I remember the first time I tasted ice-cream, I was a toddler; the first time I saw the ocean, I was three; the first time I held a kitten, I was 4. I remember the first time I heard a live Jam in Haight Ashbury , I was 12. Some new things feel strange at first like shoes that you have to break in. You might even decide they’re not worth it and reach in your closet for the old comfortable pair with that lived-in feel. Occasionally something is right immediately; there is no break-in time. It’s like you’ve finally come home. A switch is flipped and you are suddenly alive in a whole new way. It’s like: “Where has this been all my life?” You belong. The description sounds like falling in love; and I guess it is. That was how I felt when I heard that jam. I never wanted to leave, in fact part of me is still there.

We are all a bit different, us humans. Thank GOD!! It keeps stuff interesting.

My grandma always made my Uncle the exact same meal because he loved it and that’s what he wanted to eat. He did not want something to change that ‘perfect’ culinary pleasure he experienced each time he had ‘his meal’. Over the two decades or so that I ate that meal with them I can attest that it never tasted different. I have no clue how Grandma was able to standardize with more precision than McDonalds. She did do it. Pork roast, mash potatoes, gravy and southern style green beans were served with such exactness you’d have believed cloning had already been patented by my own grandmother.

One time when I was about 17, I took my 7 year old nephew to a seaside Jamfest in the afternoon. On the way home we listened to my Allman Brothers tape. We had a long trip home so we listened to the thing over and over again. I asked Eddie what he thought of the music that day. He said he liked the live stuff better but that Uncle Jack would like the tape. “Huh?”, I said, not following his reasoning yet. “The tape is like eating at Grandma’s; it’s always the same. ”

That was one of those comments that has stuck with me.

Some people like to have art that doesn’t change. Once it seems perfect they want to toss the fixative on and keep it just like that. They want to stop time in that perfect moment. Art, for them is immortalized by freezing a moment in time. This is valid. It’s photography, it’s what we see in sculptures and paintings and great motion pictures. It’s what we hear in recorded music. ‘Gone with the Wind’ is always the same movie. The lines are delivered in the exact same way. It would be so weird if Clark Gable suddenly said — “Well frankly Scarlet, it’s about time!” Or if the Mona Lisa became a blond.

Art forms: There is static art like a painting and there is also dynamic art like a jam session. Dynamic art is ever changing, evolving, mutating.

I think about odd things like what if I had turned left rather than right? What if I had phoned an hour sooner. How would making a tiny change end up effecting everything. I was thinking about that last night as I was playing a song I wrote some years back. I was all ready to go to an A major chord but instead I went to an E 7th. The whole song became new.

Jerry Garcia said: ” …you like some music and you don’t like others. There’s something about it that you like. Ultimately I don’t find it’s in my best interests to try and analyze it, since it’s fundamentally emotional.”

Suffering from a malady that bulls me on to overanalyze everything, I enjoy taking a step back and resting on those words from Garcia. He impacted me so much years ago when I had the incredible pleasure of playing a little backup banjo for him and David Grisman. Some well meaning, very drunk fan came up to Jerry and said, “I love how you do ‘LOSER’ man, I love it, I’ve got the record.” Jerry laughed and said, “So you like the way I did it that day.” What an answer!! That says it all.

When I see a band live what I love is them making the old stuff bran new. If you perform songs you’ve recorded play around with the harmonics–surprise me. If you do a cover — sing it new. If you tag then spin your tags like a magical conversation that dances around the trunk of the song. Make a story out of the performance. A story that is just for that night. Tomorrow will have a different feel.

That evening with Garcia and Grisman was a long time ago. Over the years I followed the music they made together and any time I saw them live I was caught up in the depth and wonderful humor of their friendship. They were truly a pair who had great respect for each other and who could read each other’s thoughts on stage while never, never doing anything the same.

If you have not heard Grisman live — do it sometime. He gives a whole new range and definition to mandolin playing.

I have two clips for you of Grisman and Garcia. The first is clearly a video, replete with storybook feel that they made together. That’s not my type of thing really but I’m sticking it in here because it captures some of Grisman’s magic. It shows what he can make that instrument do. The second speaks to the smooth comfort of their work together. See what you think.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAW0R3ZyoMk]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5U67PVvO7WI&mode=related&search=]

And if those are not enough entertainment for you, the next one is a must. We have an extremely talented musician named Kurt Schindle who plays a lot of different instruments extremely well performing here with Two Hobbits in a masterful rendition of the Garcia-Grisman tune, “Grateful Dawg”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwkQhK5_phk]

Now it’s your turn to talk and I hope you do. You can share with us if there was a time in your life like mine at that first Jam when something bran new clicked for you like it was your oxygen — like it was your home. Maybe it was riding a dirt bike for you — I don’t know, you tell me. Or you can talk about what you think of static art and dynamic art — or you can talk about the music. Hey, we can ALWAYS talk about the music.

categories: music