Dave’s Picks Volume 31 continues the unofficial campaign to to nurture the reputation of the late Brent Mydland. Not that the keyboardist/vocalist/songwriter needs his honor restored; in his essay within the booklet inside this three-CD package, chief archivist David Lemieux goes to great lengths to rightly describe how the late keyboardist/vocalist/composer reignited the chemistry within the Grateful Dead almost from the very start of his roughly ten-year tenure in the group.
This latest offering in the archive series expounds upon the point. Including the complete concert recorded on December 3, 1979 at the Uptown Theatre in Chicago, Illinois, three additional three tracks performed at the same venue the following night round out the limited-edition set. In front of close to forty-five hundred attendees, the Grateful Dead were opening a three-night run (from a total of seventeen appearances at the venue overall) and proceeded to blend together tried-and-true material like “Brown-Eyed Women” and “Wharf Rat” with fairly new compositions such as “Alabama Getaway,” “Althea” and “Fire On The Mountain.”
Such selections stand out in great relief against the mammoth segue of “Estimated Prophet”>”Franklin’s Tower”>”Jam” that comprise the aforementioned bonus content. This roughly half-hour interval is not simply to fill out the third CD here: it is the logical culmination of what’s preceded it. As on “Lost Sailor”/”Saint of Circumstance,” Mydland’s use of electric piano lightens and brightens the music as well as the playing of the other band members: drummers Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart interact with an unusual delicacy, even during the “Scarlet Begonias”>”Fire On The Mountain” segue while, as preserved in Dan Healy’s detailed recording, Phil Lesh weaves nimbly in, out and around the two percussionists.
Garcia’s handling of his new ‘Tiger’ guitar is emblematic of its custom design. His light touch is especially during the stately “Terrapin Station” where it’s also evident how the make of the instrument enhances the precision he’s displayed since his early days on the banjo; there’s a bluegrass feel to many of his solos on Volume 31, but his elliptical approach to his solos is a microcosm of this band’s overall approach to improvisation, wherein after dispensing with the structure of the song(s) at hand, new forms solidify from amorphous threads, as occurs on this “Jam.”
In his conversational style of writing, Lemieux rightly makes much of how Brent Mydland restored the Hammond organ to prominence in the sound of the Grateful Dead. And certainly the fluid propulsion is as obvious during“It’s All Over Now” as the waves of sound that uplift “Playing In The Band” prior to “Drums” and “Space” Yet just as crucial a component in the reinvigorated sound of the iconic group was Mydland’s voice and while his vocals here are largely relegated to back up—his own material featuring him on lead was still in the future—his robust singing was already fortifying and freshening the group’s harmonies on familiar tunes such as “Truckin’.”
Perusing the dense cover art of Tyler Crook (and the graphic design of this Dave’s in general), it is noteworthy that the stage alignment, as pictured in the triple-fold digi-pak, did not yet show the titular leader of the Grateful Dead positioned next to the new recruit. That would occur, by the former’s own preference, in the later years of Brent Mydland’s incumbency, as he continued to display the confident versatility he exhibits here, all the way to the closing of the primary content in this package Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode.”
