February 6, 1972 Pacific High Recorders, San Francisco: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders live on KSAN-fm (FM V and 1/4)

San Francisco's KSAN-fm, 94.9 on the dial, was San Francisco's leading FM rock station and a pioneer of live rock broadcasting.

Even in retrospect, some events just seem to be part of a long chain and don't generate much reflection. Yet some events that seem routine turn out to be full of significance when any attempt is made to categorize them. One such event in Jerry Garcia's history is his live broadcast on KSAN-fm with Merl Saunders, John Kahn and Bill Kreutzmann from Pacific High Recorders in San Francisco on Sunday, February 6, 1972. The show has circulated widely over the years, often under different dates, and one song was even officially released.

The February 6, 1972 performance was the first official broadcast in the Bay Area of Jerry Garcia performing his own music, separate from the Grateful Dead. For many, it was the first chance that  non-club goers--including teenagers who made up much of the Grateful Dead's audience--had to hear the Garcia/Saunders ensemble. Since KSAN continued to play tracks from it on the air for years, it also served as de facto publicity for Garcia/Saunders, since they would not release the Live At Keystone album until January 1974, almost two years later. And finally, the set was recorded at the very same studio where the Dead had recorded Workingman's Dead just two years prior. This post will take a closer look at the Garcia/Saunders show from February 6, 1972, and consider it in its larger historical context.

KSAN Live Broadcasts
I have written at some length about KSAN-fm and its tradition of live broadcasts. KSAN was the most popular station in the Bay Area in the early 70s--bigger than News, AM Top 40, you-name-it--and it achieved that status by being the hippest rock station. One of the ways that KSAN did that was by pioneering fm broadcasts of of live rock bands. Now, KSAN was not the first radio station to do that. The first was probably KMPX-fm in 1967, who had broadcast live Grateful Dead as early as February 14, 1968. KMPX was unequivocally the first hip underground rock station. However, due to a dispute with management, the staff went on a legendary strike, and the KMPX staff went on to found KSAN.

One of KSAN's many innovations was having local rock bands perform "live in the studio," for a few invited guests. Given that remote broadcasting was a new craft, performing live in a recording studio solved certain technical problems. The record companies loved getting the airtime for their bands (and probably bought ads in return). There was a sponsor for  these shows, but the sets were not interrupted by ads. Bands generally played about an hour.

In September 1971, KSAN inaugurated the "KSAN Live Weekend," in which mostly local bands played live for much of the weekend. Each band would play about an hour, the station would go back to the djs for another hour while they changed over the set, and the next band would then play, and so on. This would go on for several hours on Friday night, Saturday night and Sunday afternoon and evening. That is why there are so many fm broadcasts from San Francisco of local bands all dated September 1971--they were all from the same weekend. Some of the broadcasts are now obscure, but a few became quite legendary. The most famous was an amazing broadcast of Van Morrison, which included a show-stopping version of Bob Dylan's "Just Like A Woman," which KSAN played on the air for years, as if it were a record.

Workingman's Dead was recorded in February and March 1970 at Pacific High Recorders on 60 Brady Street in San Francisco, in an alley behind the Fillmore West.

Pacific High Recorders
The venue that KSAN chose was Pacific High Recorders, at 60 Brady Street, right behind the Fillmore West. The studio had only opened in 1968, and from its beginnings, it catered to the longhaired San Francisco rock bands. The day-to-day operations were handled  by Richard Olsen ("traffic manager" in studio parlance), formerly of those San Francisco originals, The Charlatans. Dan Healy brought Quicksilver Messenger Service in to record Shady Grove, and in early 1970 Bob Matthews and Betty Cantor used Pacific High to record Workingman's Dead. The main room didn't actually sound that great, but it was very large and there was a stage at one end. The 1970 Jefferson Airplane performance film Go Ride The Music was filmed at Pacific High as well.

The size of Pacific High's main room made it perfect for KSAN's first live weekend.  The crowds were probably 100 or so, mostly invited friends of each band, but enough to give the performances a live feel. There was no bar, but it being KSAN I'm pretty sure everyone found a way to relax anyway. Still, by the end of 1971, the economics of the studio weren't really working out, and Pacific High was sold to Alembic Engineering, and 60 Brady Street became Alembic Studios. At the time, Alembic also provided the sound system for the Grateful Dead and customized instruments for Phil Lesh, Jerry Garcia, Jack Casady and others. Bob Matthews and Betty Cantor immediately set to resolving various sonic issues in the studio's main room.

One peculiarity of Alembic Studios was that they did not publicize the name Alembic Studios very much. Well after Alembic took over the studio, the name Pacific High Recorders was regularly used. Some of this may have been casual--the musical community called it Pacific High, and there was no reason to argue about it. Alembic may have also wanted to discourage the curious. In any case, when you see a credit like "mixed at Alembic Studios by Bob and Betty and The Grateful Dead" (such as on Europe '72), keep in mind that it was the same 60 Brady Street where Workingman's Dead had been recorded. So when KSAN supremo Tom Donahue introduces Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders as playing live from Pacific High Recorders, it's an anachronism, if an approved one. Jerry and Merl were actually playing at the site of Pacific High Recorders, in the Alembic Studio.

Some Logistics
On Saturday, February 5, Garcia and Saunders had played at Keystone Korner in San Francisco. They may have played there on February 3 and 4, too, or maybe the Lion's Share in San Anselmo, but on Saturday night they had played Keystone Korner. The Keystone Korner was at 750 Vallejo Street. 60 Brady was just over at Market and Van Ness. So whoever was loading out Jerry and Merl that night, probably Ramrod and Steve Parish, only had to truck the equipment 2.6 miles on Broadway and Franklin, and juke at Van Ness onto Brady, which was actually a little alley. After loading the equipment into Alembic for the night, they could just scamper on home. Thus for the next day's gig, all the crew had to do was turn up, as the equipment was already in place.

Few people remark that the first live FM broadcast of Garcia and Saunders actually featured Bill Kreutzmann on drums. The truth is that no one knows how often Kreutzmann subbed for Bill Vitt. Vitt did not like to travel out of town, as he had toured plenty with a band called Jack Bedient And The Chessmen back in the 60s, and no longer found it interesting. However, based on existing tapes, it seems that Kreutzmann played a fair amount of local shows as well. It may be that Betty Cantor taped more shows with Kreutzmann, but truthfully we just don't know. In any case, Kreutzmann played regularly with Garcia and Saunders and knew the material well.

I have to assume that Bill Vitt had the option of playing the show and chose not to. One possibility is that Vitt had another engagement. Vitt was in The Sons Of Champlin, then going under the name Yogi Phlegm, so perhaps they had a gig. Certainly Vitt was a regular at the Sunday night jam at the Lion's Share, but its not likely that he would skip that for a radio broadcast. Its also possible that the KSAN broadcast was effectively unpaid. Vitt may not have wanted to come into the city for nothing.

Most live FM rock broadcasts were subsidized by the band's record company. In return for allowing a band to play uninterrupted. the record company would pay for the lost commercial time. My assumption has always been that the company bought additional future ads rather than paying cash, but I don't know for sure. However, in early '72, Merl Saunders did not have a record out, and Warner Brothers were not likely to subsidize Garcia playing material that wasn't from his album. The hipness quotient was high, however, and there was probably a sponsor for the hour (usually Pacific Stereo, a local electronics chain), so it was worth it for KSAN. If that was the case, however, I don't think the musicians or crew got paid, except perhaps in party favors.

Hooteroll?, by Howard Wales and Jerry Garcia was recorded from October 1970 through mid-1971 and released in late '71.

An East Coast Precursor
Right before the KSAN broadcast, Jerry Garcia made his first tour outside of California under his own name. He played 7 dates on the East Coast with Howard Wales' band, playing some pretty jammed out music with Wales' quartet. The tour was generally overshadowed, however, by the stunning performances of the opening act. The newly minted Mahavishnu Orchestra featured a new guitar hero in John McLaughlin, and a new look for fusion jazz. Wales and Garcia seemed rather noodly by comparison.

Another scholar has considered the '72 Wales/Garcia tour in some detail, so I will not dwell on it. However, the important point in this context was that the Garcia-Wales set on the first night in Boston was broadcast on WBCN-fm. The January 26 '72 tape has been widely circulated amongst Deadheads for many years. The Mahavishnu Orchestra were also part of the broadcast. Both Mahavishnu and Howard Wales Hooteroll? album were on Columbia (Hooteroll? had been on Douglas, a Columbia subsidiary).

When the Grateful Dead had supported their double live album ("Skullf**k") with over a dozen live broadcasts in every city that the band played, the New Riders of The Purple Sage had been broadcast in a number of those cities as well (this is covered in the preceding part of this series, Part V, which I concede I have not actually posted yet). The Dead's album had gone gold, and the NRPS debut album was selling briskly as well. Columbia appears to have figured out that Jerry Garcia would get people to tune into the radio, so they used it to promote two of their albums. Thus Jerry Garcia's first broadcast under his own name actually took place in Boston.

Given that touring plans have to be settled at least 30-60 days in advance, and any Garcia gigs had to be worked out around the Grateful Dead, it seems certain that the WBCN and KSAN broadcasts were conceived and agreed to at roughly the same time. It would be interesting to know if one inspired the other, or if they both arose of their own accord.

Howard Wales with special guest Jerry Garcia/Mahavishnu Orchestra
January 21, 1972 Academy Of Music, New York, NY
January 23, 1972 Field House, Villanova U., Merion, PA
January 26, 1972 Symphony Hall, Boston, MA
January 27, 1972 Symphony Hall, Boston, MA--WBCN-fm broadcast both bands
January 28, 1972 Palace Theater, Providence, RI
January 29, 1972 [unknown venue], SUNY, Buffalo, NY

Garcia/Saunders, Early '72
The Feb 6' 72 show was the first Garcia/Saunders music that I heard, and given the wide circulation of the tape, it seems to have been one of the first Garcia/Saunders tapes that most people heard. For many fans, probably most of us, for a very long time the Feb 6 '72 tape was also the earliest Garcia/Saunders tape. Thus, although the performance is a little simplified, it seems to set out the template for what was to come for Jerry Garcia in both Garcia/Saunders and the Jerry Garcia Band in the next 23 years: some Dylan, some R&B, all jammed out within their song structures. Indeed, in many way, the tape does set the table. But it may very well have been something new for Garcia.

Garcia and Saunders had played exclusively at the Matrix from their first appearance together on September 7. 1970, through the demise of the Matrix in May of '71. After that, their home base shifted to the Keystone Korner, and the played a few other local places, like The Lion's Share in San Anselmo. However, the earliest confirmed tape we have of them is May 20, 1971, and the quartet--Garcia, Saunders, Kahn and Vitt--play nothing but jammed out instrumentals. It seems that Garcia did not begin singing with the group until Tom Fogerty joined the group in June 1971. Garcia may not have felt comfortable singing without a rhythm guitarist. In any case, although Fogerty was a regular member of the group through the end of 1972, he did not make every gig. Garcia was a quick learner, too, so by February he already felt comfortable singing with another guitarist. I have engaged in an extensive dialogue about this elsewhere, so I won't repeat it, but suffice to say that the musical approach of the February 1972 Garcia/Saunders group appears to have been a recent development in Garcia's history.

The Show
I do not believe the February 6 show was part of a "Live Weekend." In later years, the "Live Weekend" had a Spring and Fall edition (I know there was one in April 1973), but I don't think there was one in early '72. However, KSAN was already regularly playing the material from the first live weekend, particularly Van Morrison's "Just Like A Woman," so they would have been eager to give Garcia a forum to play, and would have liked the idea that they would be able to re-broadcast unreleased material.

1. It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry
2. Expressway (To Your Heart)
3. That's The Touch I Like
4. Save Mother Earth
5. When I Paint My Masterpiece
6. I Was Made To Love Her
7. Lonely Avenue
8. How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)

I assume the show was late Sunday afternoon or early in the evening. KSAN did not like to relegate special events to late Sunday night, so Garcia/Saunders probably played at 7:00pm or so (if anyone recalls, please mention it in the comments). The set was a good spectrum of '72 Garcia/Saunders: two Dylan covers, 2 Motown hits, 2 R&B standards, an obscure contemporary cover (Jesse Winchester's "That's A Touch I Like") and a Merl Saunders original ("Save Mother Earth").

Aftermath
It's difficult to say if the Garcia/Saunders live broadcast had its intended result, since I think the participants were pretty casual in their intentions. I think KSAN's Tom Donahue invited them to play, Garcia and Saunders agreed, a convenient date was chosen, and the deed was done. Nonetheless, in retrospect the effect of the show was persistent.

Re-broadcast
For one thing, KSAN re-broadcast the Feb 6 '72 show with great regularity. Once "Live Weekend" became a regular event every Spring and Fall, KSAN's standard format was to have a band every other hour live in the studio. In the in-between hour, while the bands changed over their equipment, KSAN typically broadcast a live tape from a prior KSAN event. Thus the very first Garcia/Saunders live broadcast was replayed over and over. The rebroadcasts must have been partially responsible for the tendency of the show to circulate under various dates--the show was broadcast many times, and so a tape label that said, for example, "Garcia-Saunders September 1972" wasn't necessarily incorrect, even if that wasn't the original performance date. The tape spread far and wide, and for old-timers it was very likely the first live Garcia/Saunders that they had heard, or at least the first tape (Howard Weiner devotes a whole chapter to the tape in his book Positively Garcia).

Also, for at least the next 18 months, KSAN would play songs from the Feb 6 '72 broadcast as a regular part of their shows. This was a KSAN thing, playing music that wasn't available to other stations. They did this with Van Morrison's "Just Like A Woman" (from Sep 5 '71 at Pacific High)., The song I recall being played was "It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry." Of course this was the first song on the tape, but I suspect it had been converted into an easy-to-play 8-track copy for djs (a "cart" in old-time radio talk).

Publicity
If you were a rock music fan in the Bay Area, it was hard not to notice that Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders were regularly playing around the Bay Area. But it was a mystery as to what they sounded like. However, with not only the regular rebroadcast on KSAN of the entire show, but the periodic playing of "It Takes A Lot To Laugh" or other songs over the air, even suburban teenagers like me had an idea of what Garcia/Saunders sounded like. I think this effect was a clue to Garcia that Old And In The Way could be promoted in the same way.

As I have discussed elsewhere, just like an old-time bluegrass bands, Old And In The Way used a series of radio broadcasts to promote their music around the Bay Area. The first official Old And In The Way appearance was on a KSAN broadcast from the Record Plant in Sausalito on March 2, 1973. Several weeks later, on April 21, 1973, Old And In The Way played the Spring '73 "Live Weekend." I'm sure that the Pacific High tape was broadcast in April as well. On July 8 '73, Garcia/Saunders broadcast on KSAN again, once more from the Record Plant. Clearly, by this time Garcia had figured out that KSAN live broadcasts had their own currency as publicity. Saunders had his Fire Up album, the pair were playing the Keystone regularly, and they were about to record a live album, so the broadcast helped all those ends.

Merl Saunders' album Fire Up was released on Fantasy Records in early 1973, and it featured the track "Lonely Avenue," recorded at the PHR KSAN broadcast on February 6, 1972.

Fire Up Album
I do not know how much national promotion there was for Merl Saunders' mid-72 album Heavy Turbulence. I suspect there was not very much. However, Merl's early '73 album Fire Up was a different story. I recall specifically that Fantasy Records took out a full page ad in Rolling Stone, with an inset picture of Jerry, showing Merl and an Austin Healey at the Golden Gate Bridge, and the tag line was "Not Everyone Can Be In San Francisco" (my cousin, who had just moved to the Bay Area, cut out the ad and mailed it to his best friend in Piscataway, NJ).

Information was far less fungible in days of yore, but an ad in Rolling Stone was like a top-rated video on YouTube.  Since Fire Up included a cut from the Feb 6 tape, Jerry's take on "Lonely Avenue," it was a brief taste for the rest of the country about what might be going on at the Keystone Berkeley. We take vast amounts of music for granted now, but "Lonely Avenue" was the only whiff of the Keystone Berkeley that many Deadheads had until the release of Live At Keystone in January 1974.

Tape
Of course, the most long range affect of the Feb 6 '72 tape was the one that could have been least anticipated. Since the Pacific High tape was re-broadcast many times, well into the late 70s, it circulated widely, even if the date was sometimes wrong. As we all know, the circulation of tapes is what cemented Garcia's music to the psyche of his fans, and as one of the very few circulating FM broadcasts of solo Garcia, the tape spread far and wide.

This does beg the question of what became of the original tape, not least because it would make a great single cd release for the Garcia Live series. Since it was an original KSAN broadcast, at least theoretically it should have been in the KSAN Archives, which would have meant that it was briefly in the "Bay Area Music Archives" (too long a story to recount here) and thence to the Bill Graham Archives. If that was the case, then it should have ended up in Wolfgangs Vault. However, there is no sign of it there. This means that either the original tape was burned up in the 1985 BGP warehouse fire, which would be sad, or, perhaps, that a tape of Jerry Garcia recorded by their house sound crew in Alembic made its way into their own hands, leaving KSAN with just a copy. Here's to hoping the latter was the case. Maybe once more we can all Fire Up and hear it again, not a copy but the real thing, just as it was on a Sunday night in San Francisco long ago.

Jerry Garcia>1978>Keyboards (Jerry Garcia-Bandleader)

A backstage pass from the October 27, 1978 show at Eastern Washington University

It is a conventional trope of Jerry Garcia scholarship that he deferred any responsibility for leading the Jerry Garcia Band. By the time the JGB was formed in 1975, Garcia was already a famous rock star, if in fact a famous rock star with a serious cash flow problem. After some brief flirtations with difficult geniuses like Nicky Hopkins and James Booker, Garcia seems to have spent the next twenty years working with low-key professionals who did not challenge the strange hegemony of Garcia and John Kahn's lucrative but part-time enterprise. It fits a certain narrative to say that Garcia was both compulsive and passive, wanting to play all the time, but seemingly refusing to exert any influence upon the band that bore his name. From that point of view, it would seem that it was remarkable that the Jerry Garcia Band was worth listening to at all.

Yet quite the opposite was the case. The Jerry Garcia Band played around a thousand shows, and a very high percentage of them featured exceptional music. Quite a few of them were exceptional from beginning to end. Of course, much of the excellence of the Jerry Garcia Band's various performances has to do with Garcia himself. If Garcia was on, then even the 200th version of "How Sweet It Is" would be emotionally powerful and musically inventive. Was this random chance? I accept that even a stoned out player with no plan can have a good gig now and again, but hundreds of great shows over the course of twenty years? Garcia wasn't very forthcoming with his plans to his own bandmates, and he certainly had his problems with drugs, but I will make the case that he was a very good bandleader, and it was no accident at all.

The cover to Miles Davis' groundbreaking 1969 album, In A Silent Way

Miles Davis, about whom I can make a very good case for being the greatest bandleader of improvised music in North American history, was a famously difficult bandleader from the point of view of his band. Miles typically had the greatest players in modern jazz history, and yet he always made things extraordinarily difficult on them. One famous Miles trick was to give sheet music only to the piano player, and to force the other musicians to simply guess what the guy was improvising off of, and thus have to struggle to make music out of it. Miles thrived on the tension, and he felt the lack of certainty added to the creative process, allowing him to achieve the collaborative synergy he was seeking. Yet his own band had mixed feelings, at least until afterwards, when they heard the tapes played back of the fine music that they had made.

Jerry Garcia was benign where Miles was acerbic, and talkative where Miles was silent. Yet I think he consciously led the Jerry Garcia Band in a very similar way. Garcia assembled the different pieces of the Jerry Garcia Band, and chose and sang the songs. Yet he never really told most of the band members what he was striving for, and seems to have exerted little direction beyond counting off the songs at very slow tempos. Descriptions of what few rehearsals there were, from David Kemper at least, describe a charming, talkative Garcia, discussing absolutely everything but the music that they were actually playing.

Yet a close look at the timeline for Jerry Garcia in 1978 reveals some fascinating insights into how Garcia asserted his influence on his own band. It's true that John Kahn took care of most of the musical business of the band, and was probably privy to some or most of Garcia's concepts, yet Garcia's hand was firmly on the tiller. Garcia seems to have exerted a firm grip on who was in the band, and by definition selected the songs he wanted to play at his own slow tempos. Nonetheless, that was part of Garcia's quiet method--having chosen whom he felt to be the right musicians, he wanted them to participate as they saw fit, rather than take direction. This post will look at Garcia's timeline for 1978, and how it foretold the next dozen years of Garcia's music, even though his handprints could hardly be seen later.

Jerry Garcia's 1978 Arista album Cats Under The Stars

Jerry Garcia 1978
1978 was a transitional year for The Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia. The Dead had had high hopes for their first Arista album, Terrapin Station, released in 1977, but it had been somewhat of a disappointment. Still, the first tour of 1978 featured some fantastic music, even if the January and February swing through the West and Midwest may not have been a great financial success. Garcia and Bob Weir also had high hopes for their Arista solo albums, but both of those made little impact. The dominant event for the Grateful Dead that year was their historic trip to perform in front of the Egyptian Pyramids during an Eclipse, so 1978 was a memorable year in the annals of the Dead.

By the end of 1978, however, the Grateful Dead's music seemed to be in a stagnant state, a situation mostly blamed on piano player Keith Godchaux. Keith's piano playing had been brilliant when he first signed on with the Dead, and he had held down the same chair with the Jerry Garcia Band. Yet by 1978, Keith had serious health problems, and his marriage to Donna Godchaux was shaky as well. In retrospect, all the members of the Grateful Dead, Donna included, have said they were planning on Keith and Donna's departure, even if no one actually spoke about it. The Dead generally, and Garcia particularly, were notoriously non-confrontational over personal and financial issues, and the music of the Dead generally suffered throughout the balance of 1978, even if there were still some great shows on occasion.

I have written at length about a show in Portland, OR, on October 26, 1978, where the Bob Weir Band opened for the Jerry Garcia Band. That show was the first time that Garcia heard Brent Mydland play, and apparently after the show Garcia told Weir "this guy might work." Apparently unspoken was the context, that Keith and Donna would need to be replaced. In a certain way, the exchange between Garcia and Weir was a profound insight into the inner workings of the Grateful Dead. With a relentless touring schedule, the Dead were not going to undertake the messy business of forcing out Keith and Donna Godchaux without a batter in the on-deck circle.

Upon further reflection, however, Garcia talent-spotting Brent Mydland in Weir's band turns out to be a hidden narrative of Jerry Garcia's 1978. Most of the shows that Jerry Garcia would play between 1979 and 1990 featured keyboard players in bands that opened for Jerry Garcia or the Grateful Dead in 1978. In that sense, Jerry Garcia defined some essential paths for his future music in 1978, even though it would not become obvious until later. What you think of those paths depends on how much you like the musical contributions of Ozzie Ahlers, Melvin Seals and Brent Mydland, but all of them were spotted by Garcia in 1978. In that sense, 1978 can be seen as a watershed year in the history of both Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead. This post will look at how Garcia appears to have spotted and chosen his keyboard players throughout that year.

Former JGB keyboard player Ozzie Ahlers with another great American

Ozzie Ahlers: February 18, 1978: Marin Veteran's Memorial Auditorium, San Rafael, CA: Jerry Garcia Band/Robert Hunter and Comfort
Ozzie Ahlers was from the Woodstock, NY, area, and he had been in a band called Glory River. Ahlers relocated to Marin County partly for the opportunity to work with former Woodstock resident Van Morrison. The mercurial Morrison mixed and matched band members, and was uncomfortable in many performance contexts, so Ahlers probably didn't play that many shows with him. Ahlers also ended up being a regular in Jesse Colin Young's band, alternating tours and recording dates with Scott Lawrence. In early 1978, Ahlers joined Robert Hunter and Comfort, replacing Richard "Sunshine" McNeese.

At the time, Hunter and Comfort were planning to release an album called Alligator Moon, although in fact it was ultimately never released. Probably in anticipation of this effort, Hunter and Comfort were to join the Jerry Garcia Band on several dates on their March, 1978 Eastern tour. Both Comfort and the Garcia Band played some warmup gigs on the West Coast to get ready for the tour. In a break from normal practice, the Jerry Garcia Band headlined two small concerts in the Bay Area, instead of only playing the Keystones. Robert Hunter and Comfort opened both shows. I assume that one reason for the concerts was for the JGB/Comfort team to get road ready, with a concert sound system and equipment.

In any case, Robert Hunter and Comfort opened for the Garcia Band on Saturday, February 18, at the 1900-seat Marin Veterans Memorial Auditorium in San Rafael. Even if Garcia had heard Ahlers in rehearsal with Hunter--unlikely--this would have been Garcia's first opportunity to see Ahlers in concert. Even if Garcia missed the set, it wouldn't have mattered, since the same bill played the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium the next night (Monday was President's Day, so Sunday night was like a weekend). While I don't think Garcia usually hung out backstage and watched other bands, the circumstances were a little different. Robert Hunter was one of Garcia's oldest and closest friends, and Garcia's opportunities to see him perform were rare, so there's every reason to think Garcia was hovering around with an open ear.

The Jerry Garcia Band opened their East Coast tour on March 9, 1978, in Cleveland. Hunter and Comfort were added to the bill in Long Island on March 12, and in the end Comfort opened for eight Garcia band shows (over six nights). Thus all told, Garcia had ten opportunities to hear Ozzie Ahlers play, and he must have liked what he heard. Keith and Donna Godchaux remained part of the Jerry Garcia Band through November, 1978, but Garcia put the JGB on hold after that. However, when the Jerry Garcia Band was re-established in September, 1979, Ahlers was in the keyboard chair.

No one inside the band has ever commented on Garcia's choice of Ahlers, to my knowledge. Based only on our knowledge of Garcia's comment to Weir, I have to think that Garcia and Kahn had some sort of moment where they listened to Ahlers and said to each other "this guy might work." Then they filed his name away. Ahlers didn't get a call until nearly 18 months later, but Garcia didn't get out much or socialize with outsiders, so there's scant chance that he bumped into Ahlers somewhere later, or checked him out at some local club. It appears that Ahlers played in Garcia's best friend's band, and as a result Garcia had confidence that Ahlers could be worth a phone call in the future.

Musical skill aside,  I think there's another factor in the Garcia Band that made choosing people from shared concert bills desirable. By 1978, although Jerry Garcia was not the icon he would become, he was still a figure that radiated an immense gravitational pull backstage at his own shows. There was also a weird, insular history to the Grateful Dead that could be difficult to penetrate. Even if Garcia had very little direct contact with Ahlers backstage, after an East Coast tour he would have known that Ahlers was not overwhelmed by Garcia's presence, and that he had a personality that suited Garcia. If Ahlers had been personally difficult, Garcia would have heard about it from Hunter.

In a BAM Magazine interview in 1978 (by either David Gans, Blair Jackson or both), Garcia said that his band and the Dead had different personalities. Garcia said that (to paraphrase) "the Dead were about dissonance, and his own band was about consonance." The key members of the Dead were great musicians, but they were opinionated and forthright, to the point of being difficult. Certainly the strong personalities of Weir, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart were what made the Dead so vibrant. The Jerry Garcia Band, however--including Garcia--was historically full of fine players who had a reputation amongst other musicians for being a pleasure to work with: John Kahn, Ron Tutt, Maria Muldaur, and so on. This seems to have been borne out in interviews over the years.

Thus the Jerry Garcia Band not only had a musical profile, but a personality profile as well. Someone like David Crosby would have made a plausible member of the Grateful Dead, but he was too forthright for the low-key Garcia Band. After giving an ear to Ahlers' tasteful playing with Hunter, Garcia and Kahn would have also had a chance to see that Ahlers was a low mainenance band member, and that would have counted for a lot.

The Jerry Garcia Band had had episodes with Nicky Hopkins and James Booker, where they chose genius over professionalism, and they regretted it. Indeed, from one point of view, it appears that Garcia's frustration with Keith Godchaux in the Garcia Band seemed to have as much to do with Keith having become high maintenance, rather than direct criticism of his playing. It's also worth noting that when the JGB flirted with genius by hiring Hopkins and Booker, Garcia wasn't touring with the Grateful Dead. Yet Garcia seems to have realize that he could only have one band of jagged edges. As one scholar has observed, given how much Garcia had accomplished with the Dead, and how much effort Garcia still put into the Garcia Band, its not at all surprising that he wanted compatible band members as a prerequisite.

 

In this 1977 episode of The Midnight Special, Melvin Seals can be seen playing some funky piano as Van Morrison leads Mickey Thomas, Reni Slais and the rest of the Elvin Bishop Group through "Domino"

Melvin Seals: June 4, 1978: County Stadium, Santa Barbara, CA: Grateful Dead/Elvin Bishop Group/Wha-Koo
Even if Terrapin Station hadn't been a big success, the Grateful Dead nonetheless had become a bigger live attraction than ever. In the early Summer of 1978, they headlined an outdoor show in Santa Barbara. I believe that the approximately 20,000-capacity stadium would have been the biggest venue that the Dead had ever headlined in Southern California up through that time. To fill out the bill, however, and sell a few more tickets, the Dead were supported by their old friends The Elvin Bishop Group. The Elvin Bishop Group had a much higher profile than they had ever had, thanks to a big 1976 hit called "Fooled Around And Fell In Love," featuring vocalist Mickey Thomas. After that hit, Bishop expanded his group to a much larger ensemble.

Deadheads remember Elvin Bishop's performance in Santa Barbara mainly because Jerry Garcia came out and played a little bit, taking a solo on the song "Fishing Blues." As a result of being invited onstage to jam, which had to have been planned (for logistical reasons), we know that Garcia was hovering around the stage. In a 1991 interview with Scott Muni, Garcia recalled

;.... somewhere there in the '70s the Grateful Dead did a show with Elvin Bishop. I was standing behind this guy on the stage. He was the second keyboard player in Elvin's band. This big guy, he was just playing a Fender Rhodes. But he was playing so tasty, I'm just standing behind him. It's a pretty thick band, so figuring out just how to get in there was, I thought, the work of a good musician. He was just playing the tastiest little stuff. I thought, 'This guy is just too much!' 

I asked him what his name was. He said, 'Melvin Seals'. Melvin Seals. So years later I got Melvin. I don't remember exactly when he started playing with us, but right around the late '70s, early '80s, Melvin started playing with us, and he was just a monster. He's turned out to be the guy that we were looking for all along.

It seems pretty clear that the June 4, 1978 show in Santa Barbara has to be where Garcia heard Seals. Garcia had the foresight to ask Melvin's name. There has always been a tendency to think of Garcia as this sort of stoned genius, who let other people handle everything for him. That may have been true with respect to his personal life and finances, but Garcia was his own man as a musician. He heard a guy he liked, and knew he'd be looking for a keyboard player some day soon, so he filed the name away, even if Melvin Seals would not play with Garcia until 1981. Once again, it appears that the restless Garcia was looking for keyboard players where he could find them.

Intriguingly, Seals has a different memory

I did some gigs with Maria Muldaur. Her boyfriend at the time was John Kahn. He [came to] the gigs, and he admired what I was doing so he asked me if I'd be interested in jamming with another band sometime. He never really went into the details of what it was. Nobody even told me he played with [Jerry].

[Kahn] called me up one day [and said] we're trying to put some rehearsals together to get some gigs. I went up to the address and there's Jerry Garcia and John Kahn and all these other musicians. I didn't even know what was going on. Really, it still didn't hit me until the end of the rehearsal.

I have to presume that Seals was playing with Maria Muldaur in 1979 or 1980, and got scouted by Kahn (Seals was in the Elvin Bishop Group until at least mid-1979).  In fact, Garcia may have already given Kahn the heads-up, who passed the name to Maria. In any case, Seals' little story hints at the dynamic between Garcia and Kahn. Garcia finds a likely candidate, and the low-profile Kahn is able to check out prospects without attracting attention.

Merl Saunders 1979 album Do I Move You, on Crystal Clear Records, recorded Direct-to-Disc in early 1979

Merl Saunders: October 2-3, 1978: The Shady Grove, San Francisco, CA: Merl Saunders And Friends
I realize that the two guest appearances by Jerry Garcia with Merl Saunders at a tiny Haight Street club don't quite fit the narrative here. Ahlers, Seals and Mydland were all new to Garcia, while Saunders was an old pal. Garcia was present at the other shows, and simply listened to his opening acts, whereas Garcia made a conscious effort to drop in twice to sit in with Merl. However, Merl Saunders had been an active working musician since Garcia had stopped working with him in 1975. Garcia could have sat in at any time--why October of 1978, at a club where Garcia had no direct connection, and was nowhere particularly convenient? And why two nights?

In the context of this analysis, it seems pretty clear that Garcia knew he had to find replacements for Keith and Donna Godchaux, even if he was personally dreading any actual confrontation. Garcia, unlike the rest of the Dead, had to find two replacements for two bands, not just one. Of course, it would be theoretically possible for Garcia not to have a second band, or to only play acoustic, or something, but that clearly wasn't Garcia's plan. It seems that Garcia went to some effort to play some funky jazz for two nights with Merl Saunders to see if it was still musically viable. It clearly was, as John Kahn put together the Reconstruction band, and Garcia debuted with them on January 30, 1979.

From what we know, John Kahn had put together Reconstruction with the idea that it would be a working jazz band with or without Garcia. Garcia was almost always booked as a "special guest" with Reconstruction for this reason. Thus when Kahn and Garcia re-activated the Jerry Garcia Band in late 1979, it was originally with the idea that it would be parallel to Reconstruction, rather than replacing it. The reality didn't work out that way, more's the pity. From Garcia's point of view in 1978, however, the jams with Merl made it clear to him that Saunders was still a good interim partner, even if the longer range plans didn't work out. Once again, the seemingly casual Garcia was merely taciturn, and appears to have a much more organized plan for his bands than anyone gave him credit for.

Brent Mydland: October 26, 1978: Paramount Northwest Theater, Portland, OR: Jerry Garcia Band/Bob Weir Band
When Jerry Garcia saw Brent Mydland play and sing with the Bob Weir Band, his remark to Weir that "this guy might work," turns out not to have come out of the blue. We can see that Garcia was filing away keyboard players for future reference, but Mydland was finally the one he needed to allow the band to move past Keith and Donna Godchaux. Interestingly, I think it was Brent's harmony vocals that helped put him over the top, since he could replace both Keith and Donna, which Ahlers, Seals and Saunders could not have.

Once Keith's replacement was lined up, the Godchauxs could be moved out of the band, and touring could continue accordingly. Garcia had some candidates lined up for his own bands as well, so to the extent Garcia ever wanted any kind of confrontation, he would have been finally willing to take such a step. Fate intervened, however, when Garcia fell ill in November, 1978, canceling a  slate of Grateful Dead shows. Those shows were re-scheduled for January and February 1979, so the Godchauxs had to remain in the band. After a tour that was apparently very difficult personally but produced some fine music, the Godchauxs simply resigned at a band meeting on March 1. They may have seen the inevitable coming--Garcia had already started playing with Reconstruction--but it hardly mattered, as they needed out. It was unfortunate that having taken some control of his life, Keith Godchaux died in an auto accident in 1980.

Jerry Garcia's Other Choices
While it's fascinating to note that Garcia picked most of his future keyboard players from some opening acts in 1978, its important to at least think about what other alternatives Garcia may have been able to consider. For one thing, while the Grateful Dead were a pretty popular touring act after 1976, they generally headlined shows without having an opening act in support. The band played long enough for promoters to avoid having to have an opener to fill time, but the group was big enough to not need another band to help sell tickets. The Marin show with Comfort and the Northwest shows with Weir were consciously promoted as double bills featuring two Dead spinoff acts.

The June, 1978 show in Santa Barbara was one of the very few shows after 1976 where the Dead played with an opening act. Among those few were a number of bands without keyboard players (The Who, the New Riders and Marshal Tucker, for example), so the universe of players for Garcia to observe from backstage was pretty small. The only ones I can find would be Tom Coster (Santana, Cow Palace 1976), John Farey (Soundhole, Cow Palace 1976), Bill Slais (Elvin Bishop's other keyboard player, 1978) and Bobbye Nelson (Willie's sister, Giants Stadium, 1978). So while Garcia made some good musical choices, he didn't get a chance to observe a lot of players live.

On the other hand, Garcia knew a lot of keyboard players from the Bay Area, such as Mark Naftalin, Bill Champlin or Geoff Palmer, all of whom were quality musicians who would have been available for the long-term part-time employment of the Garcia Band. And Garcia would have known or been able to find out who was low-maintenance and who was difficult. Yet he passed on all the locals. John Kahn and Maria Muldaur knew their way around the Los Angeles studio scene, and Garcia had always done well with studio guys like Ron Tutt, Paul Humphrey and Larry Knechtel. In many ways, the Garcia Band was ideal for a Hollywood session guy: total freedom in an inherently half-time gig, leaving them free to make real money and live their life in Los Angeles. Yet Garcia made no effort that we know of, via Kahn or anyone else, to find an LA player.

So even if Garcia stuck to some players he had seen from backstage, and he hadn't seen many other candidates, Garcia wasn't completely boxed in. By 1978, the Jerry Garcia Band made good money, and it had a schedule that suited a lot of pros. Garcia's penchant for not rehearsing was generally a convenience for experienced musicians, too, as they didn't need the rehearsal nor have time for it. Yet Garcia passed on any old San Francisco hands or Hollywood studio regulars, and chose who he wanted.

For all the problems the Grateful Dead had in 1978, and there were a few, Garcia seems to have spent the year thinking about how he was going to move forward musically, even if he did it in his typical insular style that made no sense at the time.The fine music made in ensuing years by Reconstruction and the Jerry Garcia Band--not to mention the Grateful Dead--was hardly some kind of happy accident.

Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders Band Members, 1971-75

Live At Keystone, Fantasy Records, 1974, credited to Merl Saunders/Jerry Garcia/John Kahn/Bill Vitt

What is a rock band? This may seem like a simple question, and perhaps it is, but if you have a serious interest in rock music the problem is subtler than it appears. Prior to The Beatles, rock groups were just entertainers, essentially "High Concept" marketing vehicles, although such a term would not have been used at the time. Did anyone really know who was in The Coasters? Even if they did, would it have mattered if different people sang the parts? In that respect, early rock groups were like The Ice Capades: what was presented was more important than the actual participants. The Beatles changed all that.

The Beatles were fully self-contained: they wrote, they played, they sang, one for all, and all for one. The Beatles effect was just as powerful on musicians as it was on fans. Folk musicians like Roger McGuinn or Jerry Garcia saw A Hard Day's Night and decided more or less in the movie theater that being in a rock group was where it's at. The Byrds, the Grateful Dead and a thousand other groups would follow. Yet who were "The Beatles?"

There had been pre-Beatles groups like The Quarrymen, and the very first version of the Beatles featured bassist Stuart Sutcliffe and drummer Pete Best. Sutcliffe died, and Best was fired, and once Ringo Starr joined they were the "real" Beatles. Did that mean the six shows that The Beatles played in early 1964 with substitute drummer Jimmy Nicol when Ringo was very ill were not "real" Beatles shows? Clearly not. So what is a rock group?

Rock's first and best prosopographer, Pete Frame, inventor and author of The Rock Family Trees series, has gone the farthest in codifying our views of rock groups. In general, most rock fans--and me-- feel that a "group" is equal to more than the sum of its individual parts. Something magical happens when a certain set of musicians play together in the studio or on stage. As a concession to reality, most fans implicitly feel that there are core members of groups, and perhaps some peripheral members can change without affecting the group. However, when a key member leaves or joins, the group evolves. Frame addresses the problem by dividing bands into periods: The Byrds #1, The Byrds #2, and so on. Rock fans implicitly accepted this. Some went further, and started blogs.

Almost all Grateful Dead fans, for example, consider the version of the Grateful Dead that recorded Blues For Allah in 1975 and toured "different" than the lineup that preceded it, even though the only change was the return of Mickey Hart on drums. By the same token, the few shows in early 1979 when Donna Godcahaux was not present did not constitute enough of a break with the group zeitgeist to make those performances "non-Grateful Dead."

How, then, to consider the recording and performing history of the Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders collaboration? I have gone to great lengths to detail the personnel of the Jerry Garcia Band, the New Riders of The Purple Sage, Old And In The Way, Bobby and The Midnites and several other groups. While it's necessary to account for the occasional substitute drummer of fiddler, by and large the Pete Frame superstructure works very well. Rock groups have "periods," and they change when personnel changes, as all the current members see the new members as a chance to re-think and re-work their approach to their own music. However, after much struggling, no such configurative history works for Garcia and Saunders. There is no meaningful Garcia and Saunders #1, nor #2, and in fact the whole Frame concept that my historical analysis is generally based on does a disservice to Garcia and Saunders.

Pete Frame's Rock Family Trees is profoundly appropriate to rock groups, but not to all music. The Garcia-Saunders group was best understood as a jazz group, and only makes sense in that context. As it happens, the Garcia-Saunders group was a jazz band that played rock music, but they still had a jazz approach and configuration, particularly from a financial and professional perspective. This post will look at the history of band members in the various Garcia-Saunders collaborations from 1971 through 1975, and in so doing will explain how the very conception of the group was opposite to rock groups such as The Jerry Garcia Band which would soon follow it.

An ad for Miles Davis' appearance at San Francisco's Both/And Club for the week of April 11-17, 1967 (from the April 13, 1967 San Francisco Chronicle)

What Is  A Jazz Group?
In the 1950s and 60s, the concept of a jazz group or "combo" was very different than that of a sixties rock group. Over time, the jazz and rock conceptions have merged for a variety of commercial reasons, but when Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders started playing together in the early 1970s, they would still have been working off a 60s conception of jazz groups. Merl would have been a member of such groups, and Jerry would have been a fan and consumer, but their concept would have been the same.

Jazz musicians are generally profoundly talented. You could inadvertently spill ink on music paper, and the Miles Davis Quintet could make it sound great. Since jazz musicians are so talented, they can rarely find a platform for all of them to use all their ideas at once. What evolved from the 1950s onward was the idea that each jazz live or studio session had a leader and sidemen, and the music evolved from that. The leader picked the band, defined the concept and picked the tunes, and the members played accordingly. Of course, much of the music was improvised, but the improvisation was subsumed under the leader's plans. For example, many Blue Note Records albums from the 1960s have the same players, but the records sound different based on the leader. If Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock played on a Tony Williams album, they followed Williams' ideas; if Williams and Hancock were on a session for Shorter, they followed his ideas. And yet, all of them were in Miles Davis's great quintet at the time, where they followed Miles' directions.

By the same token, if you saw Miles Davis at a jazz club in the late 60s, you expected to see a group led by Miles, playing his music. If you were lucky, and probably in New York, you might get to see the "Great Quintet" with Shorter, Williams, Hancock and bassist Ron Carter. If you were in San Francisco, you might see a sextet lineup with both Shorter and Joe Henderson on saxophones, but with Albert Stinson on bass, as Ron Carter rarely toured. A "jazz group" meant that the leader or leaders defined the music, and the best available players played it. It was still Miles Davis, and it was still jazz. Garcia and Saunders were built on the Miles Davis model, not that of The Beatles.

Garcia/Saunders History
I have dealt with the genesis of the Garcia/Saunders partnership at length, and will only briefly recap it here. Drummer Bill Vitt and organist Howard Wales were responsible for hosting Monday night jams at The Matrix in early 1970. Over time, Jerry Garcia and John Kahn became regulars with them. Wales had some hesitation about the popularity associated with playing with Jerry Garcia, and after some brief flirtations with Vince Guaraldi, Kahn brought Merl Saunders into the jams at The Matrix. Initially, Garcia, Saunders, Kahn and Vitt only played at The Matrix, but starting in 1971 they started to play out a little more. Since Garcia was a rock musician, they were considered a "rock group", but really they weren't. In fact, Garcia and Saunders' partnership was built on a jazz concept, whatever music they happened to be playing.

By early 1971, the Garcia-Saunders group had started to play somewhat regularly. Mostly they played The Matrix, until it closed, and then they mostly played The Keystone Korner. In the tradition of jazz groups, they had a core membership, but there seems to be evidence that it was fluid. In general, ias long as Garcia and Saunders were present, it was "The Garcia-Saunders Group." John Kahn was usually the bassist, and Bill Vitt was usually the drummer. In jazz terminology, Kahn and Vitt were the "first call" rhythm section, meaning they got the first phone call, as they were the preferred choices. However, if one of them was booked, someone else got the call, and it was still the Garcia-Saunders band. From what limited evidence we have, Bill Kreutzmann played drums on a number of occasions. There were probably substitutions on bass as well, when John Kahn was booked. This would have been standard operating procedure for a jazz group: Garcia and Saunders were the leaders who defined the music, Kahn and Vitt got the first call, and others filled in when required.

A Keystone Korner flyer for October 1971--should we read anything into the fact that John Kahn is not named on the flyer?

Garcia-Saunders 1971-1973
When thinking about "Garcia and Saunders" as a rock band, it's important to note that the group did not even have a name. "The Grateful Dead" may have been known informally as "The Dead" or occasionally by some 'substitute' name like "Jerry Garcia And Friends," but The Grateful Dead was a very real entity. They toured and recorded as The Grateful Dead, and a concert or album booked or sold as The Grateful Dead explicitly implied a certain repertoire and personnel. To some extent, the identity associated with their own name is what distinguishes a rock group from other musical aggregations.

When Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders played a nightclub or concert in the early 1970s, they could be booked any old way: "Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders," 'Garcia and Saunders," "The Garcia-Saunders Band" and so on. The implication was clear in any case: Garcia and Saunders would lead the band playing their unique jazz/rock hybrid, and other players would join them as available. Indeed, some interviews from this period refer to the Garcia-Saunders band as "The Group." Bill Vitt and John Kahn were generally seen as the 'other' members, but great care was taken to never define them as a rock band. As far as I know, whatever money was made was split between the individuals who played. A few bucks may have been passed on to Ramrod or other crew, but in general the musicians split the take evenly.

By the end of 1971, rhythm guitarist Tom Fogerty was playing at least some gigs with Garcia and Saunders, but he was more of a 'participant' than a 'member,' just as the others were. By the end of 1972, Garcia and Saunders seemed to have been experimenting with adding additional players to the group. Sarah Fulcher sang with the group from late 1972 until late 1973, but she didn't play every show. Guitarist George Tickner played several shows in Spring 1973. Will Scarlett occasionally played harmonica, and Martin Fierro played tenor sax one day in 1973 (July 19). At other times, different players would join the group for a song or two, often on an apparently casual basis, possibly simply because a band member had invited them on stage. All this was typical for a jazz group, but not a rock group.

From a jazz perspective, the Garcia-Saunders aggregation looked like this from 1971-1973:

Jerry Garcia-lead guitar, vocals
Merl Saunders-organ, keyboards
John Kahn-bass
sub: Marty David or others-bass
Bill Vitt-drums
sub: Bill Kreutzmann-drums
plus: Tom Fogerty-guitar (1971-72)
       Armando Peraza-congas (Spring 1972)
       George Tickner-guitar (Spring 1973)
       Sarah Fulcher-vocals (Dec 1972-Oct 73)
      Will Scarlett-harmonica (1973)
      Martin Fierro-tenor sax (July 19 1973)
and occasional guests on trumpet or other instruments for a number or two

Of course, given the limited number of tapes and reviews in our possession, there may be a wider number of subs than we may know about now. I would note that of the relatively few surviving Garcia/Saunders tape from this era, Bill Kreutzmann drums on a lot of them. No one really has any idea if Vitt played most of the shows, or only half of them, or what. At the time, besides being a session musician, Vitt was also a member of The Sons Of Champlin, so he may have had a lot of conflicts. Kreutzmann, of course, would not have been working if Garcia had a gig, so he would have been readily available.

John Kahn also had a parallel career in the early 1970s. Besides working as a session man in San Francisco and Los Angeles, Kahn performed regularly, if intermittently, with Brewer And Shipley, in the studio, on TV and on tour. So the occasional Garcia/Saunders show without Kahn (such as January 19, 1973, with Marty David on bass) were most likely conflicts with Brewer And Shipley. I think Kahn played more consistently with Garcia/Saunders than Vitt did, but truthfully we don't know for certain how many of those shows he actually missed.

The important point to consider here, however, is to dispense with the idea that the Garcia/Saunders aggregation had "members" in the sense of The Byrds or even the Jerry Garcia Band. If Armando Peraza was present, he was in the band; if he wasn't, he wasn't. In neither case was he exactly a "member." in the sense that Chris Hillman had been a member of the Byrds. Certainly, John Kahn and Bill Vitt were the first call players, and they were members in the sense that Ron Carter and Tony Williams had been members of the Miles Davis Quintet from 1964 to 1968. Albert Stinson and a few others played bass for the Quintet many times, but Ron Carter was no less a "member" for not making every show. Garcia and Saunders' music only required Garcia, Saunders and a rhythm section. Kahn and Vitt were the first and best rhythm section, but the music was played in any case.

As I have discussed at length, Jerry Garcia's first independent contract after he and the Grateful Dead left Warner Brothers was an agreement to make an album on Fantasy Records, the early 1974 album Live At Keystone. Tellingly, the artists on the record were not "Garcia and Saunders" but "Garcia, Saunders, Kahn and Vitt." This was a very jazz conception for a rock album, and I think a telling one. JGMF has marshaled some solid evidence that the quartet was experimenting with other players in early 1973, such as Sarah Fulcher and George Tickner, in consideration of future recording, but they seem to have gone with the core quartet. Garcia and Saunders were playing rock, if improvised rock, but their musical and financial conception of their band was that of a jazz group, not a rock band.

An obscure flyer for the Garcia/Saunders show at USF Gym on Halloween 1974. They are billed as Jerry Garcia, Merl Saunders and Friends. Opening act is Osiris, featuring Kevin McKernan.

Garcia And Saunders 1974-75
Bill Vitt stopped playing with Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders by the end of 1973. As usual, no reason or explanation was ever given. According to my theory, it's likely rather than that he "quit the band" or "was fired," he just stopped getting calls. The Garcia-Saunders aggregation had started to become more successful, thanks to the Dead's growing popularity and the attention that came with the Live At Keystone album. As a result, they were less able to always act like a casual jazz group who played the same few Bay Area nightclubs over and over.

'Membership' in the Garcia-Saunders aggregation for 1974-75 appears from the outside to be a very confusing story. I have made sense of it by dividing the known performances into three separate configurations, all of which overlapped with each other. You'll have to temporarily bear with some of my naming conventions until I explain them fully. The three concurrent configurations were

• "Garcia-Saunders"
• "Merl Saunders and Friends" and
• Legion Of Mary

After Bill Vitt 'left' the Garcia-Saunders group, or at least stopped getting phone calls, the band played their shows with Bill Kreutzmann on drums. Meanwhile, during the Winter of 1974, John Kahn, Merl Saunders and finally Jerry Garcia were recording Garcia's second solo album in Southern California, which is how drummer Ron Tutt came into their orbit. After what appeared to be a live dry run with Ron Tutt at the tiny Inn Of The Beginning in Cotati, Tutt did not play with Garcia and Saunders until December 1974.

In the meantime, Bill Kreutzmann played Garcia/Saunders shows at smaller auditoriums and weekends at the Keystone Berkeley. Late in the Summer, the great Paul Humphrey played drums for some gigs--it's hard to pin down the exact date--and by the time the Grateful Dead had gone on touring hiatus, Humphrey was the regular drummer for Garcia/Saunders. Humphreys played the notable Bay Area shows and the out-of-town shows throughout most of 1974. At some point, tenor saxophonist Martin Fierro became a regular part of the band as well.

By the end of 1974, Ron Tutt had joined Garcia/Saunders. Although there seems to have been a bit of confusion on the part of promoters, the name Legion Of Mary appears at the end of 1974. From December 1974 through July 1975, the lineup of Garcia/Saunders/Fierro/Kahn/Tutt was known as Legion Of Mary. What is confusing, however, was that if a show was booked with a different drummer, then it was billed as "Garcia-Saunders." A good example was June 8, 1975, at El Camino Park in Palo Alto. Someone other than Ron Tutt, an African-American (possibly Paul Humphrey), played drums, and the show was booked as Garcia-Saunders

It is not a relevant point here if a show was billed as "Garcia/Saunders Band," "Jerry Garcia And Merl Saunders" or some other slight variation. Both Legion Of Mary and Garcia/Saunders played more or less the same material. Legion Of Mary was conceived like a real rock group, like The Byrds, with a fixed membership; Garcia/Saunders had some fluidity, like a jazz group.

However, the real confusion with Garcia and Saunders performing lineups in 1974 and '75 has to do with what I am artificially naming here as "Merl Saunders And Friends." From mid-1974 until Summer '75, although the Grateful Dead made two studio albums and Garcia started working on the Grateful Dead movie, relatively speaking Garcia had more time on his hands than he had at any other time in the decade. After 1974, the Dead simply stopped performing; and even before that, Garcia only had one working band. Jerry was Jerry--if he had a free night and a guitar, he was going to play.

Garcia's access points to pickup shows was Merl Saunders. Garcia had long since passed the time when he could simply "drop in" and jam with someone without a hullabaloo, and in any case it was clear that Garcia didn't consider playing a ragged version of "Hideaway" with some strangers to be a fulfilling evening. Independent of Garcia/Saunders shows, however, Merl Saunders was a working musician with his own career. On his own, Merl was much jazzier, in the tradition of organ groups, and played with a rotating cast of players. Saunders played a lot of shows with just Martin Fierro on sax and a rotating cast of drummers, and his son Tony Saunders on bass when he was available. If Garcia was free--remember, the Dead weren't touring for much of this period--Garcia dropped in to play as well.

The reason we have any history at all of Garcia from places like The Sand Dunes, a tiny joint near Ocean Beach (at 3599 Taraval in San Francisco), or The Generosity, or The Inn Of The Beginning, another distant watering hole, was plainly that Saunders had booked the gig for his own band, and Garcia managed to make the show. Of course, Merl, the club owner and even Jerry were all hoping that any and every Merl gig featured a guest appearance by Garcia, but Merl was playing the show regardless. It seems clear to me that in some cases Garcia could give enough advance warning that the club owner--much to his delight--could actually advertise Garcia's presence. In other cases, Garcia seems to have just dropped by.

The important thing about club bookings is that they have to be scheduled 30 to 60 days in advance. A large club or an Auditorium wasn't going to book Saunders without Garcia, but a smaller place had to be open most nights anyway. Saunders had a regular Monday night gig in 1974 at The Sand Dunes, for example. My guess is that there were usually about 50 people there, although maybe various people came and went and the total head count was larger. At least once Garcia seems to have dropped in. The night's music was mostly instrumental jams, much looser and freewheeling than the rock-focused sound of the Garcia/Saunders band.

Tony Saunders usually played bass for his dad's gigs, although not always--Merl could play the bass with his foot pedals if needed. Various drummers sat in: E.W. Wainwright, Bob Steeler, Gaylord Birch and probably others, too. A variety of other musicians seemed to have dropped in, in the jazz tradition. Everybody wanted Jerry to show up, but even if he didn't, Merl was going to play anyway. The "Merl Saunders And Friends" shows, however they were variously billed, was a final year where Garcia could find a free night and sit in with a willing but talented band of friendly players and just lay it down, opportunities that all but disappeared after the Summer of 1975.

The June 1975 Keystone Berkeley calendar has billings for both Garcia/Saunders and The Legion of Mary (among many other interesting bookings)

Garcia & Saunders Band Lineups 1974-75

Garcia/Saunders, February-November 1974
Jerry Garcia-guitar, vocals
Merl Saunders-organ, keyboards, vocals
John Kahn-bass
Bill Kreutzmann-drums
then> Paul Humphrey-drums Aug-Nov '7
various subs>Paul Humphrey (Jun 8 '75) Gregg Errico (Jun 22 '75)
late 1974> Martin Fierro-tenor sax, flute

It's my current contention that Martin Fierro was a regular in Merl's band throughout 1974, but not necessarily in Garcia/Saunders. However, once it was clear that the Grateful Dead would be going on hiatus, I think Fierro became a "permanent" member of Garcia/Saunders and then Legion Of Mary. 

It remains uncertain exactly when Paul Humphrey first performed with Garcia and Saunders, but it appears to be August 11 or 12, 1974. It's also uncertain exactly when he became the regular drummer, and indeed when he was replaced by Ron Tutt. I can assure you that checking The Jerry Site won't help, since many of their sources were derived from me (via Deadbase IX) and I can vouch for my own mistakes there. The whole problem stemmed from a mistaken notion on my part that the drummers were "leaving" and "joining" the Garcia/Saunders "Band" as if they were members of The Byrds.

Merl Saunders & Friends with Jerry Garcia mid-74-Sunmer '75
Jerry Garcia-guitar
Martin Fierro-tenor sax
Merl Saunders-organ
Tony Saunders-bass (sometimes absent)
EW Wainwright, Bob Steeler, Gaylord Birch, others?-drums
various guest musicians on various instruments

By definition, Merl Saunders played numerous shows in this period with similar lineups, but without Garcia. For my purposes, it's not important how these shows were billed. The "Merl Saunders And Friends" period seems to have gone from late Summer 1974 through June 1975. I myself have not made the attempt to determine which shows might qualify as "And Friends" date. At this point, I am simply trying to assert and defend the proposition that Merl Saunders and Friends with Jerry Garcia was a different animal than Garcia and Saunders, even if they were sometimes billed the same way. There may have been more such appearances by Garcia than we initially realized.

Legion Of Mary December 1974-June 1975
Jerry Garcia-guitar, vocals
Martin Fierro-tenor sax, flute
Merl Saunders-organ, keyboards, vocals
John Kahn-bass
Ron Tutt-drums

Legion Of Mary began when Ron Tutt joined the group in December 1974. Any Garcia show that had the following lineup counted as a Legion Of Mary show. If Tutt wasn't present, the show was billed as Garcia/Saunders, not Legion Of Mary. For my purposes, it's moot if a few promoters called Legion Of Mary shows "Garcia-Saunders" shows. Tutt's arrival foretold the idea that Garcia's side band would be a regular, working rock band, with a name and a fixed membership.

Once again, I have not been been able to pin down Ron Tutt's first appearance with Garcia and Saunders in late 1974, and hence the beginning of Legion Of Mary. Ironically, Tutt's first appearance may still have been followed by dates with Paul Humphrey on drums, so that too clouds the trail. In a strange twist, the next-to-last show billed as Legion Of Mary, on June 22, 1975, featured Gregg Errico on drums, so by my system it would count as a Garcia/Saunders show, but you are free to make your own decision.

Aftermath
Garcia And Saunders, to the extent it was a "band," was institutionally a jazz band, even though they played rock. Certain players like John Kahn and Bill Vitt got the first phone call, but their absence on any given date was part of the professional life of the band. Both Garcia and Saunders put out solo albums from 1971 through 1974 featuring various players, and a live album was released with the core four of Garcia, Saunders, Kahn and Vitt. If you look at the careers of working jazz musicians during this period--Freddie Hubbard, Joe Henderson, anyone you like--that was what their recorded output was like. Different leaders made records using their various collaborators, and they shared credits on a live album.

When Garcia and Saunders stabilized in mid-1974 to become more like a rock band, first with Paul Humphrey and Martin Fierro, and finally with Ron Tutt, it foreshadowed the future Jerry Garcia Band. The Jerry Garcia Band had a fixed lineup at any given moment, and many of the members of the group stayed in the band for years. The practical realities of touring meant that there was the occasional substitute on bass or drums, but those were kept to a mere handful.

What was lost, ne'er to be seen again, was anything resembling Garcia's guest appearances with Merl Saunders' group. For almost a year, Garcia had enough time to drop in on Merl's little gigs, and just funk out on whatever jazz the band was playing. In some ways, this was a reflection of what Garcia apparently had enjoyed in the 1969-70 period at the Matrix, but that scene had disappeared with the Matrix itself. In some ways, the 1979 band Reconstruction may have been designed to provide an encore. John Kahn had alluded to the idea that Reconstruction would continue without Jerry, and indeed they played a few obscure gigs, but it ground to a halt. If Reconstruction had stood on their own, however, it might have provided a forum for Jerry to just drop in, without having to lead the band. It was not to be.

The last sign of a Garcia appearance with what I am calling "Merl Saunders And Friends" was at The Shady Grove in San Francisco, on October 2 and 3, 1978. The Shady Grove was a popular little musician's hangout, at 1538 Haight Street, between Ashbury and Clayton, that was under threat of closing. Merl played there regularly, and Garcia came out to play for one and possibly two nights, sitting in with Merl's band. A tape endures of October 3, and Garcia gets to jam away in some tiny joint, an opportunity that was already largely denied to him even by that date. The substantial legacy of Garcia and Saunders and Legion of Mary has left Garcia's final run at being one of the boys in the band largely obscured by clouds.

August 20, 1975 Great American Music Hall, San Francisco: Keith And Donna with Jerry Garcia ('Straight Life")

Listings for the Great American Music Hall for August 15-23, 1975, from the Fremont Argus of August 18, 1975. Note that Les Paul comes in for the following weekend

Recently, thanks to the miracle of accessibility that is the iPod, I listened again to the August 20, 1975 tape, where Jerry Garcia plays with the Keith And Donna band. The conventional wisdom over the decades has been that Garcia was between bands that month, couldn't stay away from playing, and sat in for a few dates with Keith And Donna because he could. While I still think that little narrative is essentially true, listening closely to the remarkable 25-minute version of Art Pepper's classic "Straight Life" made me consider the context of Garcia's August 1975 performances with Keith And Donna in an entirely new light. In particular, it made me realize how the 1976 Keith and Donna version of the Jerry Garcia Band was consciously constructed to contrast itself with the more freewheeling, jazzy ensembles with Merl Saunders that preceded it. I suggest this because I will argue that Garcia's performance with the Keith and Donna band, epitomized by the long, wonderful cover of "Straight Life," represent a snapshot of how Garcia, Keith and Donna would have sounded playing like the Garcia/Saunders ensemble, and how Garcia clearly chose not to travel that path he had already walked upon.

The Legion Of Mary and The Jerry Garcia Band, Summer 1975
The basic narrative is fairly well known, promulgated by the likes of me. Jerry Garcia had played with Merl Saunders since 1970, but by mid-1975, Garcia was looking for a change. At the time, The Legion Of Mary was an almost formal group, with Garcia, Saunders, John Kahn, Ron Tutt on drums and Martin Fierro on tenor sax and flute. If Tutt wasn't present, they played under the name 'Garcia-Saunders.' Occasionally Garcia also dropped in on Merl Saunders gigs, with Tony Saunders on bass and a variety of drummers, along with Fierro. All three ensembles played lengthy songs, with Garcia, Saunders and Fiero sharing solos, and a fair share of instrumentals and songs featuring Merl Saunders on vocals. Over the years, the Garcia/Saunders ensemble had been very comfortable about letting guests sit in on trumpet, guitar or other instruments. In that respect, the Garcia/Saunders groups were formulated like a jazz band, even though they played rock. Solos were shared, vocals were shared, and membership wasn't absolutely fixed.

Garcia played his last show with the Garcia/Saunders ensemble on July 6, 1975 at Keystone Berkeley. He would actually play a fair number of later shows with Merl Saunders a few years later in Reconstruction, but this phase of the partnership was over.  The ensemble that followed was The Jerry Garcia Band, who officially debuted on September 18, 1975 at Sophie's, in Palo Alto. Sophie's, at 260 S. California Avenue, would later become the Keystone Palo Alto, but at the time it was kind of out-of-the-way, a good place for a new band to get broken in. The new Garcia Band featured Garcia, Kahn, Tutt and pianist Nicky Hopkins. Hopkins was a major rock figure in 1975, having toured with Jeff Beck, Quicksilver and The Rolling Stones, among many others, and having recorded with the Stones, the Beatles and The Who, to name just a few. With the Stones' pianist and Elivs Presley's drummer, The Jerry Garcia Band wasn't just some pickup band.

Apparently, paperwork exists formally establishing Garcia, Kahn, Tutt and Hopkins as partners in the Jerry Garcia Band. I don't believe such a formal arrangement ever existed with Garcia and Saunders; I think they just split up the money evenly at the end of the night. However, in 1975 the Dead were not touring, and Garcia not only needed the cash, he was clearly looking at a solo career as a formal project. Thus in order to get musicians at the level of Tutt and Hopkins, he had to offer them something, and I believe what he had to offer was a partnership. Jerry had the big name, but by making a band out of it, all the participants would benefit. Neither Elvis nor Mick Jagger had offered such a thing to Tutt or Hopkins. From that point of view, the Jerry Garcia Band wasn't designed as a vehicle where players would drop in and out whenever they were otherwise booked. While accommodations would have had to be made for Elvis, history shows that Tutt was serious about the enterprise.

Although we know that Nicky Hopkins debuted with the Jerry Garcia Band on September 18, 1975, one thing I had not contemplated until very recently was their first rehearsal. Now, Garcia didn't like to rehearse, and Hopkins and Tutt didn't need to rehearse much--part of their appeal for Garcia. But Hopkins had never played with Garcia in a formal setting, so there had to have been at least one rehearsal. I'm not even certain where Hopkins lived in 1975, but in any case he normally flew between England, New York and Los Angeles, playing sessions or shows for rock legends of all stripes. Thus a rehearsal, however brief, had to be formally arranged, with plane tickets and someone to pick up Hopkins at the airport.

I am going to propose the following: Garcia had been thinking about the plan to play with Hopkins for some time, and there was a rehearsal of some kind for Garcia, Hopkins and Tutt in July 1975. The rehearsal went well and they agreed to form a band. However, Garcia had some pre-existing dates booked at the Keystone Berkeley for August of 1975, and in any case he needed the cash. Thus I think the Keystone simply had "Jerry Garcia" listed on the calendar and ads, and didn't know who would actually play the August 1975 dates. Garcia probably didn't know, either. Once Garcia rehearsed with Hopkins, he knew he had a band, but he still had some dates to fill, and no desire to cancel them. Thus I think he teamed up with the Keith And Donna band to play the scheduled Jerry Garcia Band dates at the Keystone Berkeley in August. Given that they were playing together, I think Garcia played the booked Keith and Donna dates, too, at the Orphanage and maybe elsewhere. I wouldn't be surprised if Garcia had informally told the Godchauxs that he might play dates with them in August, if he couldn't pull his band together quickly enough.

August 1975 Performances by Jerry Garcia and Keith And Donna
According to my logic, shows attributed to the Jerry Garcia Band would have actually been Keith And Donna with Jerry Garcia. I wouldn't be surprised if Garcia played at the dates booked as Keith And Donna shows, too, although we have no evidence one way or the other, save for the fact that Betty Cantor seems not to have taped them. Based on my previously published history of the Keith And Donna band's performing history, August 1975 looks like this:

Listing for Keith And Donna at The Odyssey Room, Campbell, for August 4, 1975, from the August 1, 1975 edition of the Hayward Daily Review. For the record, the Garcia Brothers were a South Bay club band, and did not feature Tiff and Jerry.

August 4, 1975  Odyssey Room, Sunnyvale Keith and Donna
The Odyssey Room, at 799 El Camino Real in Sunnyvale, was a South Bay saloon, a jumping place that featured local bands and probably sold a lot of drinks. I wonder if Garcia played with them anyway (see notes below)?

August 5, 1975  Keystone Berkeley Jerry Garcia Band
This listing for The Jerry Garcia Band comes from Deadbase, without attribution. Deadbase's source was me. Based on my long ago notes, it appears that this date was from a list compiled by Dennis McNally. For the reasons described below (see August 20-21), I think this was a Keith and Donna show, perhaps with Jerry Garcia playing lead guitar and singing a few songs. Of course, its equally possible that Garcia never played the show, or maybe Keith and Donna took the date by themselves. I'm most inclined towards the latter. If Garcia had promised Freddie Herrera of the Keystone a date, Herrera could have respected the cancellation, but he still had to have a headliner. My guess is that Keith and Donna played, but without Jerry.

A listing from the KG column of The Hayward Daily Review from August 17, 1975. The booking was listed as Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders, but it is highly unlikely that Merl actually played. Keith And Donna played the show, almost certainly, but the question is whether or not Jerry Garcia sat in.

August 18, 1975 Keystone Berkeley Keith and Donna
This show was listed in the Hayward Daily Review as a Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders show. I believe there is another listing where it is displayed as a Keith And Donna show, but I can't pin that down right now.  If this was the first Garcia show with Keith and Donna, a quiet appearance by Jerry might be a safe way for him to get his feet wet with the band, a public rehearsal if you will.

August 20-21, 1975 Great American Music Hall, San Francisco Jerry Garcia Band
The Fremont Argus (up top) lists these Wednesday and Thursday shows at the Great American Music Hall (859 O'Farrell, and still going strong) as The Jerry Garcia Band. In fact, we have a lovely tape of August 20 (I think it is a Betty Board), and Jerry Garcia joins Keith and Donna. He plays lead guitar on all their songs, as well as singing 'Tough Mama" and "How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You." I have to assume the next night was the same configuration. Although the tape is incomplete, the entire group sounds great, and Jerry of course puts it over the top.

Both the August 20 and August 30 tapes feature an unnamed trumpeter. We do know that Hadi Al-Sadoon was listed as a Keith And Donna band member in July, so he seems the most likely suspect. Nonetheless, numerous Garcia tapes in the 1970s feature trumpet players, all unnamed--I wonder if they were the same one? One could postulate the usual Marin suspects--Luis Gasca, Bill Atwood, and so on, but I really don't know. Many of Garcia's band mates are no longer with us, either, so its hard to think who we could ask about that.

August 29-30, 1975 The Orphanage, San Francisco Keith and Donna with Jerry Garcia
The Orphanage, at 807 Montgomery, had been a happening North Beach club about 1973, and was by this time less so. Still, this was a comparatively high profile gig, compared to the likes of The Odyssey Room. The shows were on a Friday and Saturday, and fortunately, a tremendous tape survives of the latter night. Jerry sings some Dylan songs, and may have been trying out his Travis Bean guitar as well.

Keith And Donna Band with Jerry Garcia, Wednesday, August 20, 1975, Great American Music Hall, San Francisco, CA

Donna Godchaux-vocals
Jerry Garcia-lead guitar, vocals
Ray Scott-guitar
Steve Schuster-tenor sax, flute, congas
Hadi Al-Sadoon (?)-trumpet
Keith Godchaux-electric grand and Fender Rhodes piano, vocals
Mike Larscheid-bass
Bill Kreutzmann-drums

The tape I have lists six songs:

Tough Mama
My Love For You
Straight Life
Come See About Me
How Sweet It Is
Showboat

I am not an expert on tape lineage and set lists, so I won't make a claim for the exact date of the tape. It appears to be the first set of a show. For my purposes, it's enough to assert that it unquestionably represents Jerry Garcia playing with the Keith And Donna Band in Summer 1975.  Amongst the six songs are two sung by Garcia, both 'standards' in the Garcia canon, three that were regularly heard in Keith and Donna's sets, and an epic 25-minute instrumental that appears to be a long version of legendary alto saxophonist Art Pepper's signature song, "Straight Life." Now, I assume "Straight Life" was a regular part of Keith And Donna sets, and in any case I'm not musical enough to insure you that the band was really playing the Pepper tune.

Nonetheless, there's 25 minutes of a rocked up version of some serious jazz, even if someone could make the case that it wasn't "Straight Life." The significance of the inclusion of "Straight Life" lies in the fact that the Jerry Garcia Band with Keith and Donna almost never played instrumentals and stayed far away from formal jazz performances, save for a remarkable rendition of Miles Davis' "So What" on during what may have been the band's final performance.

What does the setlist tell us? First of all, the fact that Garcia led the band through disciplined versions of "Tough Mama" and "How Sweet It Is" means there had to be at least one rehearsal, however brief. Garcia's presence with Keith and Donna was planned, not just a casual drop in, which is part of the basis for my assertion that Garcia was using Keith and Donna to fill in some previously booked dates. Given that Garcia helped make the Keith And Donna album, he might have recalled "My Love For You" and "Showboat." "Come See About Me" was another radio classic, and a player of Garcia's stature could have just comped along and taken his solos. Also, with guitarist Ray Scott in the band, a solid if unspectacular player, Garcia would not have had to remember every rhythmic change, since Scott could cover the basic arrangements, leaving Garcia free to just embellish the music. One rehearsal would clearly have taken care of business, at least for this set.

However, it is the epic jam on "Straight Life" that really sets apart Garcia's August 20, 1975 performance. The Jerry Garcia Band with Keith And Donna had a certain sound, and "Straight Life" has nothing to do with it. "Straight Life" is structured as a modern jazz instrumental, with heads and a body, and the ensemble returning to state the theme just before the next excursion by the soloists. Garcia dominates the soloing, but Steve Schuster's tenor sax, the trumpeter (Hadi Al-Sadoon?) and Keith Godchaux's electric piano all take off for remarkable solos. I had heard jazzy licks from Keith many times in songs like "Playing In The Band," but this is the only time I can think of where he goes into a jazz mode and stays there, and he's a spectacular jazz improviser.

Art Pepper and "Straight Life"
While Garcia and the Keith and Donna band were clearly feeling it that night, working out on a tune as classic as "Straight Life" means it was no accident. Art Pepper (1925-82) was an alto sax player who was a giant of West Coast jazz music in the 1950s, and among the best alto saxophonists of the era after Charlie Parker. Pepper was a true genius, and also a junkie and a hustler, by his own admission. The title of "Straight Life" implies an unalduterated take on life itself (as in 'straight whisky'), rather than any homage to the straight and narrow, since Pepper was anything but.

To my knowledge, the first recording of "Straight Life" was on Pepper's classic 1957 album Art Pepper Meets The Rhythm Section. A wonderful recording, it features Pepper backed by members of Miles Davis's group. According to Pepper, he was broke and strung out, only heard about the session that morning, had no rehearsal, hadn't played in weeks or months, and had to borrow a saxophone. While the actual history is probably more nuanced (Pepper apparently played sessions the preceding week), the basic fact remains that Pepper came into the studio unprepared and in terrible shape. Pepper plays beautifully, however, and the album is a jazz classic.

Pepper's terrible heroin addiction led to a number of stints in prison, ultimately in San Quentin. After getting out of jail in 1964, Pepper hit bottom, his jazz career seemingly over. He ultimately got involved with the recovery group Synanon, and not only got his life back but his career, too, making fine music throughout the 70s until his death in 1982. Memorably, he published an autobiography in 1982, entitled Straight Life. It is a harrowing and fascinating tale of genius, addiction and despair.

There are many books about addiction and redemption, many of them by musicians. However, in contrast to books by the likes of the publicist for The Doors (Wonderland Avenue by Danny Sugarman) or the keyboard player for Three Dog Night (One Is The Loneliest Number by Jimmy Greenspoon)--both