There were actually 6: Foxboro, JFK, Giants, Eugene, Oakland and Anaheim. But there were also several other GD-only shows as part of the east coast tour, which might be why 15 got into your head (although I haven’t counted).
I’m not a huge Jarrett fan but I agree that his “ talent” & wide-ranging abilities are astounding. For my tastes I prefer the musicians who are seemingly limited in scope yet they deep dive into very specific areas or modes of improvised music. Of the current players I would say Evan Parker & Mat Maneri are my favorites to hear on a good session or on a good night live.
The first sentence explains why I agree with the second. His ego permeates his music (IMHO), and I can't hear past it. re: Improvisation. Garcia once said there is no such thing as improvisation, there is only composition in real time. Whoa!
Cecil Taylor believed in this sort of thinking/approach. Some improvisors (Evan Parker & Derek Bailey come to mind) were involved in the development in the late 60’s/early 70’s in what was and is known as non-idiomatic free improvisation. Anything relative to melody is avoided at all costs and some musicians (like Parker) have rarely or even never been involved in formal or even informal composition. I’ve never seen Parker read sheet music (what might surprise some here is that avant-garde free jazz musicians use written notation/sheet music much more often than one might think) and I think the primary excitement in his playing is the harmonic and energetic detail and interplay.
So Yo La Tengo announced a European tour with the following image on Twitter: Most other current bands and I'd be annoyed, but Yo La Tengo's love for the Dead is well documented at this point.
Not all GoGD improvisions return to where they started, but there’s something satisfying and even joyful when after a deep exploration in PITB you hear the familiar notes bringing it back home.
PITB is anthemic. The return of The Main Ten brings a sense of ease, and the triumphant return of the PITB theme becomes glorious when Jerry plays the magic Riff. Preferably on the Wolf. Because Magick.
Weir had some very good tunes, but I think he managed to overplay them all (see: Sailor-Saint, early 80s; Dylan covers, later 80s), or else he'd inexplicably drop them from his repertoire (hello, WRS). I've realized recently that middle aged memory has some advantages. I can no longer recall what Samba In the Rain sounded like!
Stopped by 9/11/73 to revisit some horns after the recent discussion on that; stayed for the Dark Star > Dew.
That's a band problem as much as a Weir problem. I mean, if certain members were checked out for whatever reason and the second-banana guitar was left to his own devices ... And I don't mean second banana as pejorative. Someone had to be that as against Garcia. I got really tired of the Dylan covers by '93, but I wasn't as big a Bob D. fan then as I am now.
The era of Weir really flogging his tunes was 72-78. I took a quick look at 72 and 77, just to give a representative idea. In 72 the top songs in terms of frequency, across 86 total shows, are: 1.Playin in the Band - 72 2. Black Throated Wind - 69 3. Sugar Magnolia - 67 4.Casey Jones - 64 5T El Paso - 62 5T China Cat>I Know You Rider - 62 7. BIODTL - 58 8T Truckin - 55 8T - Jack Straw -55 8T Sugaree - 55 Then in 77, only 60 shows: 1. Estimated - 51 2. Samson and Delilah - 41 3. Minglewood - 35 4. Good Lovin - 30 5. Music Never Stopped - 29 Terrapin finally shows up at 6, and 3 more Garcia tunes are tied for 7-8-9, at 27 reps each, but then its Jack Straw rounding out the top 10. In contrast, the two years where Lost Sailor was most frequently played, Althea was played more and Alabama Getaway at least the same amount of times. ( I can't remember exactly, I did a post on it a few weeks ago.) So I think there's definitely an aspect of 'he plays his songs a lot, but we also don't like (some of) them.' For instance, I have zero complaints about the 72 versions of Playin in the Band from 1972. Maybe they should have done a couple more. I feel like in later years when he had more options, it wasn't quite as pronounced, though both he and Garcia did tend to push their new tunes. One of these days I'll look into the 80s, but it's late, and I'm trying to concentrate on this jam from 5-20-73 at UCSB.
The question isn't whether the folks you've listed have taken abstract improvisation further than Monk, Mingus, and Coltrane; it's about how many compositions by that new generation of players reach the standard of the contributions of Monk, Mingus, and Coltrane. As Bruce Hornsby once noted, "Melody. It's the one thing you can't fake." And Lester Young, after a young sax player tried to show off for him by running through a series of flashy bebop licks: "Yeah. But can you sing me a song?"
I’d like to note that Jerry was often tearing it up and on fire during those Weir tunes. Some of his best playing IMO.
Could be the feeling of going from a major key during the opening verses and transitioning to a minor key during the open explorative middle section and then back to the major key for the outro.
We’ve lost focus on what will be the next Dave’s Pick even though we haven’t thoroughly digested and dissected the one that hasn’t even been released yet. Slackers.
I'm just reading Jesse Jarnow's Heads book. Two things I did not realize until now - that the GD in the mid 70s considered releasing their archive shows on a new 'Ground Records' subsidiary, and that there was talk of playing the entire Terrapin suite at Englishtown in 1977, with Weir on the double necked guitar. That would have been something. My vote is for more 77.
Yes, I am aware that in 2018 Grateful Dead music is very much "dad rock" (old rock music with a fairly wide appeal) and many (most) fans live average suburban family lives. However, when this music was being created in 1972, this was NOT the case. The Grateful Dead in 1972 was still a slightly edgy, underground band that attracted both normal rock fans and those that, um, were, let's say a little outside of the mainstream. The music reflects this. Thank Goodness. Also, I know that it's none of my business, but I'm pretty sure that when your kids become teenagers, the popular music (hip-hop and hip-hop styled pop, for the most part) that they are exposed to by their peers will have lyrics that make Pigpen's raps seem like nursery rhymes. For me at least, the Pigpen songs (including the long jams/raps) are a big reason why the Europe '72 shows are so special. As great as the band became in the subsequent tours (continuing improvisational improvement/great new songs), there would always be something missing without the blues/rnb excellence of Mr. McKernan. For this fan at least. As always, YMMV...
