This is an interesting topic. Cary's initial post is a little like saying I don't really get what the fuss is about BB King or I really don't get what the fuss is about John Coltrane. We're all looking for something in music that either moves us on an emotional level, or stops us with it's power, or makes us dance, or lets us escape from ordinary reality, or just something pleasant to mask the noise in our environment. It will be necessarily different for each one of us.
That said, Jerry had a very soulful voice, both instrumentally and vocally. He was also, as Bill pointed out, committed to improvisation. So context played a great role in his musical performances. I saw the Dead many times from the mid-seventies through the mid-nineties and some shows were lame, some were transcendent. The Dead was not unaware of this as Phil states ...Your (the fans) love, trust and patience made it possible for us to try again the next show when we couldn't get that magic carpet off the ground... The magic was very much a live performance phenomenon, as pointed out several times above, and recordings pale in comparison to seeing the Grateful Dead tear it up on stage.
Garcia was a great student of many kinds of music, including all kinds of folk music and from what I understand he played almost constantly. He improvised modally and used arpeggios to create harmonies that were both surprising and incredibly imaginative, and did most of it in real time on the fly with other musicians that were doing the same kind of thing.
Guitar Player magazine did a feature on Jerry in December ? here?s a link:
http://www.guitarplayer.com/story.asp?sectioncode=4&storycode=11720 Near the bottom of the piece are a couple sections that might be of interest ? ?Garcia's Raddest Riff? and ?10 Radiant Garcia Moments? try to answer Cary?s question. Some of my personal favorites are ?My Funny Valentine? from ?Live at Keystone? with Merle Saunders. The work he did with Melvin Seals in The Jerry Garcia Band can also be amazing ? I love ?Don?t Let Go? from ?Jerry Garcia Band,? 1991. I have live recordings of the Grateful Dead, too numerous to mention, that have absolutely amazing passages. Also, Jerry?s acoustic work with ?Old and In the Way? and with David Grisman and his band are great. He also played on Ornette Coleman?s ?Virgin Beauty,? with interesting results.
I guess Jerry?s music ?does it? for you or not, just like any other music. Have fun listening to all of the suggestions everyone is making.
Tom =)
