Garcia Live

GarciaLive Vol. 20 showcases the Jerry Garcia Band during their transitional, high-octane early 80's era with the Grateful Dead's Bill Kreutzmann on drums. The release presents the complete Cape Cod '82 set, plus 45+ mins of additional incendiary, uncirculated selections captured in '81 at The Stone in San Francisco - all remastered from soundboard recordings. Highlights include the relative rarity "Valerie," a show-stopping "Don't Let Go" and an otherworldly "After Midnight."

The title of the two-disc album, Vivaldi: Vespro a San Marco, implies that the composer wrote a set of pieces comparable to Monteverdi's Vespro della beata Vergine, but the title needs to be interpreted somewhat loosely. The program notes describe the collection of psalms, canticles, motets, and prefatory chants recorded here as an evocation of a service of vespers Vivaldi might have assembled rather than a reconstruction of one he actually ever did. These vespers are distinctly Vivaldian in idiom, but they resemble Monteverdi's in the use of some common texts and in the diversity of musical styles, genres, and performing forces assembled; there is not much of a sense of unity in the traditional sense, but a profusion of delightfully varied musical vignettes, including a cappella chants, solos, ensembles, choruses, and instrumental pieces.

This album features a complete rendition of concert in the 2013 edition of the Prog-Résiste Convention in Belgium.

A few months ago, we performed at a private party for a lovely group of people who asked us to play several sets of purely improvised instrumental music, accompanied by friends new and old on light projections and auxiliary sounds. This record is a collection of the best moments from that special night.