Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders
Matrix
3138 Fillmore Street
San Francisco, CA 94123
May 11, 1971 (Tuesday)
20 min flac1644 shnid-28784
–(2 tracks, 19:58)–
t01. talk and tuning (1, 2) [1:03]
t02. Save Mother Earth [18:44] [0:10]
! ACT1: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders
! lineup: Jerry Garcia – el-g;
! lineup: Merl Saunders – keyboards, ?synthesizers?;
! lineup: ?John Kahn? – el-b;
! lineup: ?Bill Vitt? – drums.
JGMF
! Recording: symbols: % = recording discontinuity; / = clipped song; // = cut song; … = fade in/out; # = truncated timing; [ ] = recorded event time. The recorded event time immediately after the song or item name is an attempt at getting the “real” time of the event. So, a timing of [x:xx] right after a song title is an attempt to say how long the song really was, as represented on this recording.
! JGC: http://jerrygarcia.com/show/1971-05-11-the-matrix-san-francisco-ca/
! map: https://goo.gl/maps/htd1l
! listing: “Benefit Tonight to ‘Bring Back Jack’,” San Francisco Chronicle, May 10, 1971, p. 45;
URL http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2014/09/jgms-matrix-may-11-12-1971.html.
! general: I am listening to this 9/20/2014 in the context of trying to piece back together the “5/20/71” tape (listening notes). This piece of tape is the only leverage we have on those pieces of tape. Garcia’s guitar does have a 1968 feel to it there, but I hear the same tone on this tape. This analysis partly informs two other posts from today Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders at the Matrix – A Dialogue (9/24/2014) , and JGMS 5/20/71″ is probably really JGMS 5/20/71 (9/24/2014). I noted the listing at JGMS: Matrix, May 11-12, 1971.
! historical: A freaking Tuesday night!
! R: Unknown source > reel > CD > Plexwriter PX-W4824A extraction (EAC v0.9 beta 4) > tracking (CD Wave v1.6) > sector boundary verification (shntool v1.01) > level 8 FLAC encoding (FLAC Frontend v1.7.1 Etree edition). Reel >> digital by Harvey Lubar, EAC >> FLAC by jjoops.
! R: seeder notes: “Mono recording, hissy but basically very nice. The Jerry Site lists a soundboard, but I’d guess it’s an upfront audience recording. I don’t know anything else about the lineage.”
! R: seeder notes: “Thanks to Harvey Lubar for getting this wonderful little gem into my hands! Here’s hoping the rest of it turns up someday.”
! R: I’d add that there is some wow, flutter, warbling, variable tape speed, and the like.
! t01 (1) @ 0:10: “Hey Merl, you wanna do that tune in ‘G’? Get spaced out a little?”
! t02 (2) @ 0:30: JG: “What’s that?” MS: “I don’t know.” JG: “Hey, c’mon man, the orange one, now it’s the orange one, whatever that is. Amber. That one. Do away with it. That’s the exit light. It’s plenty. No, no, man. Thanks. Photo field [?].”
! P: t02 SME slow swampy start over the Navajo tone, then it jumps up in the 2 minute range, almost sounding Motownish, foreshadowing this group’s take on Stevie Wonder’s “I Was Made To Love Her”. Late 6, if you forced me to choose, I’d say that was 1968. Merl doing some really nice playing late 8. Darkening tone, slowing pace second half of 9, drummer does some swinging, Jerry says hello to him, but slowing the horses, very high up the neck 10:18. Jerry is playing a dream 10:45ish, gorgeous, BEAUTIFUL to 11, plucks some kooky stuff 11:08, but that was a terrific little 20 second piece. Now he’s fuzzy and modal, drummer sets a driving beat 11:30, Jerry is with it, in the SME rhythm but closer to the hop at 2 than the swampy start, Jer pulls some bigguns 12:10 and he’s decaying it, don’t rush me, says hello to SME 12:30, bassist and band behind it, someone (Merl?) singing “nah nah nah nah” to it? Whoa. At 16:30 Jerry launches them to space again, until 16:42, when Garcia strums the big old Navajo chord at the heart of “Save Mother Earth”. At 18:10 someone gives a voice signal and Jerry and the band wind it down. Nice.
! R: t02 Applause analysis: More upfront, larger audience, ?bigger room? Not the same room as 5/20/71?
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