I'm not very familiar with that specific sequence, but I feel that 77 has more/better jamming than it is given credit for around here. No, they aren't doing 72-74 era meltdowns every night, but there is some great song to song flow that is often so "just exactly perfect" that it sounds composed. I certainly get that it isn't as close to the edge as other eras and can come off as "safe" but I never put on a spring 77 show and come out feeling short-changed.
Seek out the entire show. It's a killer. One of my all time favorite 71 shows. I've probably listened to 11-14-71 a hundred times over the years. It never gets old.
I bought Surrealistic Pillow in the late Summer of ‘96. I was transfixed from the first moment that the tribal drums of “She Has Funny Cars” start up.
Pillow/Baxter’s/Crown/Volunteers is as great a 4 album run as anyone has ever done (and the pointed live album)
That's a very good one from an era that isn't quite as good. It's certainly frenetic, which is good when it works and it does here. I saw a few back around that same period (including 10/20/83 from the front row) and it was always a highlight even if it wasn't great.
I bought it nine years later than you (it was the first JA album in my collection). That opening track remains one of my favorite Airplane songs. I hadn't listened to the Dead yet (only the edited "Dark Star" on Zabriskie Point), but a month after buying Surrealistic Pillow I would get Anthem of the Sun. (My original intention was getting Baxter's, but the record shop had sold it, so I decided to give the Dead a try. "A studio/live hybrid? That sounds interesting").
The Movie Soundtrack has some notable deficiencies, including mixing songs from different nights together into single musical sequences. I know that's what they did for the Movie, yet the music should be presented as it was performed, not as it was edited. Plus there is simply too much missing, every note of that run should be released.
Wow, this 8/3/69 show at the Family Dog at the Great Highway, San Francisco, is just nuts. It's nuts in a good way, but just nuts. It starts out kind of '69 conventional with a rockin' Hard To Handle, through some other standards for the time. Then with Dark Star, it starts to get weird. They've got a jazz violinist and sax player (David LaFlamme and Charles Lloyd, although that's debatable) sitting in with them at this point, and this version is just tripped out and psychedelic as I've ever heard the Dead. The Dark Star morphs into Alligator, Drums, then a 35 run of The Other One>Caution which is just as high-stakes, high-energy, tripped-out and wild as the Dark Star, as you can tell the guys are just trying to show the jazz players how far out they can stretch it. Then, inexplicably, it all melts into a calm, peaceful Goodnight. Cool show!
The identity of the violin and sax player are speculations, and likely good one, yet I do not believe they have ever been 100% confirmed.
Just starting 8/3/82 at Starlight Theater, and damn, this show opens up hot! I can feel it, this is gonna be a g o o d one...
Listening to this now myself (a Miller AUD, I have a SBD too somewhere). Whole show is strong, set 2 is real good even the pre-drums which may not look as strong.
Very true (like Takes Off too). They were THE 60s band to me (well maybe SF band, there was an English band or too). They could bring it live as well.
I would need to get my copy down off the shelf, but I don't think any of the jam sequences feature mash-ups from different nights - Disc 2 has the 10/17/74 jam sequence, Disc 3 the 10/18/74 jams and so on. Yes, there's some questionable editing (a holdover from 1974, when Phil & Bear literally cut chunks from some of the multitracks) & OF COURSE it should all be available, but I think it works very well as an overview set.
I've got to give JA some more listening time. I love Surrealistic Pillow but never really got into the rest of their albums. I did like Pointed but it didn't leave me wanting more.
Volunteers is arguably their most mature album. After Bathing at Baxter's is their most lysergic. Crown somewhat between those. The core 6 on these albums were some gifted crazy people.
I've always found Takes Off and Pillows too wimpy sounding for my taste, whereas Baxters, Crown and Volunteers are a lot more muscular sounding and really hit the spot - same as their live gigs from late '67 till Spencer left Honorable mention for Blows against The Empire, absolute masterpiece IMO
