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| Marquee for Jerry (who?) at the Warfield, March 9, 1994. I would LOVE to find out who the photographer is and give credit. |
I love the image above, of the Warfield marquee reading just “Jerry” for the March 9, 1994 JGB show, because, assuming his last name is not photoshopped out, it speaks to who Jerry had become by the last year of his life. In the Bamana language of the Mandé culture of West Africa, he had become a tògòtigi – “proprietor of his own name” (Skinner 2004, 157). “In Mandé social thought,” musicologist Ryan Skinner has elaborated,
the purpose of these acts of self-making is to make a name for oneself (ka tògò sòrò, literally “to find one’s name”) and become what people call a tògòtigi, or an individual who is the owner (tigi) of his or her given name (tògò)”. Malian literary critic and cultural theorist Chérif Keïta summarizes that “The togo is the axis of individuality and desire for personal distinction” (Skinner 2015a, 22).
The concept applies across artistic fields in the Mandé world, especially among griots “expert hereditary professional” (Dubois 2016, 32) storytellers –musicians, poets and artists– charged with carrying forward the collective knowledge embodied especially in the oral tradition (but see Chérif Keïta 2005). In the musical realm,
the artist who improvises a running solo, incites the dance with a syncopated rhythm, and makes his instrument sing with a novel melody asserts his dynamic and creative agency as a performer. He claims his individuality, a distinctive subjectivity symbolized by his first name, or tògò, and the status and identity of being a tògòtigi the achieved state of making a name for oneself, of being an owner (tigi) of one’s name (tògòtigi ) … There is an existential risk in such acts of musical distinction and innovation (Skinner 2015a, 88).
Anyway, not that, in certain circles, people didn’t know who just-Jerry was before 3/9/94, but I have always loved this marquee for capturing it, the culmination of the name-claiming journey which began on a seasonal May day in 1968, when the name “Jerry Garcia” appeared on a sheet of paper billing a musical event for the first time since the formation of the Warlocks. Over decades of gradual assertion and musical differentiation, and eventual commodification, he had successfully made his name. That progression is probably the main arc of Fate Music, where I’ll get into it hopefully more artfully and definitely at greater length.
The show is off-pattern in a few other ways. First, it was a single-shot on a Wednesday night. While midweek Warfield gigs were not unheard of, they almost always took the form of multinight runs. Indeed, though I have not gone and checked, I can’t think of another Warfield one-off like this one in the Wolfgang-Warfield era (December 1989-April 1995). Second, the handbill is especially lame.
I wonder if this show was pinned down late, and/or if ticket sales were slow, or if BGP was just on a tight budget, but this is about as basic as it ever got.
Third, as to the show, it’s fine, but what jumps out at me is that there is not a single Garcia-Hunter original here – it’s all covers. Jerrygarcia.com makes this relatively easy to see, since the originals have hyperlinks and the covers do not. I spun through ’93-’95, I think, and didn’t see any other shows without at least a “Deal” or a “Run For the Roses” or something else. If I find time and motivation I might dig deeper, though I understand that this has no particular importance, it’s just a curiosity. But it’s a Garciaverse curiosity, which is kind of the bread and butter of JGMF, so there you go.
An hour first set was just about what he seemed to be going for, and 75+ minute second set is nothing to sneeze at. Chuck Vasseur pulled a typically great tape. The performance is fine, all pluck and less fire, which was his style at the time (no onion on his belt, as far as I know). Donny does some nice hard trapping in Don’t Let Go, and everyone sounds just fine. Well, John doesn’t “sound” much at all, but that was pretty much par for the course in this timeframe, too, and it’s all good by me.
Listening notes below the fold.
Jerry Garcia Band
The Warfield
982 Market Street
San Francisco, CA 94102
March 9, 1994 (Wednesday)
Vasseur MAD shnid-146007
–set I (7 tracks, 56:57)–
s1t01. How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) [6:46] [1:34]
s1t02. Stop That Train [7:28] [1:21]
s1t03. Forever Young [9:30] [0:39]
s1t04. Let It Rock [7:42] [0:26]
s1t05. Wonderful World [4:56] [0:12]
s1t06. My Sisters And Brothers [4:07] ->
s1t07. Lay Down Sally [12:04] (1)
–set II (7 tracks, 76:27)–
s2t01. Shining Star [18:20] ->
s2t02. The Maker [9:53] [0:11]
s2t03. Tore Up Over You [6:42] [1:02]
s2t04. Harder They Come [[9:48] [1:02]
s2t05. Don’t Let Go [13:05] [0:15]
s2t06. The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down
s2t07. Midnight Moonlight [6:43] (2) [0:12]
! ACT1: JGB #23
! lineup: Jerry Garcia – guitar, vocals;
! lineup: John Kahn – bass;
! lineup: Melvin Seals – keyboards;
! lineup: Donny Baldwin – drums;
! lineup: Jacklyn LaBranch – backing vocals;
! lineup: Gloria Jones – backing vocals.
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: https://jerrygarcia.com/show/1994-03-09-the-warfield-san-francisco-ca/. This draws my attention to the fact that the band does not play a single Garcia-Hunter original this night. I bet that’s true other nights, but I had never really noticed it. 5/19 didn’t have any originals, but it was only half a show. Otherwise, I have checked every show in 94-95, and don’t find another.
! db: https://etreedb.org/shn/16670 (same master, shnf); https://etreedb.org/shn/146007 (this fileset)
! band: http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2012/01/jerry-garcia-band-personnel-1975-1995.html
! map: https://goo.gl/maps/ZW52vfHTbjs
! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2013/02/warfield-982-market-street-san.html
! venue: http://hooterollin.blogspot.com/2011/11/september-25-1980-fox-warfield-theater.html
! historical: on this night, the Warfield marquee just read “Jerry”. He had become a togotigi. The handbill is very low-rent, looks like a last-minute job. I wonder how ticket sales were for this one-off Wednesday night show. How often did he do a single, stray, midweek gig like this at the Warfield? I can’t think of another one.
! R: field recordist: Chuck Vasseur
! R: field recording gear: 2x Neumann KM54 > unknown DAT deck
! R: Transfer: DAT Master > CDR (Kyle Porter); Extract: CDR clone > EAC > WAV > FLAC16 (Bill Shaw aka Shark)
! R: seeder notes: Sometime in the early 2000’s, Chuck loaned Kyle all of his 92-95 JGB masters to transfer to CDR. Kyle “mastered” the DATs to CDR, fading in/out as needed, adjusting levels (as needed) and tracking. Kyle then gave Chuck his masters back, with nice CDR copies of all of it. Chuck offered to clone the entire set for me, so I gave him a spool of 100 blank MITSUI CDRs and the next time I saw him, he gave them back to me, filled with his JGB recordings. Many of the Chuck V. JGB recordings do circulate already, but probably not all of them, and those that do may not be the Kyle Porter transfers. So, Here they are! –Shark
! P: s1t02 STT he bends some pitch 4:45 ish. John wakes up, remembers he’s being paid to play the bass, hits the strings a few times.
! P: s1t07 LDS no guitar pyrotechnics, but plenty of interesting plucking around.
! s1t07 (2) JG: “We’re gonna take a break for a moment. We’ll be right back. Thank you.”
! R: s2t02 SS digisnits and a skip/repeat 0:46-0:52.
! P: s2t02 Maker mumbly lyrics, but pretty guitar.
! setlist: s2t04 HTC interesting placement – was typically a show or set opener.
! P: s2t05 DLG some interesting fast guitar 6:19ish. Donny is playing totally respectably late 9.
! P: s2t06 TNTDODD he is confusing the lyrics
! s2t07 (2) JG: kind of inaudible, something like “See ya later. Thank you.”
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