Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/17/84; site mhuxr.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mfs
From: mfs@mhuxr.UUCP (SIMON)
Newsgroups: net.music
Subject: Re: Their Music: Grateful or Dead?
Message-ID: <289@mhuxr.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 8-Apr-85 12:57:56 EST
Article-I.D.: mhuxr.289
Posted: Mon Apr  8 12:57:56 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 9-Apr-85 02:30:46 EST
References: <284@mhuxr.UUCP> <1140@opus.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill
Lines: 58

> 
> > ...It is admirable of
> > a rock band to be willing to stretch the arrangement and do some on the spot
> > creation, but there must be some framework for the improvisation to soar
> > from. Too often you have the two drummers not in time with each other,
> > and Garcia soloing on a different key from Lesh...
> 
> Here we begin to disagree.  The framework is often tenuous--not so much for
> the band as for the audience, and the spacier jams are really played for
> that part of the audience that's heard them a lot before.  [Perhaps the
> MOST charitable reaction the first time one hears `space' is "It's getting
> mighty weird in here!"] ....
> ....  I feel pretty strongly that it's a
> matter of taste as to whether they are truly discordant or only creating a
> strong contrast--I accept your view in the sense that you don't like it,
> but I'd object to being too absolute about it.
> 
I agree that it is a matter of taste, but I don't see the issue as one of
discordance, which is an "ear of the beholder" thing anyway. I strongly
disagree that one needs as tenuous a framework as possible for effective
group improvisation. I have multiple references in various and multiple
jazz disciplines to disprove that point. The point is to have a single
focus, around which others' improvisations revolve. Tha focus can be
the time signature, the tune's chords, or modes (scales), the "feel"
(e.g. the blues) or what have you, but it must be there. I guess what I
don't like here is that such a center, be it tonal, rhythmic or what have
you, is not always defined enough in the Dead's music. There will always
be room for honest disagreement here, though.

> Following on from this, it's interesting to notice how much effect Phil has
> on the direction of the music ...

Full agreement here. I have long felt that Lesh is the glue that holds
the various, centrifugal elements of the Dead together.

> > Finally, the Dead have been together some 20 years, and their current style
> > (blues and boogie with a dash of country) solidified around 1970. They have
> > thus been playing the same things, and sounding the same for 15 years.
> 
> They've picked up a little bit of everything--due significantly to Mickey's
> eclectic approach to rhythm (which gives the distinctive character to some
> types of music).  They've drawn on almost everything--I would have put rock
> and folk music as the first two forms, followed by blues, boogie, jazz and
> country, with even a little influence of disco (precious little, let us be
> thankful).  They've been sounding somewhat the same for a while but their
> repertoire is slowly changing and expanding.
>
> Dick Dunn

More honest disagreement here. Although there is some evolution from EUROPE 72
to DEAD SET, I don't see it as 10 year's worth. The thumping beat of
"Feel Like a stranger", that's new, but "Franklin's Tower" could just as easily have
been recorded in 1975.

BTW, I draw most of my knowledge of the band from records. I have seen them live
(only) three times. So I don't have an enormous collection of tapes either.

Marcel Simon