Grateful Dead

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In my opinion, which means nothing, the Grateful Dead are much like jazz and nothing like classical. Classical music is meant to be played note for note and exactly the same, every time. There is no room to branch out or jam in classical music. In a sense, though immensely talented, classical musicians are like robots. I would call classical composers artists of the highest order. I would not call a classical musician an artist, because they are just re-creating, not creating. I'll bet that would get the feathers up on a highly trained classical musician, but that's how I see it.

Jazz is what got me heavily into the Dead. The freedom, not knowing where it's going, never playing it the same way twice. The freshness and endless possibility. That's what you don't get with Mozart, but you do with Garcia, Art Pepper, etc.

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...I still have memories of my first Grateful Dead concert. My uncle, my mother’s younger brother, took me to the two East Rutherford, NJ concerts on 4//16/83 & 4/17/83. I was only six years old, wearing my favorite pair of OshKosh B’Gosh trousers and my red Spider-Man t-shirt. My uncle put his stash in my big Ol pockets lol ha ha and that’s the day I got my nickname, ‘Bones’! I still remember the party before the show in the parking lot. It looked like a giant playground & barbecue with these young eyes. I remember seeing mother’s breast feeding openly. No blanket or cloth covering the breast like you might see today. Back then, in the world of “deadheads” or “freaks” what ever label you choose, I guess it was just more open or accepted the ideas of being Nude. Lol, crazy some might say ha ha but what ever makes you happy and doesn’t cause harm to others, it’s ok in my book. Someone bought me a T-shirt, I believe it was my uncle but it might of been one of the many other people/friends we were with. Of course the size was 5xTimes my size but I still wore it, with pride! I wore that T-shirt from grade school thru after college. I finally put her to rest in my dresser drawer because she was falling apart and I wanted to save it. I still have it. At that time I knew only three songs the Grateful Dead performed over those two days. ‘Johnny B Good’, ‘Iko Iko’ and ‘Not Fade Away’. We had a lot of 45’s back then, hundreds it seemed, until it grew to thousands in time, as I’m a record collector. My grandmother loved all those artist like Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, Elvis, Chuck Berry ect. I don’t have mememories of any songs they performed but I do remember dancing to the music! A lot of dancing!!! Everyone was dancing or laying down it seemed but where ever you looked it was just ‘Smile Smile Smile’ after ‘Smile Smile Smile’! I think that was the best part of the concert, that Love & Peaceful feeling/vibe you experience inside yourself, like the feeling of being totally at one with yourself or the comfort of being at ‘Home’. Ahhh, yes!, that kind of feeling, the one everyone longs to have. Love each other my brothers & sisters, Love is the answer.
Have a grateful day everyone, peace be with you all & listen to the music play , let it take you away...🙏❤️😎
* Today’s my Birthday! 42...so I’m starting my day with Listening to the Grateful Dead’s Studio Album, ‘Terrapin Station’, one of my favorite LPs the band released, especially Love the remaster release from 2004 which was also included in the ‘Beyond Description’ 1973-1989 Boxset. Just a beautiful sounding album, job well done! I love the ‘Fire On the Mountain’ Studio Outake which was included as ‘Bonus Material’. Give that another listen folks, PRIMO. And I Can’t forget to mention the groovy LIVE ‘Dancing In The Streets’ to end the CD! Sweet, I forgot which show this version comes from. Does anyone remember ?
Take care, Rock On!

IF Jazz is human scale and the Dead are orchestral and more like classical music, where does that leave us with the Dead and big band jazz? :)

I loved these tapes wore them out since It's the only live stuff I had at the time. I loved Live Dead the most.

First show 9/22/87 age 19 now 51.

I always enjoy reading strongly expressed feelings, whether I agree with the sentiment expressed or not. What is a drag is when one poster sees fit to personally attack another one.

Your post several pages ago sums up very much how I feel about the recordings of the band during their latter years. Your is the first critical post I think I have read about the Warlocks box set. I have always been confounded by its appeal. I have tried it at various times-but its always a real chore getting through it. Terrible version of Eyes of the World on one of the discs. I wonder if the shows were elevated because of the set lists. Just as a dull looking set list can still be a great show, so a great looking set list does not necessarily mean that the show is great.

Conversely the second Spring 1990 box-which is contemporaneous with the Terrapin Unlimited set that you praise is full of sparkling shows.

I recall reading something once from Jerry where he said something like when Merle played he was the center of the universe. Jerry seem to really like playing against a whirling Wurlitzer and I REALLY, REALLY love that sound. Probably my growing up in skating rinks with live organ music. The place we skated had a large floor, color lights from the ceiling made circular patterns on the floor, speakers were in the ceiling about every 15 feet and the organ was at the end behind glass, with Andy DeVito at the keys. You'd be humming around the floor with the color lights and sound swirling. And Andy would control the speed of the floor with his playing. He could cook on the keys and that floor be flying. It was an amazing thing. And I never tripped while doing it as a kid, but it sure felt like it. Years later during dead shows Brent's B3 leslies would send me off on the circular tracks again in my mind!

I hope this ground hasn't been covered,,, my memory is shit.

You always hear talk about the Dead and Jazz, how their the same and different, blah, blah. I was listening to something the other day and no I don't remember what, and I had a thought about how maybe the dead weren't as much jazz as they were more classical in their structures. That the larger sound they had took on more orchestral properties than jazz. I my drifting, flash thoughts, jazz is never large, jazz is human size.

Not sure, passing thoughts. Anybody else?

I swear I read once Dylan consider Garcia to be the best interpreter of his songs.

FYI - I have one of the Resonance recording of Nat Cole coming,,, early stuff 36-42? Love me some Nat.

Nice mood album, Nat King Cole's - the complete after midnight sessions,,, wow!

The complete trio recording very nice.

I assume you know the archive has a section devoted to 78 recordings. I've downloaded quite a few things from there.