The Reedman vs. The Gunslinger: JGB with David Murray, Madison Square Garden, November 12, 1993

The man had conceived the band bearing his name as a way to
scratch some musical itches, play some mostly consonant music with
mostly-simpatico (or at least deferential) people, and make a little bit of
walking around money. The Jerry Garcia Band provided its namesake with a
comfortable and, eventually, highly lucrative musical diversion which allowed
him to be himself, do most of the soloing, not have to figure out where Mickey
Hart put the one, and maybe share some laughs (among other things that release
endorphins, kill pain, and produce euphoria [Dunbar et al. 2012])
with his ol’ buddy John Kahn.

Yet, Jerry was Jerry, with all that implied. Like Midas,
everything he touched turned to gold, and that included his bar band, half of
whose members played for free in Oakland churches on Sundays. By contrast, on Friday, November 12, 1993, this
group sold out Madison Square Garden, grossing almost half a million as part of
its twenty night, fifteen gig swing through the eastern time zone, its last
real tour. Unlike a decade earlier, a relatively punishing bus tour with Garcia deep in heroin haze, this one was first class all the way, with the band
staying in New York City and flying in and out of Teterboro, while battalions of squeaks (sound techs) and squints (light techs) did the heavy lifting. It seems
like only half the gigs sold out, but these were mostly good-sized rinks and
arenas with five-figure capacities, the kinds of places the Dead had been
playing only a few years earlier.

The Garcia band’s cozy sociality also meant that guest
shots became scarce once the years’ third digits turned to nines. The E Street
Band’s good-time “Big Man” Clarence Clemons sat in once in 1990,
reprising his steady gigging with the JGB from late 1989, and banjo wiz Béla
Fleck joined in on a couple of numbers at the Greek Theater in Berkeley two
months later, in the dark early weeks following Brent Mydland’s passing. As
good as Fleck is, he played in a decidedly consonant mode, picking some pretty
accompaniment to Pete Rowan’s “Midnight Moonlight” and, doubly improbably,
some mandolinish lead reggae banjo on “Harder They Come”. The next fall, while still a member of the Dead, the great Bruce
Hornsby sat in with Jerry in Hampton, Virginia, on the decade’s other east coast
swing, in November of 1991.

Hornsby certainly had the chops and the chutzpah to
challenge Garcia, and he did so regularly in the Dead before stepping back off
the scene to pursue his own extremely successful career, and perhaps to ward
off the curse of the Dead’s keyboard players. The one guy to really push Jerry
around on his own stage was hotshot jazz saxophonist David Murray, who showed
up two years after Hornsby’s visit, and six weeks after sitting in with the
Dead, at the aforementioned Madison Square Garden gig. The man BLEW, which is
to have been expected. As Dead family insider Gary Lambert put it, “expecting
a force of nature like David to function as a ‘sideman’ for the JGB (or any
band) is kind of like saying to Jackson Pollock, ‘Gee, I really admire your
work. Now, could you paint me a nice Andrew Wyeth?’”

The reedman put some air into a number of very sharp notes,
with a Garcia Band that was mostly soft, cottony round edges by this point in
time. Garcia appears to have taken notice. Attendee Eric Pooley recalls that
“Murray was in Garcia’s face a little more than Garcia would have liked: [he]
attacked, and Garcia retreated into shoetop space”, chin on chest. Jim
Powell observed that “Murray cut Jerry to shreds at that MSG Jerry Band
show – maybe the only time old gunslinger Garcia ever came out on the short
end.” But the evidence of the night’s “Lay Down Sally”, normally
a smooth, easy, good-time roller hewing closely to Clapton’s original, belies
this perspective, with all due respect to the poet and Macarthur Genius grantee who proffered it.

Segueing out of the churchy “My Sisters And
Brothers”, Garcia displayed little Christian charity in first feinting at
the Stones’ “Everybody Needs Somebody To Love”, then shifting
into “Lay Down Sally”, taking a couple of extra measures at the
start to let Murray his footing and thus making it, if not quite a fair fight,
at least an honorable one. Typically, in the Garcia Band, Jerry gets the first
solo (and usually the second, third and fourth). Here, Murray challenges the
old fella in the light purple shirt right out of the gate, and they step on
each other for a minute or two before Jerry lets him have his say, comprised of
some sharp, loud bursts that might have blown back his shock-white mane. After
that, still only fifty-one despite the white hair and haggard mien, the gunslinger
drops the hammer, pursuing a million aggressive leads, syncopating some minor
chords, and generally, all due apologies, not taking “no” for Sally’s
answer. Clocking in at over sixteen minutes, and finishing with an emphatic
strum over the setbreak announcement, the “Lay Down Sally” from
November 12, 1993 provides one of the finest musical displays of Garcia’s late
solo career, proving that he could still rise to a challenge when the occasion
called for it.

I picked and chose from the two filesets named at the top, so some sketchy listening notes follow the fold. “Shining Star” also illustrates the reedman and the gunslinger trading blows, and both “The Maker” and “Don’t Let Go” from the 86-minute second set are outstanding and worth your time.

Jerry Garcia Band
Madison Square Garden
4 Pennsylvania Plaza
New York, NY 10001
November 12, 1993 (Friday)
Rich Gastwirt s2 flac1648 shnid-139507

–set II (8 tracks, 86:12)–
s2t01. crowd and tuning [0:59]
s2t02. Shining Star [20:26] [0:30]
s2t03. C’est La Vie (You Never Can Tell) [7:59] [0:08]
s2t04. Wonderful World [7:00] [0:17]
s2t05. The Maker [8:15] [0:18] [-0:05]
s2t06. [+0:05] Don’t Let Go [17:12] ->
s2t07. That Lucky Old Sun (Just Rolls Around Heaven All Day) [10:30] ->
s2t08. Tangled Up In Blue [12:29] (1) [0:09]

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia Band #21b
! lineup: Jerry Garcia – guitar, vocals;
! lineup: John Kahn – bass;
! lineup: Melvin Seals – keyboards;
! lineup: David Kemper – drums;
! lineup: Jacklyn LaBranch – backing vocals;
! lineup: Gloria Jones – backing vocals.
! guest: David Murray – saxophone (whole show except “The Maker”)

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.

! Jerrybase: https://jerrybase.com/events/19931112-01

! JGC: http://jerrygarcia.com/show/1993-11-12-madison-square-garden-new-york-ny/

! db: http://etreedb.org/shn/4348 (aud, shnf); http://etreedb.org/shn/13414 (Brennecke-Litzenberger shnf); http://etreedb.org/shn/89073 (Brennecke-Litzenberger flac); http://etreedb.org/shn/91812 (Brennecke-Litzenberger flac gems); http://etreedb.org/shn/139507 (this fileset).

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/gAgwbQxS1Br

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/06/madison-square-garden-iv-4-penn-plaza.html.

! band: THE Jerry Garcia Band, JGB #21b (http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2012/01/jerry-garcia-band-personnel-1975-1995.html)

! ref: Billboard, November 27, 1993, 105, 48, p. 17. Sold out 18,059, $25 face, $451,475 gross. Almost a cool half-mil for the night’s work.

! pix: https://www.ryanfoto.com/Concert-photography/Grateful-Dead/Jerry-Garcia-Band-1993/i-cN2Tvr2


! ref: Lyons 1994. Murray references this gig on p. 32.

! seealso: JGMF, “Good, Clean Fun – JGB at the Onondoga County War Memorial, Syracuse, NY, November 14, 1993,” http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2017/05/good-clean-fun-jgb-at-onondoga-county.html.

! historical: David Murry sitting in is very cool. Deadhead rumor mill had it that Garcia was chapped after this performance. Attendee Eric Pooley recalls “from where I sat Murray was in Garcia’s face a little more than Garcia would have liked.  Murray attacked; Garcia retreated into shoetop space.” Jim Powell observed that “Murray cut Jerry to shreds at that MSG Jerry Band show – maybe the only time old gunslinger garcia ever came out on the short end.” GD family insider Gary Lambert explained “The problem was a predictable one: lack of communication, and musical unfamiliarity. David, for his part, didn’t realize that the Garcia band is a very different animal than the GD, and thought the same rules applied as at the earlier Dead show he had played in — ‘hey, man, just jump in and  BLOW!’. So he did what he does, and it didn’t sit as well in that context.”

! R: field recordist: Rich Gastwirt

! R: field recording location: FOB

! R: field recording gear: 2x Schoeps mk4 > Oade modified Panasonic SV-255

! R: transfer: DAT > Sony PCM-R500 > Sound Devices 744T > wav 16/48 – transfered by Charlie Miller

! R: Lineage: wav > iZotope RX6 Advanced > iZotope Ozone 5 Advanced > CD Wave > TLH > Flac 1648; edited and mastered SIRMick October 2017.

! R: note: The dat for Set I was water damaged.

! R: seeder notes: Thanks to Rich and Charlie.

! R: fine tape for the Garden, plenty of room feel, not going to win any awards, but really puts you there.

! P: s2t02 SS in the 8 minute range Garcia is taking up Murray’s challenge and pushing himself. Pitch bending begins 11:30ff.

! P: s2t03 CLV is completely off the beat with the lyrics.

! s2t04 WW is “don’t know much about history”.

! R: s2t05 I would have tracked DLG about five seconds earlier

! P: s2t06 DLG JG brings the “I love you so” in a measure too soon, gets a little confused. He sounds a little weary. 4:50ff Garcia moaning, “whoa-oh-oh”, some sharper punctuated stuff early 5, puts the wah pedal on in some very Grateful Deadish fashion 5:40ff, very, very good.

! s2t08 (1) JG: “Thanks a lot. See y’all later.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jerry Garcia Band
Madison Square Garden
4 Pennsylvania Plaza
New York, NY 10001
November 12, 1993 (Friday)
Brennecke shnid-91812

–set I (8 tracks, 7 tunes, 71:42)–
s1t01. taper talk (1), crowd and tuning [3:18]
s1t02. How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You [7:38] (2) [0:44]
s1t03. They Love Each Other
s1t04. Forever Young
s1t05. Strugglin’ Man
s1t06. Money Honey
s1t07. My Sisters And Brothers [4:41] ->
s1t08. (3) Lay Down Sally (4) [16:08] [0:04]

–set II (9 tracks, 8 tunes, 88:02)–
s2t01. crowd and tuning
s2t02. Shining Star
s2t03. C’est La Vie (You Never Can Tell)
s2t04. What A Wonderful World This Will Be
s2t05. The Maker
s2t06. Don’t Let Go
s2t07. Lucky Old Sun
s2t08. Tangled Up In Blue
s2t09. Tapers Comments

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia Band #21b
! lineup: Jerry Garcia – guitar, vocals;
! lineup: John Kahn – bass;
! lineup: Melvin Seals – keyboards;
! lineup: David Kemper – drums;
! lineup: Jacklyn LaBranch – backing vocals;
! lineup: Gloria Jones – backing vocals.
! guest: David Murray – saxophone (whole show except “The Maker”)

JGMF:

[show specific stuff not reproduced – see above]

! R: field recordists: Clay Brennecke and Keith Litzenburger

! R: field recording location: FOB DFC … Section 2, Row U, Seats 4 & 5

! R: field recording gear: 2x Schoeps MK4 Cardiod Capsules (ORTF) -> Schoeps KC5 Active Cables -> Schoeps CMC3 Mic Body -> Oade Mic Preamp -> Monster M1000 Jumper Cable -> Panasonic sv255 DAT Deck … Mics Handheld each set.

! R: Transfer: DAT Master > TASCAM DA-20 (SPDIF out) -> LynxTWO-B Audio Reference Interface (SPDIF in) -> Wavelab 6.0 by Todd Evans April 6, 2008.

! R: editing and Mastering: Jamie Waddell on the GEMS Edit Station. Weiss Saracon for 16 BIT – 44.1kHz SRC and POWR-3 Dither Encoding by Dazed64. Tracked in CDwave, FLAC’d Flac Frontend level 8 Tag & Rename for FLAC Meta-Tagging.

! R: note: “FOB Digital Audience Recording | The James Young & Clay Brennecke FOB Vault |
[email protected]”

! s1t01 (1) awesome taper talk. Clay Brennecke introduces himself, notes rumors that David Murry is backstage and will play, also noting that a mic is set up for him. Clay seems to have been a great taper.

! s1t02 (2) JG: “Thank you … David Murray sitting in tonight on saxophone.”

! P: s1t08 (3) Jerry starts off playing “Everybody Needs Somebody To Love”, then switches to LDS. Kind of odd, and you can sort of hear the crowd quiet down, asking itself what just happened.

! P: s1t08 LDS 3:30ff one can hear Jerry and David sort of stepping on each other. David is BLOWING 4, challenging the old man for sure. 6 Garcia is definitely taking LDS further out than he ever had before, and perhaps than it had ever been taken, even putting some minor chords in 7:10ff. This is a great latter-day example of Garcia responding to the challenge from another musician, he is totally tearing this up 8:20. Man, this is one of his most inspired performances of the last few years of his life.

! s1t08 (4) JG announces the setbreak, and then hits a few big chords, very unusual.