Category: Merl Saunders
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Aunt Monk: June 1, 1975, Inn of the Beginning, Cotati, CA
May 1975 Inn of the Beginning calendar, courtesy Mark Braunstein What a great piece of art, first of all. I am afraid I neglected to note the name of the artist/artists on the IOTB fliers. Mea culpa! Anyway, bottom right tells me that on Sunday, June 1, 1975, Jerry Garcia played with Aunt Monk (comprising…
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Merl Saunders and Friends: May 31 – June 1, 1974, Inn of the Beginning, Cotati
Here is one of the tantalizing little performances that you come across and really, really want to know more about, while understanding how miraculous it is that you are able to know anything about it at all. The Inn of theBeginning in Cotati hosted Merl Saunders and Friends, including Jerry Garcia, with Paul Pena opening,…
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Garcia and Saunders at the Lion’s Share (LN jg1973-07-05.jgms.all.sbd-alligator.79032.flac1644)
update 20230709: the trumpet player is Mike Price. update 201605015: this show has now been officially released as Garcialive 6: July 5 1973 Lion’s Share (Jerry Garcia / Merl Saunders). slight update 20110816, as noted below Like 2/16/74, this was a previously uncirculated Betty Board dropped by the mysterious ‘alligator’ into the ether at Lossless Legs,…
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JGB: September 19, 1975, Crabshaw Corner, Sacramento, CA
Thanks to Corry for answering my query on January 26, 1976 which also included a question about 11/4/78. Before starting my post, I just want to take a second to recognize Corry’s role in Garcia historiography. He has been not only an essential bridge across different documents (Soto, McNally) and traditions (from handwritten lists to…
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Humphrey’s Last Hometown Warmup: JGMS at Keystone, November 2, 1974
LN jg1974-11-02.jgms.148mins.aud-castelli-motb-0158.111191.flac2496 Update 12/27/2012: This is, indeed, Paul Humphrey drumming. The Mouth of the Beast crowd, led by the inimitable Bob Menke, recently dropped Robert Castelli’s master audience cassette recording of November 2, 1974 on an unsuspecting world. I foreshadowed this a little bit in a previous post. I have a few observations, and then reproduce…
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When did Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders first play together?
One of Garcia’s most enduring, important and original musical partnerships outside the Grateful Dead was with Merl Saunders. From about Fall of 1970 through mid-1975, Merl and Jerry played steadily in various configurations that began as loose jam sessions with fluid personnel at the Matrix to the more institutionalized (named! east coast touring!) 1975 outfit…
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JGMS: “July 21-22,” 1974, Keystone, Berkeley, CA
**updated 20111216 2057 GMT** Tony Saunders is the bassist on these two tapes. The Jerry Site has listings for Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders at Keystone, Berkeley, on July 21 and July 22, 1974. I doubt both date/venue combinations, for reasons I’ll lay out below. A) “JGMS 7/21/74, Keystone, Berkeley” This first date is so…
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JGMS: October 3, 1971, Frost Ampitheater, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA
Garcia and Saunders played the Pamoja Jazz Concert on October 3, 1971 at Frost Ampitheater, sharing a bill with Big Black and the Bobby Hutcherson – Harold Land Quintet. Love that jazz billing. Anyway, for a long time I have been aware of a show review by Paul Grushkin from the Stanford Daily a few…
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JGMS: January 15, 1972, Keystone Korner, San Francisco, CA
I have been needing to revisit recordings of the very early Jerry Garcia/Merl Saunders stuff, and with a bit of time I thought I’d give this show, from a Saturday in mid-January 1972 at the Keystone Korner in San Francisco, some attention on its birthday. I am not sure who’s drumming … could have been…
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Possible Jerry Gig? October 15-16, 1971, Keystone Korner, SF, CA
So, here’s one that caught my eye. Nick the Greek, Merl, Tom Fogerty, Dave Getz (presumably) and John Kahn gigging at the Keystone Korner on a Friday-Saturday night in October, 1971 when Jerry is not known (to me) to have been otherwise occupied. Jerry and Merl were billed at the same place the weekend before.…