Side Trips, Volume One
Live album by
Howard Wales and Jerry Garcia
ReleasedOctober 1998
Recorded1970
GenreJazz fusion
Length65:22
LabelGrateful Dead Records
ProducerHoward Wales
John Cutler
Howard Wales and Jerry Garcia chronology
Hooteroll?
(1971) 		Side Trips, Volume One
(1998)
Jerry Garcia chronology
So What
(1998) 		Side Trips, Volume One
(1998) 		Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions
(1999)

Side Trips, Volume One is a jazz fusion[1] album by Howard Wales and Jerry Garcia. It was recorded live at the Matrix in San Francisco in 1970, and released on CD in October 1998.[2][3] It was released as a two-disc LP in a limited edition of 2,500 copies for Record Store Day in November 2017.[1][4]

Monday night jam sessions at the Matrix

In a 1991 interview, Garcia said, "So they used to have this Monday night jam session, but Howard gradually sort of took it over. Howard's this amazing organ player — difficult person, but wonderful musician. And for some reason he liked our playing, John [Kahn] and mine. We didn't know each other, John and I. In fact we played with Howard for almost a year before we even actually started talking to each other. Really. We would just show up, plug in, and play. About half the set I'd be whispering to John, I'd be saying, 'Hey, man, what key are we in?' Howard didn't have tunings or anything, he just played. Sometimes he would do these things that were so outside that you just couldn't — unless you knew where it was going, you had no idea where to start. Sometimes they'd turn out to be just these things like four-bar blues turnarounds, relatively simple musical things, but they were so extended the way he'd play them — 'God, what is this?'"[5]

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic[6]

On AllMusic, William Ruhlmann wrote, "Wales and Garcia are joined by bassist John Kahn and drummer Bill Vitt (both of whom would work extensively in Garcia's non-Dead aggregations) for 65 minutes of free-form playing. Occasionally, especially when Garcia is playing, it sounds like the Dead in the middle of one of its extended improvisations, except, of course, that the music never returns to a familiar tune."[6]

Track listing

All compositions by Howard Wales.

  1. "Free Flight" – 18:14
  2. "Space Funk" – 13:12
  3. "All for Life" – 24:33
  4. "Venutian Blues" – 9:15

Personnel

Musicians

Production

References

  1. ^ a b Muhlberg, Dylan (November 23, 2017). "Side Trips: Volume One Out for Record Store Day". Grateful Web. Retrieved December 18, 2020.
  2. ^ Side Trips, Volume One on DeadDisc.com
  3. ^ Side Trips, Volume One on Dead101.com
  4. ^ "Jerry Garcia and Howard Wales – Side Trips, Volume One". Record Store Day. Retrieved December 18, 2020.
  5. ^ Hooteroll? on DeadDisc.com
  6. ^ a b Ruhlmann, William. Side Trips, Volume One at AllMusic
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