Listeners to this four-CD installment in the
Pure Jerry series are treated to two complete shows from Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland on September 1 and 2, 1989. The lineup heard here was the longest running incarnation of the
Jerry Garcia Band with
John Kahn (bass),
Melvin Seals (organ),
David Kemper (drums),
Jackie LaBranch (vocals) and
Gloria Jones. By the late '80s
Garcia and company had matured from the smaller intimacy of concert bars and theater-sized venues to easily filling sheds [read: amphitheaters]. The boost in popularity could possibly be attributed to the level of musicianship that audiences were consistently treated to. In fact, the consensus among seasoned Deadheads and
Garcia aficionados was that his work outside the increasingly cumbersome
Grateful Dead scene was often better and more inspired.
Pure Jerry: Merriweather Post Pavilion: September 1 & 2, 1989 (2005) offers nearly four hours of evidence to support their claims. In the context of his own outfit,
Garcia had complete artistic control over the set lists. As the tracks reveal, he was liberated to draw from his own favorite R&B ("That's What Love Will Make You Do") reggae ("Stop That Train" and "The Harder They Come"), folk ("Mississippi Moon,") as well as blues ("Think") numbers. The arrangements/reinventions of classic rock & roll are perhaps his most significant contribution, as they reveal something more of the artist. The heartfelt cover of
Van Morrison's "And It Stoned Me," or the
Bob Dylan tunes "Tangled Up in Blue," "Knocking on Heaven's Door,""Simple Twist of Fate" and an emotively peaking "Forever Young" are framed in the originals, yet are taken far beyond their predecessors thanks to the player's intuitive reactions. There are moments of sheer bliss as
Garcia and
Seals tussle and trade licks during "Don't Let Go," "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" and the overhaul of
Allen Toussaint's "I'll Take a Melody" opening up the second evening's festivities. Of course no
Garcia Band set would be complete without a few choice nuggets culled from his own songbook of co-compositions with
Robert Hunter. Surprisingly, and perhaps intentionally, there is very little crossover material from
the Grateful Dead's copious back catalog. Both units played "Deal" and the previously mentioned "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" with some degree of regularity, while "They Love Each Other" popped up with considerably less frequency. Other standouts include "Like a Road Leading Home" -- an obscure cut from
Albert King's recommended
Lovejoy (1971) album -- "Evangeline" from
los Lobos and either one of the renditions of
Bruce Cockburn's "Waiting for a Miracle," as it's just like
Uncle Jerry to offer us a choice.