Lost Live Dead: December 2025

October 1, 1967 Greek Theatre, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA: Charles Lloyd/Grateful Dead/Bola Sete (Sunday) "Potpourri" Presented by Associated Students of University of California 1:00pm
One of the unseen drivers of the rise of rock music in the '60s was the entertainment budgets of colleges and universities. Schools generally believed that one of their functions was to serve not only the students but to the surrounding community. Large schools in relatively isolated areas were often focused on simply entertaining the students, which was one reason that college sports were so central. Schools in larger areas had a smaller burden of entertainment, per se, but Universities felt it was important to bring culture to the community outside of mainstream entertainment. Thus a school like the University of California at Berkeley had a substantial budget for performing arts, and the assumption was that ticket sales alone were not required to finance music, dance or theater presentations.

Back in 1967, UC Berkeley presented many musical events that would not make back their costs from ticket sales. Since the school would provide facilities at a reduced cost, or sometimes free, and often provide a subvention for performers fees, performers could get booked at a price competitive with for-profit performances. While schools generally worked with professional booking agents, those agents took advice from students on a school's "Entertainment Committee" or a similarly construed group. The October 1, 1967 booking at the Greek Theatre of Charles Lloyd, the Grateful Dead and Bola Sete appears to be just such an event. A University show with some discernible input from students led to the Dead's first of 29 performances at the venue.

This post will look at the October 1, 1967 show at the Greek Theatre, with an emphasis on how such an odd booking came to pass. Despite our paucity of information about the show itself--we have one photo and one brief review--we can tell a lot from the circumstances surrounding it. If anyone has additional insights, corrections or useful speculation, please include them in the Comments. Flashbacks encouraged.

The September 29, 1967 (Friday) Daily Cal ran a picture to promote the Sunday show. The caption said "BLOWIN' COOL....Charles Lloyd as well as The Grateful Dead and Bola Sete will appear Sunday, October 1, 1:30 pm in the Greek Theatre."

It is generally accepted that an any snapshot in time, American college students are on the front lines of whatever is cool and hip in the States at that moment. Young and impressionable, mostly free from parental constraints and mostly with enough implicit capital to make some of their own choices, college students are the most able to figure out the Next Big Thing. Decades later, they may be proud of their early choices in music, fashion or politics, or, conversely, perhaps anxious to destroy any digital records of the time they got an eyebrow piercing. College students are essential for determining what is cool at any given moment.

It is a paradox, however, that the same schools these students attend are always about five years behind the curve. This is part of the dance of cool--when an institution figures out what is happening, any true hepcat knows that it is time to move on. So it was that in mid-60s colleges and universities, it was accepted that modern jazz was what students liked. Rock and roll was fun to dance to, but it was kid stuff--serious young men (and their future wives) saw jazz as the proper province for hip music. Intellectual but grounded in dance, middle-class but arising from black culture, learned but requiring an ineffable ability to swing, hated by parents, just possibly iniquitous, modern jazz was the ideal music for the with-it college student. So Colleges and Universities regularly booked modern jazz performers.

Now, undergraduate young men in 1967 at a place like UC Berkeley liked jazz well enough, no question. They knew about Coltrane, or Dizzy Gillespie, sure, even if they might not actually recognize any of their records if they heard them. But what was happening by '66 was rock, starting with the Beatles, supercharged by the Rolling Stones, and made serious by Bob Dylan. In the 1970s, a few years later, UC Berkeley would accept that undergraduates were serious about rock, but that was still years away. Back in 1967. the school was going to support jazz, but not yet rock. Any students who wanted some rock were going to have to find a way to sneak it in.

The William Randolph Hearst Greek Theatre, known in town as simply the Greek Theatre, is a large outdoor venue at 2001 Gayley Road, just above the campus. Built in 1903 and modeled on the ancient Greek theater of Epidaurus, it held up to 8,500 people. Huge rows of stone seats extended upwards in a giant bowl. The University used it for graduation and high profile speeches. UC Berkeley, being UC Berkeley, explicitly spelled it English-style as "Theatre" rather than the Americanized "Theater." In the '60s, the Greek Theatre was actually too large for popular music, since no groups (save the Beatles) could draw that many fans. It was such a lovely setting, however, that it was regularly used for events like the final day of the Berkeley Folk Festival, since it could accommodate all who wanted to attend.

The metadata of this booking suggests that UC Berkeley was subsidizing a multi-act jazz show at the Greek. In those days, Universities had a substantial budget for student entertainment, but the performers had to broadly fit a category that the institution considered "art." Sometime in the previous decade, modern jazz had been elevated to serious music, like the symphony, so school funds could bring in jazz acts without concern about whether ticket sales would cover the price.

Notice on the poster above that the Grateful Dead are only represented by a picture, just like Charles Lloyd and Bola Sete. Their photo makes them look hipsters rather than hippies, and unlike the other two acts they are not holding their instruments. A performance picture of the Dead with their guitars and banks of amplifiers would clearly tip that they were a rock band. Everyone knew this, of course. But it's clear to me that some hippies on some student committee had pitched the Dead as serious improvisers, like a jazz group. This wasn't untrue, actually, it's just that they didn't play jazz. The audience for this posing would have been whatever university administrators approved funding, since all the students actually knew what was what.

Charles Lloyd
Charles Lloyd's current album was Love-In, released on Atlantic Records in July 1967. It had been recorded at the Fillmore on January 27, 1967, and the cover featured a photo of Lloyd's quartet framed in the psychedelic wash of the Fillmore light show. Corny as the album title and photo seem now, it was no small thing. First of all, Jim Marshall's cover shot gives a surprisingly rare color view of the Fillmore stage as it actually looked in early '67. The performers are visible, but they are part of a broader palette created by the light show. Within a year or so, even the Fillmore lighting emphasized a clear view of the performers, with the lights more in the background. In early '67, however, the lights still subsumed the musicians.

Secondly, Lloyd was an established New York jazz player when that was the pinnacle of the jazz world, and his willingness to not only perform at the Fillmore but title his new album Love-In was a significant diplomatic visit from the jazz universe to the hippie rock world. Lloyd was from Memphis, but he had moved to Los Angeles to study music at USC in 1956. He had replaced Eric Dolphy in the Chico Hamilton Quintet as 1960, playing with the likes of Gabor Szabo and Albert Stinson. By 1964 he was established in New York, playing with Cannonball Adderley. Lloyd had released the great album Of Course, Of Course in 1965 with the Miles Davis rhythm section.

In 1968, Keith Jarrett made a folk-rock album, overdubbing all the instruments, particularly guitar, and vocals on a single-day (March 12). Restoration Ruin isn't good, by all accounts, but it shows that Jarrett was listening to what was around him. He lived in the Haight Ashbury during that period.

Lloyd's quartet included the phenomenal Keith Jarrett on piano and Jack DeJohnette on drums, both of whom went on to stellar jazz careers. Earlier in 1967, Cecil McBee had been on bass, although Ron McClure may have replaced him by the time of the Greek Theatre show. Keith Jarrett actually ended up living in the Haight-Ashbury during some of his time with the Lloyd group. In 1968, Jarrett would even release the album Restoration Ruin, recorded in one day (March 12 '68) at Atlantic studios, with him overdubbing guitar, bass, drums and "sub-Dylan" vocals. It's a folk-rock album, and apparently quite bad, but it's a sign that he wasn't detached. So while Lloyd's quartet was playing modern jazz with no compromise, they weren't isolated in some bubble.

The Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead were rock stars in San Francisco before they had even released their first album. In the latter half of 1966, the Chronicle regularly published pictures of Jerry Garcia and the Dead when they had upcoming events. Since the band had no recordings, few people would have heard them, particularly outside the city itself, but they had been identified as stars already. The band's debut album had been released in March, 1967. In April, KMPX (106.9) had debuted as the first "free-form" FM rock station, playing rock album cuts 24/7. While I don't actually think the Dead got as much airplay as groups like Cream or Traffic, the band were favorites of station manager Tom Donahue. In a famously-circulated aircheck, Donahoue spent an hour with Garcia and Phil Lesh, discussing their favorite records. Since KMPX was literally the only such station, any FM rock listeners had to have heard of and heard the Grateful Dead by the Fall.

Bola Sete at the Monterey Jazz Festival, recorded on September 17, 1966. Released by Verve Records in 1967, produced by Creed Taylor. It would reach #20 on the Billboard Jazz chart.

Bola Sete
Bola Sete (1923-87, born Djalma De Andrade) was a Brazilian guitarist. His nickname means "Seven Ball." Born in Rio de Janiero, he had formal training in music and had played in South America and Europe in the 1950s. His manager had brought him to America, and he was playing at the Sheraton Palace in San Francisco in 1962 when he impressed Dizzy Gillespie. Dizzy brought his piano player (Lalo Schifrin, later famous for the immortal "Mission Impossible" theme) to hear him, and it turned out that they had played together in Argentina. Dizzy brought Bola Sete to the 1962 Monterey Jazz Festival, and took him on tour.

After touring with Gillespie, Bola Sete had played with pianist Vince Guaraldi in San Francisco (who was later famous for soundtrack to the TV Peanuts cartoons, among many other works). Besides popular recordings with Guaraldi, Bola Sete had success with his own music. Bola Sete was a unique crossover of jazz and Brazilian music when both were popular. His regular trio included Sebastiao Neto on bass and Paulinho De Costa on drums. Bola Sete's most recent album at the time of the Greek Theatre show was Bola Sete at The Monterey Jazz Festival, recorded on September 17, 1966, produced by Creed Taylor and released on Verve Records in 1967.

San Francisco jazz trombonist Turk Murphy (L) and SF Examiner music writer Phil Elwood (R), probably some time in the 1950s

Potpourri at The Greek, October 1, 1967
San Francisco had two daily papers, the morning Chronicle and the afternoon Examiner. Each had substantial music writers who covered jazz as well rock, blues and soul music. The Chronicle's Ralph Gleason has been appropriately acknowledged as a crucial promoter of the careers of many artists, not least the Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead. Gleason was also a founding editor of Rolling Stone magazine, and had a long and distinguished career.

Phil Elwood (1926-2006) of the San Francisco Examiner, while working at the less popular afternoon paper, nonetheless retains a high standing as a music critic. Elwood genuinely enjoyed going out at night to see music, and he would see performers in the largest arenas or in a tiny neighborhood restaurant. His ears were golden, too, whether he was out seeing jazz, rock, folk or some guy playing bouzouki in a Greek joint. Elwood's premier claim these days was that he gave Bruce Springsteen his first good review--in 1970!--on a night when he went out to cover Boz Scaggs at the tiny Matrix club. So Elwood's review of any show is just as valuable as Gleason's, even if he doesn't have the big profile. Elwood went to the Greek Theatre show on October 1, 1967, and wrote about it in in the Saturday Examiner, along with another show he had checked out earlier in the day:

A BIG DAY FOR JAZZ FROM UC TO THE BAY-Phil Elwood, San Francisco Examiner October 2, 1967 (excerpt)
It was a big day, yesterday, for the sophisticated jazz fan.

Eleven hours of mainstream swing and traditional Dixieland flowed from the Club Pier 23 on the Embarcadero during the Bill Napier benefit, and nearly four hours of the University of California's musical potpourri absorbed the afternoon at the Hearst Greek Theatre on the Berkeley campus.

About 5000 attended the Cal "Centennial Jazz" matinee and the Napier benefit drew over 500 to the waterfront festivities.

I would wish the two events could have been shuffled occasionally: the informal enthusiasm at the Pier 23 was missing at the Berkeley show, and the modern musical experimentation was lacking on the waterfront.

In Berkeley the Grateful Dead, rock-blues group, a generally interesting and popular electronic band, was boring. In an outdoor environment with brilliant sound projection (and the Greek's naturally superlative acoustics) the Dead's presentation never grabbed the audience and took them aloft.

No one danced, nor indicated any desire to, and other than Jerry Garcia's wonderful guitar variations there wasn't anything very interesting in the Dead's hour of ordinary chord changes, occasional vocals, and undistinguished rhythms.

The Charles Lloyd quartet, in contrast, displayed superlative individual musicianship, fascinating complexities in their ensemble performance, and a wide ranging series of themes on which to improvise.

Pianist Keith Jarrett constantly taunted leader Lloyd into esoteric flute or saxophone expressions, and when Jarrett devoted his whole introductory solo space to variations on strummed-piano strings and microphonic percussion, the Greek Theatre audience roared with delight.

I have never heard Lloyd's quartet in a more exuberant mood and their artistic good humor and good taste might well have been noted by the dour Dead.

The Bola Sete trio introduced the afternoon with a typical cross section of Sete's appealing guitar. His Bach, Villa Lobos, and Haydn mixed with flamenco and Brazilian themes is one of the most attractive blends of musical expression on the American scene.

An ad for the Grateful Dead and the Charles Lloyd Quartet at The Rock Garden, March 28-April 2, 1967, way out in the Excelsior at 4742 Mission

Charles Lloyd and The Grateful Dead
Just to touch briefly on a slice of Grateful Dead scholarship, even the most casual google searches will lead anyone to live Dead tapes that indicate Charles Lloyd as a guest, usually on flute. All of them, without exception, are wrong. Lloyd did jam with the Dead, possibly on multiple occasions, but every single tape where a flute (or saxophone) is attributed to him is inaccurate. For this blog, I will not go fully down the rabbit hole, but those who care may look at a discussion here (from the Summer of 1969, where Gary Larkey was the guest) or here (about the Family Dog during the same month, where Lloyd canceled and wasn't present, even though the actual guest remains unknown).

Lloyd and his quartet regularly performed in San Francisco, so they surely knew who the Grateful Dead were. For several shows in March and April 1967, Lloyd's band shared the bill with the Dead at a San Francisco place called The Rock Garden. The Rock Garden was way out on Ocean Avenue, in the Excelsior District. A little later, Ralph Gleason reported that Lloyd sat in with the Dead. I'm sure he did--but there aren't any tapes, and in any case almost no one attended those shows (except Jerry's Mom, really). Yet because of Gleason's high profile and the paucity of actual research on the Dead for the next couple of decades, any time there was a flute on a Grateful Dead tape it was attributed to Lloyd. It's worth noting here that the knowledgeable Elwood would not have failed to notice Lloyd sitting in with the Dead at the Greek.

Epic photo of the Grateful Dead at the Greek Theatre in 1967 ...

Photo of the Grateful Dead at the Greek Theatre, UC Berkeley on October 1, 1967. Note that there is only one drummer (Mickey Hart had jammed with the Dead the night before and had been invited to join the band). Also, sound reinforcement is only provided by two paired amps each on stage left and right.

The Grateful Dead At The Greek Theatre
The Grateful Dead played at the Greek Theatre 29 times, and Jerry Garcia played 4 more, and the venue looms large in the history of the Grateful Dead. I myself saw the band there 16 times, and all the JGB shows, too, and they are among my fondest concert memories. I accept that there may be venues for the Dead that were as good as the Greek, but not that there was one any better. The Dead's performance in 1967 was their very first show at the venue. So a few words are in order.

I am not certain of the source of the photo above of the October 1 show. Nonetheless, long-time fans of the Dead, or indeed anyone who has attended a rock show at the Greek in the last 45 years or so, will be startled to note the tiny amount of amplification. In the photo, I count six amplifiers in the back-line. One amp, to stage right of Pigpen, seems pointed at the band, but I think that was the rotating Leslie amp for Pig's organ. There are two pairs of amplifiers on either side of the stage. I don't know if those amps were just for the vocals and drums, or were part of sound reinforcement for the backline. I don't see any microphones facing the backline amps, however, so I don't know how they could have transmitted the guitars.

So the sound of the Grateful Dead would have just come from each band member's own amp, or amp pair, presumably. Somehow they were blended with the vocals and drums, but from amplifiers quite distant from the performers. If you were seated near the stage, the sound you heard must have varied dramatically depending on your location. Owsley was still engaged in other activities, and would not join as soundman for 10 more months (San Diego, August 2 1968), so he can take no blame here. Now, we all have our own internal imagination for what the 1967 Grateful Dead sounded like in concert, mostly based on the few circulating board tapes. I have to think, however, that the actual sound would have been quite different than any in-line board tape from that era, and they would all vary by location.

As a further note, it is an article of faith in Grateful Dead mythology that Mickey Hart jammed with the Grateful Dead at the Straight Theater in San Francisco during the second set of September 30, 1967, and was immediately asked to join the band at the end of the show. That is surely true, too, but it's worth noting that this is the day after the Straight and there is only one drummer. Mickey was invited to join, yes, but he didn't actually join the band on stage until later, probably at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles on November 10.