![]() This is another example of crisp playing and crisp recording. Garcia is all over the fretboard and Weir's rhythm is strangely submarine. But 1973 is the year for Here Comes Sunshine, and there is little argument among Deadheads that this complex and varied version is the pinnacle. This bright song about the days following a devastating flood in Portland, Oregon's Vanport area was always in short supply in the Grateful Dead's repertoire. Here Comes Sunshine Curtis Hixon Convention Hall, Tampa, Florida This soundboard recording from the Grateful Dead's most celebrated month of music enscapsulates the two things that I look for the most in Grateful Dead: crispness and exploratory playing. There is a lot going on in Grateful Dead music, and so it's easy for the sound to get muddy. With Grateful Dead jams, choosing the best material is not just about the music, but the recording, and the sound of the hall. Help on the Way -> Slipknot -> Franklin's Tower Sportatorium, Pembroke Pines, Florida These ink spatters are my attempt to visualize the color combinations of these jams. I am a color-grapheme synesthete, and while that is not a form of synesthesia directly correlated to music or sound, I subconsciously associate colors with jam sequences, and will often remember a jam by its color. I am adding ink spatters to go along with different jams. Use best-of lists only as a stepping-off point. ![]() Listening to improvised music is to get to know the many versions. Anybody who uses a list to find the best version of a song is missing the point. It is important to note that the idea of picking best jams is really counterintuitive to listening to improvised music. These picks are the result of listening to Grateful Dead tapes since the age of 15, and slowly building up a list of my best picks specifically for the road, which for me is exploratory improvisation, especially when it strays far from its basic form. Improvised music isn't necessarily better than great studio work, but for me, the sensibility of not knowing where the music is going lends itself well to travel, because it gets your synapses firing in all the right ways. Many of these segments are long enough that getting caught up in them is best practiced when you are away from home, where you have big, open spaces of time to dive in to the music. This list is about the Grateful Dead's most exquisite improvised jams the ones that go along with open car windows, solitary hikes in foreign places, and doodling travel sketches in old cafes. This has nothing to do with great songs (like Ripple or Box of Rain), or great versions of songs (like Ruben and Cherise at Folsom Prison). ![]()
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