Reconstructing Reconstruction, January-February and August-September 1979

Reconstruction, with 'Special Guest' Jerry Garcia, playing at The Old Waldorf in San Francisco on April 23, 1979

Some research into other areas led me to focus on the genesis of the band Reconstruction, a Bay Area jazz-funk ensemble formed by John Kahn that featured Jerry Garcia on lead guitar and vocals. The group only existed in 1979, performing 57 shows with Garcia and a handful without him. As a result, the group is known as an iteration of the Jerry Garcia Band, rather than as a stand-alone ensemble.

In retrospect, this is not entirely unfair, given Garcia's prominence, but a closer look reveals that the group was conceived in a very different manner, where Garcia would have only been an ongoing, if important, guest star for a permanent band. Reconstruction was a fascinating, underrated band, whose music has held up very well to repeated listening over the decades. Nonetheless, for all the extant Garcia scholarship, the roots of the Reconstruction band have hardly been discussed. This post will look at what appears to have been the circumstances surrounding the formation of Reconstruction, with an emphasis on what it was planned to be, rather than what exactly turned out to happen

The Jerry Garcia Band album Cats Under The Stars, released on Arista in April 1978

Cats Under The Stars-Jerry Garcia Band (Arista Records, April 1978)
Somewhere around 1974, Jerry Garcia and John Kahn went from collaborators to partners. Kahn had produced Garcia's first solo album for Round (known now as Compliments Of Garcia), and Kahn's bass playing anchored the live performances of the Jerry Garcia Band. Kahn had had an ongoing career as a producer and session musician in San Francisco and Los Angeles studios, but he had largely put that aside to work with Garcia. The centerpiece for Garcia and Kahn's ambitions was Garcia's first album for Arista Records, Cats Under The Stars, attributed to the Jerry Garcia Band, and released in April 1978. Garcia and Kahn regularly spoke about how much effort they put into that album, and how its poor sales were a true disappointment to both of them. Whatever plans the pair may have had for the future of the Jerry Garcia Band, they must have had to re-think them after Cats was--in industry parlance--a stiff.

Parallel to the Garcia Band album's dismal sales, the onstage contribution of pianist Keith Godchaux had significantly declined. Since Keith and Donna Godchaux were members of both the Grateful Dead and the Jerry Garcia Band, this had multiple ramifications for Garcia and Kahn. I think that Keith's weaknesses affected the Garcia Band less than the Dead, and in any case I think Garcia's principal musical interest in Keith and Donna was, in fact, Donna Godchaux's vocals. Nonetheless, a change was gonna come, even if it took a while. I have made the argument elsewhere that Garcia had quietly spent 1978 thinking about replacing Keith and Donna in the Dead and the Garcia Band. From observing his opening acts, Garcia seems to have identified Brent Mydland, Ozzie Ahlers and Melvin Seals as future collaborators, and indeed they all played with the Dead and the Garcia Band over the next dozen years.

Meanwhile, what of John Kahn? Kahn had let his record industry career slip away in order to throw in his lot with Garcia. Kahn, like Garcia, had surely hoped that Cats Under The Stars would be like Fly Like An Eagle or Red Octopus, a radio friendly hit album by a band of Fillmore-era veterans, but the reality was quite different. Although in the relatively few interviews that Kahn did over the years he had a wry sense of humor about the dismal sales of Cats, it can't have been casual for him. Garcia had the Grateful Dead as a full-time activity--what did Kahn have, given that he had pushed aside his Hollywood career? According to Kahn, he organized Reconstruction, and it makes perfect sense not only because of the timeline, but because Kahn would have been returning to jazz, the music that made him become a professional bassist in the first place.

October 2-3, 1978: The Shady Grove, San Francisco, CA: Merl Saunders and Friends
Given Jerry Garcia's long friendship with Merl Saunders, the fact that he sat in with Merl for two nights at a tiny club on Haight Street seems perfectly plausible. The tiny Shady Grove was a club that featured bands playing original music, and when it got in financial trouble, not only did Merl play a benefit, he got Jerry to come out too, and it must have packed out the house both nights. However, a closer look makes Garcia's presence rather more curious.

Let me be clear and say that Garcia loved to play, and I don't doubt that on both nights at the Shady Grove, Jerry loved funking out with Merl, just like he had done a few years earlier. Nonetheless, why the Shady Grove, and why October 1978? Garcia had unceremoniously dumped Saunders in 1975, leaving Kahn the unpleasant task of telling his friend that he was no longer working with Garcia. The financial ramifications for Saunders would have been significant, too.

For much of 1974 and '75, Garcia had not only had a regular band with Saunders, he had regularly dropped in on Merl's smaller gigs (much to the delight of Merl, the club owners and the fans), and he had abruptly stopped all that. Saunders worked steadily in the Bay Area for the next twenty-five years, and yet the October '78 shows at the Shady Grove were the only time that Garcia took the opportunity to drop in, an opportunity that must always have been there.

In October 1978, Garcia and Kahn would have known that Keith and Donna Godchaux were leaving both the Dead and the Garcia Band one way or the other. I don't know how explicitly they talked about it, but Garcia and Kahn had to be thinking about their next move. What few remarks Kahn has made about Reconstruction suggest that he wanted to form a jazz group. I think Kahn wanted to form a group with Merl Saunders, and he and Garcia needed some confirmation that Saunders was still a willing and functional partner.

To this day, I do not know who called Garcia about dropping in at the Shady Grove--did Merl regularly invite him to gigs? Did Kahn or someone else act as a middleman? I don't even know who was in Saunders band in October 1978 when Garcia dropped by. Was Kahn with him those nights? In any case, since Garcia showed up for two shows, it wasn't any kind of accident. By 1978, Garcia's musical life was structured enough that there were no free nights by chance. By the time Garcia showed up at the Shady Grove on October 2 and 3, 1978, it was a plan and Garcia was sticking to it.

Without impugning any other motives--Garcia liked to play, Robert Hunter liked the Shady Grove and may have nudged him, and so on--I think Garcia's guest appearance with Saunders was a sort of reverse audition. Merl's musical sympathy with Jerry wasn't in question, but there may have been some unspoken issues about Garcia dismissing him from his circle. It does seem, however, that those unspoken issues remained unspoken, and Garcia implicitly or explicitly must have given Kahn the go-ahead to think about a jazz band.

What Was The Plan? 
Here is what I think the key issues were for Kahn and Garcia

• Cats Under The Stars' failure meant that the JGB would become primarily a performing ensemble, not a recording one
• Kahn needed something musically meaningful to do when Garcia was engaged with the Dead
• Although Keith and Donna Godchaux were short-timers in the Grateful Dead, the exact timing and nature of their departure was unknown, since no one in the Grateful Dead had even talked about it
• Given the ambiguity of Keith and Donna's status with the Grateful Dead, the least confrontational way to address the Jerry Garcia Band was to shut it down for a while, thus avoiding explaining to Keith or Donna that they were being 'fired' from the JGB and the Dead, since the band itself would be on hiatus
• Kahn would form a jazz band, and Garcia would play some gigs, bringing attention to the group while ducking any responsibility for explaining anything to Keith and Donna.
• Meanwhile, Garcia and Kahn would form a new Jerry Garcia Band, working in parallel with the jazz band
• The Jerry Garcia Band would focus on songs, and the jazz band would leave Garcia free to play some wild music in a more low-key context, similar to what he had done with Merl Saunders in 1975 in some under-the-radar shows 

Blair Jackson quotes John Kahn on the formation of Reconstruction (p.306), dating it to December 1978,and Kahn more or less confirms my outline:

"Reconstruction was going to be a band that would do more jazz, explore that avenue on a deeper level than the old Merl and Jerry thing," Kahn recalled. "It was supposed to be a thing where if Jerry was going to play in the band, which he ended up doing, we could still work when he was out of town with the Grateful Dead, which seemed to be more and more of the time. That was the point. In which case we'd have another guitar player. I actually did it a few times--I did some gigs with Jerry Miller of Moby Grape. He was a really good guy and a great player. I wasn't really planning on Jerry [Garcia] being in the band originally, and then when he was in the band it sort of changed everything from what the plan was."

What Was The Proposed Timeline?
Garcia sat in with Merl Saunders for two nights on October 2 and 3, 1978, effectively confirming that they could work together, even if that was hardly stated out loud, even by Garcia and Kahn. I think Kahn's timeline would have looked like this, even if it wasn't precisely written out

• Jerry Garcia saw Brent Mydland play with Bob Weir on October 26, 1978, and afterwards said to Weir "this guy might work"
• The Jerry Garcia Band with Keith and Donna was booked through November 4, 1978
• The Grateful Dead's Eastern Tour began November 11, 1978 on NBC-TV's Saturday Night Live, anticipating the release of their new album Shakedown Street on November 15, 1978
•  The Dead's Eastern tour continued throughout November and into early December.
• The Grateful Dead some December dates in Florida, and then a few late December dates in California, leading up to New Year's Eve at Winterland
• If it was implicitly assumed that Keith and Donna would be out of both bands after New Year's, then Kahn could get his jazz band together during the Dead's Eastern tour in November and December.
• If the stars aligned correctly, Garcia and the jazz band might slip in a few shows in December of 1978
• As the jazz band played around, Garcia and Kahn could get the new Garcia Band together, too

What Really Happened?
Events did not go as planned. They rarely do.

• Shakedown Street was released, and the Dead went on tour
• The Grateful Dead performed at the Capitol Theater in Passaic, NJ on November 24, 1978, and the show was broadcast live on a network of FM radio stations
• After the Passaic show, Garcia's poor health got the better of him and he was checked into a hospital
• The Grateful Dead were set up at the Veteran's Memorial Coliseum in New Haven, CT on November 25, but Bob Weir and Mickey Hart had to come onstage and announce that Garcia was sick, and that the show would be rescheduled
• Garcia, amazingly, managed to recover in time for a Florida date on December 12, 1978 (at the Jai Alai Fronton in Miami), and played out the remaining booked Dead dates on the schedule.
• Sometime before the end of 1978--possibly January 1979--Brent Mydland got a call from Bob Weir, who told him there was a chance he could end up in the Grateful Dead
• The Grateful Dead ended up playing numerous East Coast dates in January of 1979 to make up the canceled shows. Whether every one of the shows in January and February of 1979 were cancellation makeups isn't clear to me, but in any case the Keith and Donna era lasted a few months longer than the Grateful Dead perhaps intended it to.
• The final show with Keith and Donna Godchuax was a wonderful show at the Oakland Coliseum Arena on February 17, 1979. At a band meeting in February, Keith and Donna quit the Grateful Dead. While they probably saw the writing on the wall, in any case they couldn't take anymore, saving Jerry or anyone else the stress of saying "it's been a good 7 years--you're fired."

Reconstruction, booked at the Rio Theater in Rodeo for March 11, 1979 (from the SF Chronicle Pink Section). The Goodman Brothers, from Northeast Pennsylvania, opening for Mickey Thomas on March 17, featured Steve Kimock on lead guitar.

Reconstruction Construction
Based on my presumed timeline, and Kahn's comments, when the Jerry Garcia Band stopped playing in November 1978, Kahn must have started talking to Merl about putting a band together. With Garcia's usual desire to avoid conflict while still getting his way, since Kahn was forming a new group, Keith and Donna Godchaux weren't 'fired' from the Jerry Garcia Band. No unpleasant meetings or phone calls were required. Based on Kahn's comments, it seems that Garcia may have been more enthusiastically involved from the very beginning that Kahn or Saunders had expected. This would have been a two-edged sword: on one hand, it would make Reconstruction well known immediately, but on the other hand it would lead fans to expect to see Garcia as a member of the band.

Nonetheless, Reconstruction debuted at the Keystone Berkeley on January 30 and 31, 1979 a Tuesday and a Wednesday night, in between legs of the Grateful Dead tour. These shows were followed some weeks later by Tuesday night shows on February 20 and 27. Reconstruction played a string of shows in the next few weeks, but they avoided playing weekend nights at Keystone Berkeley or other large clubs. The members of Reconstruction were:

Merl Saunders-organ, keyboards, vocals
'Reverend' Ron Stallings-tenor sax, vocals
Ed Neumeister-trombone
John Kahn-electric bass
Gaylord Birch-drums
special guest-Jerry Garcia-guitar, vocals

Ron Stallings had played with Kahn back in his first rock group, The Tits And Ass Rhythm and Blues Band, and he had been in the group Southern Comfort, for whom Kahn co-produced an album. Gaylord Birch, a fine drummer from Oakland who had played with The Pointer Sisters, Santana and many others, was probably brought in by Merl Saunders. According to an interesting interview by Hank Sforzini, Ron Stallings called Ed Neumeister. Apparently, there had been some rehearsals, but another horn player was deemed desirable. Neumeister was an exceptional player. Beside playing in local jazz combos, he was in the house band with the Circle Star Theater as well as the Sacramento Symphony.

Given Garcia's revised schedule, as a result of the canceled shows, I suspect that Reconstruction was supposed to be put together without Garcia, but he made a few more rehearsals than was initially expected. Nonetheless, Neumeister refers to meeting Garcia in rehearsal before the first show, so there definitely were some rehearsals with Garcia. On the first night, January 30, 1979 at Keystone Palo Alto, the only song that Garcia sang with the band was the blues "It's No Use," which would have required little rehearsal, since Kahn and Saunders already knew it well.

Listening to the February 27 tape, the next one we have, seems to suggest that there hadn't been much if any rehearsal with Garcia between January and February. Garcia's playing is very muted for the first verse and chorus of almost every song, but subsequently Garcia steps up and plays with great confidence for the balance of each number. This sounds very much like an experienced player listening to the band's arrangement and then stepping up, a clear hint to me that while he may have jammed some with the band, Garcia hadn't formally rehearsed that much with respect to specific arrangements.

In an interesting interview with Hank Sforzini for Paste magazine,

Neumeister recalls how he became part of the band, “I think they rehearsed once or twice and they decided they would get another horn player, so Stallings recommended me, and actually Ron called me. He said, ‘Yeah, we’ve got a gig on Saturday and we’re rehearsing Thursday. It’s just a door gig.’” Neumeister knew who Garcia was but did not follow the Grateful Dead, “I had no idea to be honest the following that Jerry had. I showed up for that first gig and there were wall-to-wall people. It was at Keystone Berkley.”

Although the show was actually on a Tuesday, Neumeister's description suggests about a week of rehearsal, where he came through midway, and that fits Garcia's touring schedule. The previous Dead gig had been January 21, 1979, and the first Reconstruction show was January 30.

Early Reconstruction
After several weekday shows from January through March, the very first weekend show of Reconstruction was Friday, March 9 at the tiny Cabaret Cotati. The first true weekend booking for Reconstruction was not until March 30 and 31 at the Catalyst, the 16th and 17th shows for the group. Clearly the band was intentionally keeping a very low profile. By 1979, the Jerry Garcia Band and its predecessors had been headlining weekend shows at the various Keystones for eight years. The decision to stick to weekday shows was probably predicated on a number of factors

• The other members of Reconstruction, particularly Ed Neumeister, may have had a variety of conflicts with previously booked weekend shows
• Since Reconstruction had no intention of doing a "full Garcia Band," they may have wanted to tamp down expectations by staying away from the typical JGB weekend gig
• Given the complexity of Garcia's schedule, and the fact that Keystone dates were probably booked 30 to 60 days in advance, there may have been a residual concern that Garcia might not make every booked show, so Reconstruction didn't want to commit to a weekend, since they couldn't guarantee the Keystone a profit

Whatever the circumstances surrounding the establishment of Reconstruction, Garcia seems to have made every gig. Other than a tape from the debut on Tuesday, January 30, but we have only occasional setlists. On February 27, Jerry sang "It's No Use" and "The Harder They Come," another song that would have needed little rehearsal. The next list is March 7 (a Wednesday at tiny Rancho Nicasio), and it features "Struggling Man," the first known appearance of a Garcia song that would have actually required at least a run-through. The rarity of different Garcia songs suggests that rehearsals that included Garcia were pretty rare.

Reconstruction was initially intended as a sort of funky jazz project for Kahn and his friends, who of course included Jerry. However, the music was so good that the band started to take itself seriously. Once the band played some weekend shows at The Catalyst in Santa Cruz (March 30-31), they started to play more high profile events, including the group's occasional road trips (to Colorado, for whatever reasons). My own taste may be coloring my opinion here, but I find Reconstruction tapes to be extremely compelling 30+ years later, not true of every Garcia enterprise.

Ironically enough, I think the very power of Reconstruction's music blocked them from much success. Many Deadheads liked jazz, certainly including me, but most us were hardly any kind of experts. By 1979, I had just figured out how to make sense of Miles Davis's mid-60s music (like Miles Smiles) and his fusion efforts (like In A Silent Way), but I hadn't caught up to contemporary jazz itself. Knowing what I know now, a lot of late 70s jazz was following up on the Oakland funk of Herbie Hancock's Headhunters, playing very sophisticated music over a funky but ever-changing beat. At the same time, Reconstruction still had a smattering of vocal numbers, shared between Merl Saunders, Ron Stallings and Garcia (with occasional backups from Gaylord Birch).

 In many respects, Reconstruction was very contemporary, but it didn't have an easy slot for the record or concert industry to package it. Reconstruction was too loose and and had too much improvisation to call itself a rock or funk band, but since it didn't sound like early 70s "Fusion Music" (like Return To Forever) it didn't have a commercial slot in jazz either. Jazz always takes a few years to sink into listeners' consciousness, and by the time I grasped how deep Reconstruction was, the band was ten years gone.

Merl Saunders 1979 album Do I Move You, featuring Edd Neumeister on trombone

Reconstructing Studio Traces
Reconstruction never made a studio album. Yet a few traces remain.  One curious legacy was the obscure Merl Saunders album Do I Move You. Released in 1979 on Crystal Clear Records, it was a "Direct To Disc" one take recording, cut straight into the vinyl, an audiophile treat at the time. Five of the six songs were regular parts of Reconstruction sets ("Tellin' My Friends," "Shining Star," "Long Train Running," "Another Star" and "Do I Move You"). Merl's backing group on the album consisted of players with whom he regularly played, including his son Tony on bass, Larry Vann on drums and Martin Fierro on sax. Carl Lockett played guitar. The only member of Reconstruction on the album was Ed Neumeister, who joined the horn section on trombone. Given that the album was cut on February 3, 1979, Neumeister would have just met Saunders. The material on Do I Move You, all sung by Merl, suggests that it was a typical set of the Merl Saunders Band circa 1978, and thus that Reconstruction's material was initially grounded in Merl's arrangements of his working repertoire.

Another curious tidbit were some demos recorded in Spring 1979 by Jerry Garcia, and released as bonus tracks on the All Good Things boxed set (on the Run For The Roses disc). There are three tracks recorded with John Kahn on bass and Johnny D'Foncesca on drums. One of them, "Alabama Getaway," which includes Dan Healy on guitar, was probably just a demo to get the song on tape. Yet why record "Fennario" and "Simple Twist Of Fate?"

There are a variety of possible explanations, the most likely of which was to test out new recording equipment at Club Front. It's important to remember, however, that Garcia wasn't interested in making a studio album at this time, having just had the disappointment of the Cats release. It's also important to remember that there were plenty of live tapes around of both those songs, if a reference tape was needed. However, in the context of Reconstruction, whatever Garcia's motives for the demos, he was working with drummer Johnny D'Foncesca. Johnny D had moved to Mickey Hart's ranch at about age 10, in 1969, and was probably not yet 20 at the time of these recordings. I think Garcia was quietly checking out Johnny D's playing, because Garcia and Kahn were thinking about the next version of the Jerry Garcia Band.

The most significant recording on the boxed set, however, was a version of "Dear Prudence," also recorded in Spring 1979. "Dear Prudence" first turned up in Reconstruction sets around April, 1979, so I assume the recording was from around then. Unlike many other songs, Garcia had never played the song live, so there would have had to have been some discussion and rehearsal to get the parts right. Yet the recording was not just a quick demo of a song. Not only was most of Reconstruction on the recording, with only Gaylord Birch absent (replaced by Johnny D--Birch probably had a session), but Marin veteran Mark Isham was on the recording as well.

In the Sforzini interview Neumeister recalled what must have been these sessions:

Neumeister recalls one specific instance of Garcia’s devotion to his craft during a recording session. Neumeister, who had written the horn arrangements for the session, was discussing the arrangements with Garcia, “He decided for the recording we would extend the horn section—trumpet, some trombones—and we actually double tracked some of it so it was six horns. Jerry sat in the recording studio and not in the booth, so he could hear the track being mixed with the horns. He sat in with the horns, and he was very, very focused and concentrated and extremely detail-oriented. You wouldn’t think this about Jerry sometimes, but he was looking for perfection. We were there until we got it absolutely perfect. He was really into it being really, really clean and tight. Of course that’s what you want but on the other hand you think of Jerry as being this loose improviser.”

I assume that the recording session was at Club Front, but what was Garcia up to? Why bring in an extra horn player, have a pro--Neumeister--write out charts, and then double track the horns, and do multiple takes? This wasn't a casual demo, whatever it was. Something else must have been afoot. An album demo, perhaps? In any case, no one ever asked Garcia or Kahn and they never brought it up.

The End Of Reconstruction
Reconstruction played throughout most of 1979. The final show by the band was September 22, 1979, at the Keystone Berkeley, where they had begun almost nine months before. Just two weeks later, on Sunday, October 7, 1979, the new-model Jerry Garcia Band debuted at Keystone Palo Alto, with Ozzie Ahlers on keyboards and Johnny D'Foncesca on drums. In fact, however, Reconstruction had played a few shows in August and September without Garcia.

Inexplicably, the first known booking without Garcia was at the Keystone Palo Alto on August 4-5. It was inexplicable due to the fact that the Grateful Dead were playing the Oakland Auditorium the same nights, so the potential audience for Reconstruction, even without Jerry, was otherwise engaged. The advertised guitarist was Carl Lockett, a local player who had played on Merl's Do I Move You album (I think Lockett played the August 3 booking at Keystone Berkeley too, but perhaps Jerry played or was supposed to play). JGMF managed to dig up some obscure Reconstruction bookings, although its not certain if the events ever occurred, or how they went down.

Reconstruction: August-September  1979
August 3, 1979: Keystone Berkeley
Garcia could have played this show, but I think Carl Lockett was advertised. On the other hand, maybe this was the show where Merl thought Jerry was booked, but someone unnamed didn't tell him about it (see below).

August 4-5, 1979: Keystone Palo Alto
The Grateful Dead were playing Oakland Auditorium. Carl Lockett was advertised as Reconstruction's guitarist.

August 10, 1979: Temple Beautiful, San Francisco
Garcia played this date, at the former Synagogue which had previously been known as Theater 1839 (where the JGB had played on July 29-30, 1977)

September 3, 1979: Frenchy's, Hayward
The Grateful Dead played Madison Square Garden from September 4-6, so it's unlikely Garcia was in town. This may have been a show with Jerry Miller. Incidentally, Frenchy's was the very same venue from which the Warlocks were hired for a three day booking and then fired, reputedly on June 18, 1965. A Monday night at Frenchy's would be a good place for the band to try out its "new look" without Garcia. The show was subtitled "Merl Saunders And Friends," I think as an indicator of fans as to what to expect.

September 4, 1979: Sleeping Lady Cafe, Fairfax
The Dead were in Madison Square Garden. Whoever played guitar the night before most likely played guitar this night. According to Kahn, the shows with Jerry Miller were quite good, if it was indeed him.

September 15, 1979: Keystone Palo Alto, Palo Alto
Garcia played this show.

September 22, 1979: Keystone Berkeley, Berkeley
Garcia played this show as well, and I think this was the last performance of Reconstruction, with or without Jerry.

A listing from BAM Magazine, September 1, 1979, showing a Keystone Palo Alto date for September 29, 1979, found by JGMF. The ad would have had to have been sent to press before September 1.

September 29, 1979: Keystone Palo Alto, Palo Alto
JGMF found an ad for this show, but its not clear what happened. I don't think Reconstruction would have been booked for a Friday night without Garcia. On the other hand, the Dead were not playing, and Garcia could have played this show. At this point, we have to file this show as likely with Garcia if it happened, but 'unproven.'

However, Jackson quoted a bitter Merl Saunders on the demise of Reconstruction (p.307), when Garcia seemingly abandoned the band:

"..there was a night when he didn't show up for a gig., which was done purposely, I think. It was sabotaged [Saunders won't say by whom]. They didn't tell him there was a gig to get to. And shortly after that he and John started a different group and I sort of lost touch with him."

The September 29 Palo Alto show might fit the timeline for this, but the August 3 Keystone Berkeley show would fit even better. Of course, what does "shortly after" mean? A week, a month? The implication is that the rest of Reconstruction was there, and Garcia was not, so that would exempt Kahn from any subterfuge--but it remains mysterious who Saunders felt was threatened by Garcia's participation in Reconstruction.

October 7, 1979: Keystone Berkeley, Berkeley: Jerry Garcia Band
The Ozzie Ahlers version of the JGB debuted this night, and there isn't any doubt about it.

According to Kahn, on at least one occasion, the guest guitarist was Jerry Miller, a fantastic player who was the once and future lead guitarist for Moby Grape. It was an intriguing idea, really--a far-out jazz funk band with a series of guest guitarists, who sometimes might be Jerry Garcia. Yet for whatever reason, Reconstruction sputtered to a halt without Garcia. I think the music was just too advanced to draw an audience without the natural pull of Garcia, and Reconstruction simply disappeared without a trace. I think there were three shows at the Keystone with Carl Lockett (August 3-5). and two more in September (3-4), possibly with Jerry Miller, and maybe another obscure show or two, but they didn't gain any traction. Garcia and Kahn would have been planning the next iteration of the Jerry Garcia Band, and it looks like Reconstruction just didn't take without Garcia.

Reconstruction was an inspired idea, a plan for a working jazz band with Garcia as a regular but not permanent guest, and a chance for Garcia to get some serious playing done. Garcia had sort of managed to pull that off with Merl Saunders in late '74/early '75, and this seemed like another chance. The music lived up to its name, the players were great and the inspiration was there, yet it never went any further. No one asked Garcia or Kahn about it, or Merl Saunders for that matter, so we'll never know exactly what was planned and whether the group's arc was satisfactory or not. We are left only with some fine tapes, a single studio track and a whiff of what might have been.

May 19, 1979: The Old Waldorf, San Francisco, CA: Reconstruction/Horslips

Two recent posts had lengthy discussions about Jerry Garcia's dozen year commitment to playing the Keystone Berkeley and the outsize role the Keystone clubs had in Jerry Garcia's solo career. A stark contrast to Garcia's casual arrangement at the Keystone is illustrated by my experience at seeing Garcia with the band Reconstruction on May 19, 1979, the second night of a two night booking at the Old Waldorf in San Francisco. Garcia had played a benefit at the Old Waldorf the previous month (April 23, 1979), and it was Garcia's first performances at the Old Waldorf, then the Bay Area's premier rock nightclub. However, the May concerts were clearly not a comfortable event for the club nor Garcia, and he did not play the club again until Bill Graham took it over in January 1982. This post will take a closer look at the May 19, 1979 Reconstruction show from a commercial perspective rather than from a musical one.

Reconstruction
The version of the Jerry Garcia Band that featured Keith and Donna had ground to a halt at the end of 1978. With Garcia and Weir already having decided to replace Keith and Donna, it doesn't seem surprising that the Garcia Band would need to re-think itself, too. Heavy touring by the Grateful Dead, complicated by a late November illness for Garcia, insured that Garcia's extra-cirricular activites were all but non-existent during the end of 1978. Nonetheless, Garcia resurfaced rather unexpectedly at the end of January at his regular haunt, the Keystone Berkeley. Reconstruction debuted Jan 30-31, 1979.

John Kahn explained (in the Winter 1987 Golden Road interview) that he was the one who put together Reconstruction, with the idea of focusing on playing jazz music. Kahn had originally gone to the San Francisco Conservatory in Fall 1966 to become a professional jazz musician as an acoustic bassist, but he had become sidetracked. Thus Reconstruction was a return to his roots, in a manner of speaking. However, jazz trends in the late 1970s had a heavy funk orientation, so many Deadheads without much knowledge of contemporary jazz (including myself) tended to categorize Reconstruction as "funk music," a somewhat limiting assessment. The members of Reconstruction were

• Jerry Garcia-guitar, vocals
• Ron Stallings-tenor sax, vocals
• Ed Neumeister-trombone
• Merl Saunders-organ, keyboards, vocals
• John Kahn-bass
• Gaylord Birch-drums

Since Kahn never gave interviews--probably because no one asked him--the change in direction from the straight rock of JGB to Reconstruction's funky jazz was generally attributed to Merl Saunders. Garcia fans recognized Saunders, and remembered his funkier sound, so Reconstruction was perceived to be Merl's band. The idea seemed to be that Garcia was just another band member. He would sing a couple of songs each set, but so would Stallings and Saunders, the other vocalists, and there were a number of instrumentals, as well. Garcia did not perform the "standards" that we had come to expect in the Jerry Garcia Band, and limited himself to an entirely different set of songs.

As usual in the Bay Area, there was almost no press coverage of Reconstruction, nor of the demise of the Jerry Garcia Band. Joel Selvin in the San Francisco Chronicle and Blair Jackson in BAM probably made a few remarks, because I knew a little bit of what to expect when I saw them in May. However, I had not yet heard a tape, nor were tapes or eyewitnesses numerous. By May, Reconstruction had only played a few dozen shows at traditional Garcia haunts in the Bay Area, plus a three-night stand in Denver. Saunders and Kahn were well known to Garcia fans, of course, but the other players were new to us.

• Ron Stallings (tenor sax, vocals) was an old friend of Kahn's. Stallings and Kahn had played in the strangely named T&A R&B Band in 1967-68, and Stallings had gone on to play with Mother Earth and Southern Comfort. He had extensive experience as a jazz and soul player around the Bay Area throughout the 1970s, but he was not well-known.
• Ed Neumeister (trombone) in fact had already had a fascinating career as a jazz and classical trombonist (well worth reading about), but of course this was completely unknown to Deadheads at the time, since no one ever interviewed or even talked about the group. During 1979, Neumeister had a successful jazz quartet (with Mark Levine, Mike Formanek and Jerry Granelli) and was a member of the Circle Star Theater house orchestra.
• Gaylord Birch (drums) was well-known on the Oakland funk scene, but better known professionally as a drummer for The Pointer Sisters, Herbie Hancock, Cold Blood and others (including Santana, briefly).

According to Kahn, the idea for the group was that it was supposed to exist separately from Jerry Garcia, giving Kahn something to do when the Dead were on tour. This may account for Garcia acting just as the lead guitarist and occasional singer, rather than as front man. Of course, all the bookings for the group prominently featured Garcia, so it was a difficult path for Reconstruction to carve out its own name.

The Old Waldorf
The Old Waldorf was at 444 Battery Street, on the second floor of a building in the Embarcadero Center in San Francisco, a shopping mall and office complex near Downtown. It was opened in early 1976 by Jeffrey Pollack, who had extensive experience in the restaurant business. It became the premier rock club in the Bay Area almost immediately after it opened, because Pollack shrewdly anticipated the marketplace that was to come.

San Francisco rock was founded by a bunch of hippies, and all of the initial venues emphasized the values of the Fillmore and the Avalon: a relaxed atmosphere, plenty of room to dance and an assumption that if a party was bigger and longer, it had to be better. Rock music had become big business, and concerts had moved from the intimate Fillmore to the larger Fillmore West to the even larger Winterland, and finally to the Oakland Coliseum and Cow Palace, the Bay Area's biggest venues.

However, rock fans had--by definition--gotten older as time passed, and some of them had even gotten jobs. As a result, there were a lot of people in the Bay Area who were willing to pay a little extra to see good bands and more than willing to buy a few drinks along the way, but they didn't want to battle hordes of goofballs in the parking lot of some giant arena. At the same time, record companies backed by large corporations had a vested interest in promoting up and coming rock bands, since the rewards for a hit album greatly outweighed the expenses of recording or promoting up-and-coming bands.

Pollack correctly anticipated that many rock fans who lived, worked or amused themselves in San Francisco were ready to spend some money at a rock club that had hip bands in an intimate setting. San Franciscans love to say they saw a hot band in some tiny place on the way up, but they didn't want to go to some dump in Berkeley where it was impossible to park and there was sawdust on the floor. The parking lot for the Embarcadero Center offices served nicely to insure that parking was always available, as long as you had a few bucks to pay for it. The bathrooms were always clean at the Old Waldorf, everybody had their own seat, you could get a mixed drink, and the cover charge kept out weird riffraff.

At the same time, record companies liked sending their bands into the Old Waldorf. In the early 70s, the key to success was FM airplay, and the trick was to get radio staff and other professionals to see new bands. Radio pros much preferred The Old Waldorf to any other club, for the parking alone. One way that record companies could serve all their needs was by comping drinks for invited guests: radio people and other saw the band, they all all had a good time, and the club sold a lot of drinks that they billed the record company for. The bar at the Old Waldorf always had some hipoisie working on a tab, clearly people who had not paid to get in, hanging out in order to see and be seen or network. All in all, The Old Waldorf was an institution of the Peak 70s.

Greenpeace Benefit, Old Waldorf, April 23, 1979
Reconstruction had played The Old Waldorf before, for a Greenpeace Benefit on April 23, 1979. Tapes of both the early and late shows have survived. I have to assume that the Greenpeace shows were well attended, since the Old Waldorf booked Reconstruction to headline two weekend nights a month later (Friday and Saturday May 18-19). Without knowing a single person who attended the Greenpeace shows in April, I am suspecting that since Greenpeace was then a new, exciting cause--the Bay Area loves things that are new and exciting--the Benefit audience included some people who were not typical of the Deadhead/Garcia audience. I have to assume that, since the Old Waldorf show I attended in May seemed to be neither a success nor anything likely to succeed, and it was not repeated.

A number of practices set the Old Waldorf apart from other rock clubs in the Bay Area. In the first place, all Old Waldorf shows were advertised as having two shows, usually at 8:00pm and 11:00 pm. However, the club generally let people stay for both shows, unless the late show was completely sold out. The significance of the "two show" setup was manifold, however. For one thing, people who worked downtown could see a full show (headliner and opener) and still be out the door by 11:00pm, important for an audience that included people with jobs. For another thing, it allowed the club to kind of have it both ways: if the show was casually attended, the club could sell drinks to people who were willing to stay through both shows, but if the band was a breakout hit, the club could sell double the tickets. Finally, the setup allowed the club to enforce a two drink minimum for each show, so if you wanted to stay for both sets you had to buy four drinks instead of two.

Like most California rock clubs at the time, the Old Waldorf was considered a restaurant. I don't know if the food was any good, but since they served an "after-work" audience at the 8:00 shows, food service probably wasn't a complete prop. As a result of its restaurant status, the Old Waldorf allowed people over 18 but under 21. Other clubs, like the Keystones, probably could have done that too, but I think they didn't because of the risk of getting busted for serving under 21s. The Old Waldorf was much more organized than the Keystones, however, and the sophisticated urban waitresses (they were probably 23, but they seemed like exotic older women to me) knew how to manage tricky situations. At the time, I was still under 21 so the Old Waldorf was an option for me in a way that the Keystones were not (I refused to get a fake ID). Knowing what I know now, I realize the real purpose of the 18-and-over rule was so that 20-something men could bring younger dates, but I was oblivious to that at the time.

May 19, 1979 The Old Waldorf, San Francisco: Reconstruction/Horslips
I had a friend who worked at KALX, the Berkeley college radio station. At the time, all college stations played "non-commercial" music, but the whole alternative "left-of-the-dial" thing hadn't become ossified, so the station still played a wide variety of music. Horslips was an excellent Irish rock group, kind of like an Irish Fairport Convention, using Irish melodies while still playing melodic, exciting electric rock. Their record company was pushing their West Coast tour, and they were handing out free tickets to the forward looking side of the local music scene. However, since Horslips were opening for Jerry Garcia at the Old Waldorf, a lot of KALX types didn't want the tickets (not that many of them had heard of Horslips, anyway). My friend liked Horslips, however, and he knew I did, so we got free tickets to see Horslips and Reconstruction at the Old Waldorf.

My friend and I arrived at about 7:30 for the early show, looking to get good seats. The Old Waldorf had rows of tables at a 90 degree angle from the stage. There was an open dance floor, but it was off to the side with poor sightlines. The Old Waldorf was laid out to favor the drinkers. Of course, my friend and I were completely broke college students. Just because we were under 21 didn't exempt us from the two-drink minimums (I no longer recall if the waitress let us buy beer), but it seemed worth the effort. We were quite surprised to find the place almost deserted. Sometimes at the Old Waldorf you could get away with not buying a drink when the waitresses were super busy, but there was no way around it now.

People trickled in. Sometime after 8:00pm, a contingent arrived from Rather Ripped Records, Berkeley's coolest record store. Since I was their most faithful customer, they all recognized me (for old RRR habitues, it was Russ, Doug, Paul and maybe Ray). They were there to see Horslips--being a Deadhead was definitely so last-decade at Rather Ripped. My friend and I inquired about the late start, and the store owner (Russ) told us that the night before (May 18) Horslips had played a short half hour set at 8:00pm, the standard arrangement at the Old Waldorf, and then Garcia's group had not come until nearly eleven. Reconstruction then played so long that there was no time for Horslip's late set. The Rather Ripped people implicitly blamed Reconstruction's behavior on Garcia being a stoned hippie.

Even at the time, it sounded more like a misunderstanding to me, but who knows what really happened. In any case, the deal for our Saturday night show was that Horslips would play a single extended set, and then Reconstruction would play two sets. Since there seemed to be no chance of a sellout, the idea that it "two shows" was only a fiction maintained for the purpose of selling drinks. In any case, by accident or design the setup at the Old Waldorf was now similar to Garcia's general run at the Keystone, except with prettier waitresses and table service: an opening act, then a late start with two sets.

Horslips played about a 50 minute set, and they were really good. This was during the tour for their album The Man Who Built America, and they were a terrific band in any case, but I won't dwell on them here. There were maybe 100 people in the club to see them, maybe less. Many of the people who saw Horslips promptly left, including all the Rather Ripped crew. This wasn't surprising--The Old Waldorf was a club that featured what was new and cool, and familiar old Jerry Garcia didn't count as that in Bay Area 1979.

My friend and I nursed our drinks, and eventually Reconstruction came onstage, probably about 10:00pm. More people had come in by that time, but not a huge number. Off the top of my head, I'd say there were between 100 and 200 people there, but it was hard to tell in the dark. Many of the Deadhead types preferred the dance floor to the tables, not surprisingly, but that didn't put them in place to buy a lot of drinks. The tables were pretty sparse and my friend and I had plenty of room.

I sort of knew Reconstruction would be "funky," but I didn't know what to expect otherwise. I do recall that the group played about an hour long set of 7 songs. Ron Stallings sang at least two, including "Telling My Friends," Merl sang "Do I Move You," there were a couple of instrumentals (one of which sounded like the Doobie Brothers "Long Train Running") and Jerry sang two songs. Garcia sang about the 3rd and 6th numbers, neither the first nor last song. He was very much framing himself as just another band member. Much to my surprise, Garcia took the lead on "When The Hunter Gets Captured By The Game" and "Struggling Man."

Given that I knew little about Reconstruction going in, I was very pleased to hear such unexpected songs. As a listener, I liked jazz, but I hadn't really graduated to appreciating how you could play jazz on top of a funk beat, so I didn't really comprehend the density of what Reconstruction was doing. On the other hand, I had already seen the Garcia Band four times by that point, so I appreciated that it was worth seeing something different.

Ironically, however, my friend and I were both really broke. It's possible I actually had money in my pocket, but I couldn't afford to spend it. My friend liked the Dead a little bit, but he wasn't a huge fan and had little interest in sticking around for the second set. It was also the end of the quarter and we probably both had homework to do the next day, so a late night we couldn't afford wasn't in order. So we left before the second set, in order to avoid having to pay for two more drinks each.

At this great remove it may seem shocking that I didn't do everything in my power to stay for the second set. However, although I would have really enjoyed it, even for a serious Deadhead like me Garcia was just "around," and in any case since I would turn 21 soon I was convinced I would then see Garcia as much as I wanted to. It didn't really turn out that way, and Reconstruction had broken up by the end of that Summer, so I missed any other chances to see them. The tape that circulates is clearly from the late set.

I don't know how many people showed up after we left, but I suspect it wasn't that many. The Old Waldorf was outside of many Deadhead's orbit, and the intimidatingly pretty waitresses can not have been pleased at what foggy hippies were there, buying the occasional grudging beer. Reconstruction and the newly reconstituted Jerry Garcia Band promptly returned to the Keystones, where they belonged. The Jerry Garcia Band did play the Old Waldorf twice when Bill Graham bought it (January 11 and 13, 1982) but that too was not repeated.

When the Grateful Dead became huge in the late 80s, there was a tendency to assume that all Garcia appearances had always been an event. While Garcia had built a reliable audience at the Keystone Berkeley, allowing him to play what he wanted in a relaxed environment, the Keystone experience did not translate well to other venues. Despite the central location of The Old Waldorf, and Garcia's undeniable fame, it was plain that the conditions that made the Keystone viable was very difficult to export.