerry has a few little fast jazzy runs, it’s all a bit chaotic sounding. Some back-and-forths in the 6th minute and atonal weirdness, it starts to die down, Jerry takes a short mellow solo as it dissipates and they all drop out and leave the drummers to the Drums track.
Drums is 13 minutes, followed by 10 of Space before they enter Wharf Rat. Mickey plays hand drums and Bill plays an odd rhythm on his kit for a good 6 minutes before the electronic weirdness comes in. The hand drums stay in or come back after a bit, with echoes, and at the end it cedes to the springs and manipulated echoes that lead to the Space track. Guitars come back in, quiet at first with the midi stuff, building with artificial horn sounds in weird melodic fragments. After a couple minutes there’s a lot of stuff in there swirling around, sax and guitars and keyboards and it gets very weird. It gets quiet int he middle and Jerry is back sounding like a guitar, in duet with sax for a bit, and odd e-percussion sounds. Very free jazz. Jerry goes for midi-flutes and horns again and they build it up for a big wave of sounds that comes back down and moves into Wharf Rat.
Sort of a minor Dark Star section, a little chaotic and skronky. Not the best. None of the following Space really relates to it. Even though I do like the free jazz, I wasn’t really into David Murray’s contribution here.
adamos:
Estimated Prophet gets nice and freaky with David Murray letting it rip. Towards the end it spins and swirls and careens into weirdness and then they ease up and walk it along for a bit led by Phil. Slowly it becomes more Dark Star-ish and things start to take shape with Phil in particular bringing it to fruition. It's a nice birthing. They work the theme briefly before starting the verse at 2:25. Jerry's voice sounds pretty weary.
After the verse they reset a little feebly and then carry forward but without much oomph. Perhaps they wanted to create space for David Murray who comes back in at 4:05 with some low honking and then gently spins it up. The ensemble holds down the framework and adds accompaniment. Phil works a bouncy line and Murray picks up his intensity a little. Vince swirls mellowly in the background along with Bob's rhythm. Jerry plays off Murray mainly in a complimentary roll, occasionally asserting himself more.
After 6:30 or so things pick up a bit more but it's all still relatively low key. By 7:00 it's getting a little weirder but they aren't really grabbing the bull by the horns. Instead they gently glide and stretch for another minute or so before winding down and giving way to Drums.
This had potential but they essentially treated Dark Star as a brief waypoint between bigger freaky jams in Estimated and then Space.
Mr. Rain:
A new guest saxophonist in this Dark Star! Is this the key that'll unlock Dark Star's improvisational closet once more? Well, no...the actual timing of this Dark Star is more like 7:30, not very long.
I listened to the Miller copy which has better tracking. Dark Star follows a long, loose & rambling Estimated Prophet jam which gets pretty wild with David Murray's squalls toward the end. It almost sounds like they're spiraling into a noise meltdown, but their freakout calms down after a couple minutes. As they putter around in the aftermath, Phil switches from some walking-bass to quoting the Turtles' "Happy Together" on bass! (At least I think that's what it is, could be something else.) But a cool moment comes when Jerry joins him and they wander into the Dark Star theme hand-in-hand together. Lovely introduction.
No Murray in the opening here, just the Dead doing a nice theme jam. Vince is using both piano & synth sounds, but otherwise it's kept simple. Jerry sings the verse at 2:00. Someone's making squonky sounds in the verse & afterwards, I'm not sure who.
The main jam opens evocatively; Phil's really captivating. Murray comes back on sax after 3:45, and they let him take the lead. Jerry gets a little more active after a minute, but this jam sounds like it's treading water. (Actually it's not all that different from the Estimated jam.) It's kind of bouncy but they're just loosely free-styling; in response to Murray, Jerry's playing is very angular & fragmented while Phil keeps up a groove. There's a kind of climactic flurry after 6m; they're spacing out by 7m, and Jerry kicks on some last-minute fuzz....but rather than head into new territory, they just unceremoniously stop for Drums.
The wild MIDI noises are kept for Space, and here the Dead go to town with Murray fitting in well with their bizarre crazy-toon orchestra. The second half of Space gets quite freaky & frantic and reaches a mad finale -- if it had been played in Dark Star, it would have made one of the top Dark Stars of the '90s. But the Dead have long divorced Space from Dark Star, and rarely do the two intersect now.
Well, this kind of serves as an Estimated Prophet jam part 2 with a Dark Star interlude. I find it rather opaque, but the main jam's definitely different from how they usually approach Dark Star, and Murray's touch is distinctive. I get the feeling they already played out this style in Estimated and don't try to find anything new in Dark Star; the real adventure is reserved for Space. Still, it stands out from the mostly uninspiring recent versions.
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