Just as my downloading from Archive.org was picking up steam, The New York Times comes along and throws a monkey wrench into the works.

The Times article looks at Dead fandom and focuses in on the tapes, and the question of the best Grateful Dead live tape ever.

I become informed that the Cornell University show at Barton Hall, May 8, 1977, is the likely fan favorite.

The problem for me is that 1978 is a far cry from the 1971-73 era I have initially focused on.  I realize that my process will devolve into utter chaos if I have to navigate through thousands of shows without an effective and simple organizing principle.

As you expect by now, curiosity got the best of me and I decided to acquire a matrix tape, a tape created by a fan by combining a soundboard tape with one or more audience tapes.

[As an aside, I have decided that I will not yet allow myself to be sucked into the debate over whether soundboards or audience tapes are better sources.  I do understand that there has been a recent change in Grateful Dead organization policy about downloading of soundboards (and possibly matrixes) and will surely, inevitably, delve into those issues after I become more conversant with the music.]

How can you not immediately listen to the “best Dead tape ever”?

My familiarity with Shakedown Street (released, I believe, a few months after this concert) gets me off to a good start, as New Minglewood Blues serves as the opener at Cornell.  The performance seems to stake out some immediate high ground, as it is punchy and crisp.

Jerry then leads the band into the languid Loser, a song I happen to know well from Cracker’s great cover of it on their early 90s album Kerosene Hat.

The performance alows the college audience to cheer the great lines — “I can tell the queen of diamonds by the way she shines.”

Four and a half minutes in, Jerry Garcia lets his guitar do the talking.  He plays a piercing, simple lead embellishing the melody line, very direct, using some kind of effect.  I first thought he starting playing lower than he wanted, switching quickly to higher notes, but after a bit of Googling figured out that Jerry used an octavizer from time to time.  Apparently, and I’m not a gearhead, this effect raises the pitch played by an octave.  There are a few notes that are played throughout the minute and a half solo that are an octave lower than the bulk of the solo.

I don’t know whether this is intentional or not.  The nature of the octave shift is such that the “lower” notes don’t sound out of place at all, in fact after a few listens, you expect them.  They could be intentional, or unintentional.  If unintentional, I have to wonder whether Garcia’s foot slipped off the pedal or something to explain the short lapses in octavizing.

Regardless, the solo follows a live form that is tried and true for pleasing me.  Essentially he plays the same solo twice, setting up the theme in the first, then nailing it in the second, with a twist.

The syncopated twist at the end of the solo will surely put a grin on your face.  If you are not already familiar with that version, enjoy the phrasing because after a few plays it won’t strike you as unexpected any more.

The solo is uncharacteristically consise, like a clarion, direct and shimmering as if a high slide solo.  The minor flaws in the first go-round add drama as Jerry rounds the airport for another crack at landing this baby, and he does.

After being thrilled by the solo, I will no longer be surprised by anything Garcia plays, because he can clearly play more conventionally, more like Jerry, or more experimentally.  He is choosing at all times to sound like he does, and that is an important lesson for me to learn early in this journey.

By unleashing that solo in the second song of the show, Garcia foreshadowed what many fans consider to have been their best ever.  I’m not buying that entirely — there can be no best of 2500 or so different unique things.  I won’t be so easily diverted off my quest by thinking the hard work has been done for me.

But maybe the band was especially excited to ferociously rock the Cornell ROTC headquarters that spring.

Following up with some reading after my first listen to Barton Hall 1977, I was gratified to see a few other Deadheads call Garcia’s Loser solo at Cornell his best ever.  Thanks to the Internet, our opinions can be ratified immediately.  And there’s always someone who thinks anything was the best ever.

Nonetheless, my love for the solo propelled me into a listening frenzy.  My reading indicated that that stretch of 1978 is reknown.  I obtained a few more of the shows on each side, and fully diverted from my 1971-73 study for a side trip to 1978.

The mix of some new songs, with their additional melodic and rhythmic complexity (Estimated Prophet being an early favorite of mine) provided additional fuel for my fire.

Having bitten off so much, I will soon have to return to the many revelations buried within Barton Hall.

And there are a few other things I came across during that stretch of 1978, including what really may be my candidate for Garcia’s best ever solo.  Maybe anyone’s best solo, ever.

And as a guitar fan, I do not say that lightly, and have in fact never said it before about any solo (although I have sometimes been tempted).