Great American Music Hall presents Jazz is Dead
Great American Music Hall
859 O'Farrell Street, San Francisco, CA 94109-7005 USA
8:00 PM, Tuesday, August 1, 2023

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[8:05 PM] {lights down, performers out. AJ: 5-string Modulus bass; BLR: Deering electric 5-string banjo}

1. [8:08 PM] Crazy Fingers
   [8:28 PM] {pause; SK swap from white Stratocaster to hollow body Gibson, then set up the lap steel}
2. [8:29 PM] Franklin's Tower
   [8:44 PM] {SK joking parley with AJ; SK swap to solid body gold Gibson Les Paul, then put away the lap steel; SK: “normally I'm not so neat”}
3. [8:46 PM] Tennessee Jed
   [8:56 PM] {AJ/BLR joking; noodling…}
4. [8:58 PM] China Cat Sunflower
   [9:11 PM] {AJ check in with PL, then BLR; SK swaps back to the white Stratocaster}
5. [9:14 PM] Touch of Grey
   [9:21 PM] {set ends}

[9:46 PM] {lights down, performers out; AJ starting on Chapman Railboard; SK on hollow body Gibson}

1. [9:50 PM] Estimated Prophet
   [10:05 PM] {AJ swaps back to the 5-string Modulus}
2. [10:08 PM] Eyes of the World
   [10:32 PM] {BLR swap to guitar; SK preps the kalimba? Messing with his rig, anyways…}
3. [10:35 PM] Help on the Way » [10:40 PM] Slipknot! {BLR swap back to banjo while SK solos} »
4. [10:46 PM] Terrapin Station
   [10:56 PM] {AJ introduces the band; all off; show ends}

Jazz is Dead

• Alphonso Johnson: 5-string Modulus bass, Chapman Railboard;
• Steve Kimock: guitar;
• Peter Lavezzoli: drums;
• Bobby Lee Rodgers: Deering electric 5-string banjo, guitar.

Traffic hassles (an accident on 101 that blocked up Bay Bridge traffic all the way to Yerba Buena Island? What a surprise! Not!!) made for a slightly stressful drive over tonight. Compounded by my unfamiliarity with the new traffic rules in the Tenderloin (no left turns, no right on red, lots of weird paint markings for restricted bus lanes) and other such annoyances, I was losing my cool by the time we arrived at the music hall. Happily, I scored a parking place on Larkin just above Ellis: not the safest place these days, but no more sketchy than any other street nearby, right? It's really a shame how blight has spread across San Francisco: there are way too many people living on the streets these days!

Anyways, we arrived at the venue just before the 7 PM door time to find fewer than 30 other freaks gathered for the show. The crowd probably doubled in size by the time doors opened, but still, it was a surprisingly small crowd: considering the mega-draw of Dead & Company at Oracle a few weeks ago, I wonder what factors kept folks from turning out to celebrate Jerry's BD with Jazz is Dead tonight. The house had a comically complicated entry/seating system tonight: VIP first (natch!), then balcony seating, ADA GA, and last of all, salt-of-the-earth GA like us. Being 10th or so in that final group, I was happily surprised to see plenty of side-rail spots available when we were admitted, and Ting and I promptly secured the space between Alphonso & Bobby Lee's rigs. Just exactly perfect!

The next hour was a sweet hang: a mixture of greeting old friends, meeting new ones, and then chit-chatting with whoever happened to be nearby. I figured this might be my last chance to score a drink of Anchor Steam, so I plunked down $12 for a pint. Ouch! Everything's getting damn expensive!

By showtime the venue was about half-full – good enough for a Tuesday night? Hopefully they'll draw better tomorrow! At a flashlight signal from side stage, the house lights dimmed and the band came onstage without any introduction. Woo hoo!

I was psyched to hear Crazy Fingers as the show opener – it's one of my favorite Hunter-Garcia tunes – and the band really laid into the anticipatory feel of the opening lines, drawing out that section of the tune for several minutes. Something new is waiting to be born indeed!

Although I knew the format of the show was instrumental-only, it was kinda funny to experience the spontaneous sing-along by the audience during the choruses of most of the tunes, sometimes prompted by Pete's singing (pretty inaudible, since he had no microphone), or cues from the other guys.

The official setlist for the show listed Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodle-oo as coming between Crazy Fingers and Franklin's Tower, but if they played it, I didn't notice. And given that I noted a full stop after Crazy Fingers, I'm going to speculate that this was simply off-the-cuff deviation from a skeleton plan. Although I didn't question him about it, Peter hinted as much after the show, commenting that he really appreciated the fluid feeling onstage – that it was fun for him to not know where things were headed.

Set two was more of the same, but even better. Alphonso started out playing his Chapman Railboard – an evolution of the Chapman Stick instrument that I don't recall having seen before. It was cool to see him tapping the funky bass line that characterizes that tune, and somewhat surprising that most of his playing was left-handed. Maybe that's natural for a long-time bass player: the dominant fretting hand becomes the tapping hand, while the plucking/strumming right hand rests?

The official setlist for the show listed “Kalimba Solomon's Marbles” as coming between Eyes of the World and Help on the Way, and while Steve did mess with the kalimba a little after Eyes of the World, I didn't hear anything like the characteristic riff of King Solomon's Marbles. Maybe I missed it! I recall him starting a spectacularly spacey guitar solo around 10:18 PM, but no kalimba. Hard to say! It's easy to miss details when you're dancing with your eyes closed!

All in all, I was really happy that we made it tonight. Let's do it again in a year or so, mkay?

Big thanks to Ting for the photo gallery!

Whoa! This section is incomplete for now, sorry!

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2023 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2023 event list! ☸ On to the next event!