The Dead and Jazz

This post came out of a discussion about whether the Dead were influenced by Miles Davis, particularly his fusion period.
There is a lot about the Dead's jazz (and other) influences in the first parts of my Dark Star piece, including the encounter with Davis:
http://deadessays.blogspot.com/2009/08/dark-star-1968.html
I haven't repeated those quotes here, so this piece is meant as kind of a postscript....

The Dead were fans of Miles' music - Lesh in particular has spoken about how awed they were about playing after him at those Fillmore '70 shows, and how much he admired that kind of music. (At the time, it would've been new to him - Bitches Brew was only released in April '70.)
From Lesh's book:
"As I listened, leaning over the amps with my jaw hanging agape, trying to comprehend the forces that Miles was unleashing onstage, I was thinking, 'What's the use? How can we possibly play after this? We should just go home and try to digest this unbelievable shit.' This was our first encounter with Miles' new direction. Bitches Brew had only just been released, but I know I hadn't yet heard any of it... In some ways, it was similar to what we were trying to do in our free jamming, but ever so much more dense with ideas, and seemingly controlled with an iron first, even at its most alarmingly intense moments. Of us all, only Jerry had the nerve to go back and meet Miles, with whom he struck up a warm conversation. Miles was surprised and delighted to know that we knew and loved his music."
[Miles' 4-10-70 show was later released as the Black Beauty CD. It's worth noting that his live shows then featured keyboards & horns, not the guitar so prominent on the studio albums. I don't know what Miles thought of the Dead, but he had a low opinion of most the rock groups he opened for, feeling they were limited musicians and his band could play the same music much better. He did like Santana's music, though, and was deeply inspired by Hendrix, which was one reason he added electric guitars to his sound.]
I don't know if the Dead really took much from Davis' fusion style at the time (Keith apparently did on the electric keyboard, a couple years later), but you can tell at the 4/12 and 4/15/70 shows, the jamming is especially inspired. As Kreutzmann put it, they were "totally embarrassed" following Miles - "we played really free, loose, but I couldn't get Miles out of my ears."
I think it's interesting that Lesh said Miles' fusion music was similar to what the Dead were doing. But I don't hear much similarity, nor do I think their music was influenced by his 'fusion' phase too much, at least in ways that I can hear, unless it's in the 'free' playing style. In A Silent Way (Miles' first big step into fusion) came out in '69, and was quite a bit calmer than most the Dead's music, though they might have taken inspiration from its spaciness. By then Miles was in his modal phase of stretching out a long jam in one chord, somewhat like the Dead were doing in Dark Star. He also had a heavy keyboard sound, and at that point the Dead just had the classical-sounding Tom Constanten (and, in 1970, often no keyboard at all).
Those April '70 Fillmore West shows don't go on many unusual excursions (though, alas, we don't have the Dark Star from 4/11 or the Caution from 4/10). I'm not sure if the Dead would even have been prepared to go freeform at that time....they were never really a freeform band, in the sense of the jams being truly open-ended. There was always a destination and a time-limit (though that got looser in '73/74). Also by '73, with Keith in the mix, there is a bit more sonic resemblance to Miles' sound.

Miles' earlier period with Coltrane did rub off on them - Coltrane was indisputably a huge influence on them way back in '66. In interviews, the band referenced Coltrane a lot more as someone who influenced them even from the start. They were very enthusiastic about the 'modal jamming' style that Davis & Coltrane initiated (basically, improvising in one chord or scale, rather than through a song's chord progressions) - Viola Lee & Midnight Hour were the first tunes where they tried this out.
Lesh said, "It was the simplest thing to do, because you didn't have to remember any chords." Weir agreed: "The first thing we learned was to rattle on in one chord change for a while....that was good for me, because I didn't know many chords."
In his book Lesh talks about how, as they got better, they used Viola Lee to all solo simultaneously, like jazz musicians, rather than just backing Garcia. "We electrified the song with a boogaloo beat and an intro lick borrowed from Lee Dorsey's 'Get Out of My Life Woman', and we tried to take the music out further - first expanding on the groove, then on the tonality, and then both, finally pulling out all the stops in a giant accelerando, culminating in a whirlwind of dissonance.... I urged the other band members to listen closely to the music of John Coltrane, especially his classic quartet, in which the band would take fairly simple structures ('My Favorite Things', for example) and extend them far beyond their original length with fantastical variations, frequently based on only one chord."
You could hardly find a clearer example of the Dead being directly influenced by jazz techniques! Jazz was very much "in the air" among rock musicians at the time, with Coltrane's style particularly important. (For instance, the Byrd's "Eight Miles High" is a tribute to him.)

(Here's one introductory article about examples of modal jams in rock music -
http://dog-goneblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/modal-exploration_30.html
And from the same blog, a post about another "jazz" musician that Garcia closely listened to -
http://dog-goneblog.blogspot.com/2009/08/gypsy-king.html )

It's also notable that in Garcia & Lesh's guest-DJ radio show in April '67, they play a couple longer jazz pieces, one by Charles Mingus and one by Charles Lloyd. Garcia even says he wants the Dead to work with Lloyd's group, after having such a good experience playing together at the Rock Garden! This never happened, though. At the time they were looking forward to their first trip to New York, where Lesh was surprised to meet Charles Mingus checking out their 6/1/67 show: "I was too intimidated to ask him what he thought of the band's sound!"
http://www.archive.org/details/gd67-04-xx.prefm.vernon.9261.sbeok.shnf

For those who haven't seen it, there's a lengthy discussion of Charles Lloyd & various flute-players with the Dead at:
http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com
Lloyd would have been especially important to the Dead in '67, as he was playing an early form of "fusion" music, and was one of the first jazz crossover artists to play at 'rock' shows - he was quite popular in San Francisco, and had an impact on many musicians. (Miles Davis thought enough of Lloyd's group to snatch some of the bandmembers for his own band, and was influenced by Lloyd in his own approach to fusion.)

The Dead's influences were many & wide though, and they created something totally distinct. Garcia was especially influenced by bluegrass & old-time stringbands, what he called "conversational music", the way the instruments related to each other. Lesh had the most avant-garde leanings in the group, and he was the happiest to go to the noisy side (as he did with Ned Lagin). The band got into Indian music heavily after '67, which Hart was studying, and this left a big imprint in their playing.
And so on.... The point is, you can rarely point to any single artist or piece of music and say, "That influenced the Dead's style!" For example, Garcia was a big Freddie King disciple when he was learning electric guitar: "Freddie King is the guy I learned the most volume of stuff from. When I started playing electric guitar with the Warlocks, it was a Freddie King album that I got almost all my ideas off of, his phrasing really." But by '69 there's hardly a trace - they keep transcending the things they learn from.
Also, as musicians, I think they listened differently than most of us - Garcia's quotes in the Dark Star article, for instance, show that he was listening very specifically for what you might call the "voice" in the playing - one horn player's silences, or another's phrasing. (His playing in Dark Star might sometimes echo Miles, the way he stays out for a while, or plays a short burst of notes.)
Here's Garcia talking about one tune that influenced the early Dead - the Junior Walker instrumental 'Cleo's Back': "There was something about the way the instruments entered into it in a kind of free-for-all way, and there were little holes and these neat details in it - we studied that motherfucker, we might even have played it for a while... It was the conversational approach, the way the band worked, that really influenced us."

And when getting into jazz-Dead, we can't forget Keith.... Having to play after Miles in April '70 may have been humbling, but their material didn't change that much for the rest of that year, and in '71 you could argue they were even heading away from a jazzy direction into tighter, more succinct jams.
Keith was primarily a jazz player, and I see him as the catalyst here after he joined in fall '71. Checking out what happened to Dark Star between, say, October '71 and April 72, there's a big jump - the type of jam is the same as before Keith joined, but they're tackling it at a higher, more expansive level.
That's not to say they wouldn't have gone in this direction without him - they'd been jazz fans in '65 too, and it was always dormant in them - sometimes one possibility in their music takes the lead, sometimes another. As Garcia said in '71: "We still stretch out....we've never accepted any limitations....we have lots of possibilities." In this case it was the combination of talent, lots of practice, a driving ambition to keep the music fresh & changing, and having a jazz piano-player drop in their laps.... (Garcia had been playing with Saunders & Howard Wales as well, which certainly broadened his guitar skills, and his knowledge of jazz standards. He brought some of the 'space-jams' he was doing with Wales in '71/72 into the Dead's jams as well.)

The question of whether the Dead even played "jazz" has been debated - just the fact they're playing with electric guitars instead of horns makes a huge difference - not only that, but their style is so unique from other bands anyway. To me, the connection is clear - even from early '68, the whole idea of medleys of jammed songs linked together, many of them directly quoting jazz (Clementine, Spanish Jam, New Potato in a way), using 'feedback' and 'space' as musical concepts, composing several improvised jam-songs that go on long wordless musical journeys...
'73/74 are thought of as the jazziest years because of these big jams where the Dead skitter around from one theme to another, dropping into noisy spaces or funk-jams or unknown spontaneous melodies at the drop of a hat - there's not much like that in rock music. The Blues for Allah period was perhaps the peak of jazzy Dead - in those '75 studio sessions we hear them playing with many new themes like Slipknot or Stronger Than Dirt just like a jazz combo.
And then there's the September '73 tour where the Dead directly embraced jazz by adding a couple horn-players for the jams. Although that tour with the horns is interesting because it seems like the Dead didn't want to get TOO experimental.... The horn players have their place in Weather Report, Eyes, a couple other spots, and as a result we get a whole lot of second sets with an Eyes>Weather Report. Did they get to sit in on Playing or Dark Star or the Other One? Heck no. In fact, the Dead seem to have decided, let's just not play Dark Star or the Other One very much....we'll drop Bird Song out of the set, too! So (to generalize) that tour gets that squawking free-jazz sound in places, but doesn't get as many deep jams as we find in the rest of the year.
Garcia, though, was happy to play jazz pieces in his shows with Saunders & Fierro (and in later years as well). That's not even mentioning the '90s shows where famed jazz horn players would join the Dead onstage. This was a band that thrived on variety, and added many genres to their musical stew - they were open enough to try anything.

There's a wider sense in which jazz influenced their music early on, in the idea that their songs could be changeable and stretched-out, and played differently each time. Various rock groups in the late '60s were taking up this improvisational challenge (Cream the most famous, but also many California bands), so it wasn't exclusively a jazz concept. But the Dead keep improvisation within a 'rock' context - the jams are always kept within a limited space in a few select songs, and always return back to familiar ground.
So, the Dead's music is not quite jazz, not quite rock, but like some of Miles' fusion albums, somewhere on the border. I think we can call the Dead a 'jazz' band to the same extent we can call them a 'country' or R&B band, it's all part of the diverse mix.... That unique way they play is what's so compelling, regardless of what influences went into it.

Dick's Jams

There's a 2-CD set that's been floating around for years called "Dick's Jams", which Dick Latvala apparently put together from various tapes he liked. Though I presume he must have known the dates, some of these were left mysterious & misleading. The usual label:

Dick's Jams (from Dick Latvala's tape of 1968-1970 jams)
Disc 1:
1. Jam-> GDTRFB Jam-> UJB Jam (?/?/69)
2. Jam-> Tighten Up Jam-> Jam (?/?/70)
3. Jam-> The Eleven Jam-> Jam (?/?/68 - Mickey & the Hartbeats)
Disc 2:
1. Space-> Jam-> Feelin' Groovyish Jam-> Tighten Up Jam (11/2/69)
2. Jam-> The Other One Jam (6/19/68)
3. Tuning Jams (11/7/69)
4. Jam-> GDTRFB Jam (?/?/69)
5. Star Spangled Banner (slide flute - 11/7/69)

I thought it would be helpful to point out the actual dates for these jams - almost all of these jams are from circulating shows. I feel it's better to hear these jams in their full context, rather than in these excerpted pieces.
(Dick's copies, though, often sound much cleaner than my copies!)

Disc 1:
1. Jam-> Goodnight Jam-> UJB Jam - 14min
This is the Alligator jam from 11-1-69. It fades as they start Lovelight. (This is the first live UJB jam.)
http://www.archive.org/details/gd69-11-01.sbd.cotsman.6298.sbeok.shnf

2. Jam-> Tighten Up Jam-> Jam - 11min
This is an excerpt from the 8-30-69 Dark Star. It fades as they head back to the second verse. (This is the first Tighten Up jam.)
http://www.archive.org/details/gd69-08-30.sbd.barbella.8594.sbeok.shnf

3. Jam-> The Eleven Jam-> Jam - 33min
This is side B of the 8-28-69 Hartbeats tape (with Howard Wales on organ).
http://www.archive.org/details/gd69-08-28.sbd.lepley.4234.sbeok.shnf

Disc 2:
1. Space-> Jam-> Feelin' Groovyish Jam-> Tighten Up Jam - 14min
This is an excerpt from the 11-2-69 Dark Star. Fades as they return to the second verse.
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1969-11-02.sbd.miller.32350.sbeok.flac16

2. Jam-> The Other One Jam - 36min
From 6-19-68, with a third guitarist. This is an incomplete version of the 'second set,' omitting the Main Ten.
http://www.archive.org/details/gd68-06-19.sbd.cotsman.4511.sbeok.shnf

4. Jam-> Goodnight Jam - 8min
This is the only *mystery* piece in this collection. It comes from an Alligator jam. Phil strongly teases Lovelight near the beginning, and it sounds like they're about to go into the "Alligator!" vocals - instead Jerry heads for a Goodnight jam, and finishes that with a China Cat tease (!) - then they storm back into Alligator & quickly slide into Caution, where this fades out.
This is extremely similar to the 12-12-69 and 12-30-69 Alligator jams, so it is definitely from a non-circulating Nov/Dec '69 show. Which is very frustrating - judging by this excerpt, the full jam could be even better than the other circulating Alligator>Cautions from this period.
(I don't know what show it could be, since almost all the shows around this time are accounted for. From the style, I really don't think it's from one of the spring '69 shows, but if anyone has a definite ID, speak up!)

UPDATE: This jam is now identified! It's an excerpt from the 2-5-70 Eleven>Caution jam -
http://archive.org/details/gd70-02-05.sbd.hanno.9184.sbefail.shnf

3. Tuning Jams (11/7/69)
5. Star Spangled Banner (slide flute - 11/7/69)
Wonder why Dick picked these when there was a perfectly good Dark Star jam in this show.... (The vault copy of Dark Star *might* be complete! - the vault copy of this show is 20 minutes longer than the edited circulating source.)
http://www.archive.org/details/gd69-11-07.sbd.kaplan.19783.sbefail.shnf

The Dead's 1966 Songs

Beyond 1967, there lies a strange land of garage-band Dead. The music sounds odd and unfamiliar - it's not quite "primal Dead", but almost a completely different band than the one we first heard. The band is young and full of pep - dipping their toes in teeny-pop, jugband antiquities, and smoky blues - the few original songs sound like weird attempts to copy the local top 40 - Garcia solos frantically, but the band is still clunky and learning how to carry a jam - Pigpen often takes the lead with his harp, organ, soulful singing, and barrel of R&B covers. The Dead started out as an average dance band, playing short sets at any place that would take them - but they were a band of dropout freaks & ex-folkie acidheads, with strange ideas about music they didn't quite know how to play yet.
Many people aren't well-acquainted with this primitive 1966 version of the Dead - so this is a short guide to the year's songs.

We'll start by letting Garcia tell the story from the beginning:

"I got into old-time country music...and in order to play string-band music you have to have a band, you can't play it by yourself. So I would be out recruiting musicians.... Bluegrass bands are hard to put together because you have to have really good bluegrass musicians to play, and in Palo Alto there wasn't really very many of them - not enough to keep a band going all the time.... I decided to put together a jug band, because you could have a jug band with guys that could hardly play at all.....and Weir finally had his chance to play because Weir had this uncanny ability to really play the jug.... And Pigpen, who was mostly into playing Lightnin' Hopkins and harmonica....
"[The electric band] was Pigpen's idea. He'd been pestering me for a while, he wanted me to start up an electric blues band....because in the jug band we used to do blues numbers like Jimmy Reed tunes and even played a couple of rock & roll tunes, and it was just the next step.... Theoretically it's a blues band, but the minute we get electric instruments it's a rock & roll band.... We put Pigpen on organ immediately, and he was doing most of the lead vocals at the time."
"We stole a lot of, at that time, the Kinks, and the Rolling Stones - King Bee, Red Rooster, Walkin' the Dog....we were just doing hard simple rock & roll stuff, old Chuck Berry stuff, Promised Land, Johnny B Goode - a couple of songs that I sort of adapted from jug band material. Stealin' was one of those, and that tune called Don't Ease Me In was our first single, an old ragtime pop Texas song. I don't remember a lot of the other stuff.... Oh yeah, we did It's All Over Now Baby Blue from the very beginning because it was such a pretty song. Weir used to do 'She's got everything she needs, she don't look back....'"
- from Signpost to New Space, 1971

1964
In '64, as one McCree's player said, "Jerry was making a transition. He'd gone from old-time American music to bluegrass, and he wanted to try something different. I remember we saw the Jim Kweskin Jug Band on the Steve Allen show....and we'd heard their record, and that sounded like a lot of fun, so Jerry decided we'd get together a jug band..... When Jerry decided he wanted to do something, he always had a way of recruiting the people he needed to get it to happen."
When Garcia, Weir & Pigpen were in Mother McCree's, naturally they took many songs from the old jugbands, particularly Gus Cannon's (Viola Lee Blues, Minglewood Blues, Big Railroad Blues, Goin' to Germany) and the Memphis Jug Band (Stealin', Overseas Stomp, On the Road Again, KC Moan). Garcia brought some folk songs like Cold Rain & Snow, Deep Elem Blues, and Been All Around This World - Weir did a couple Jesse Fuller covers, Beat It On Down The Line (a song Dead fans would become all too familiar with) and Monkey & the Engineer. Pigpen, of course, contributed the blues - Little Red Rooster (Howlin' Wolf), Good Morning Little Schoolgirl (Sonny Boy Williamson), Big Boss Man (Jimmy Reed). This was rounded out with a dash of Chuck Berry songs, like Memphis.
I don't think Mother McCree's setlists are really known, some of these are probably guesses based on the songs brought to the early Dead. There is, luckily, one July 1964 Mother McCree's show that has survived on tape, with this set:
Overseas Stomp
Ain't It Crazy (The Rub)
I'm Satisfied With My Gal (Yes She Do, No She Don't)
Memphis
Boodle Am Shake
Borneo
My Gal
Shake That Thing
Beat It On Down The Line
Cocaine Blues
Beedle Um Bum
On The Road Again
Monkey & The Engineer
In The Jailhouse Now
Washington At Valley Forge (Crazy Words, Crazy Tune)
A lot of their jugband repertoire was shared with Jim Kweskin's Jug Band, songs like Viola Lee, Lindy, and Minglewood - in fact, at this show, seven of the songs came from Jim Kweskin's 1963 album Unblushing Brassiness! Six songs made it into the Dead's setlists - three lasting into '66, and three having to wait til the acoustic sets of 1970.
Since the McCree's set was released on CD, it's interesting to hear how different the approach is from later Dead. This is a band of traditionalists - they're trying to exactly mimic a '30s hokum band, down to the wobbly singing style, and they're pretty good at it - sometimes they sound like they're straight off a 78. It's amusing to hear, but worlds away from the creative alchemy of the Dead.
In one respect though, the band is already showing traits that we'll see in '66 and beyond. There was an aftershow interview taped with Garcia where he explains jug-band music, and talks about their major sources of material - not just early jug-band records, but also early Dixieland/New Orleans jazz, '20s/30s popular music, and "a lot of recent blues....from the last three or four years, R&B songs." He says their wide-ranging repertoire "makes it a lot more satisfying for us because it doesn't restrict us to one particular style.... We'll play the music as long as we're together.... It's fun, it's rewarding, it's great to get together. We don't expect to ever make a fortune out of this, or ever be popular or famous or worshipped...."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Nt9N6XNrtA

1965
Having gone electric, the Warlocks played their first show at Magoo's Pizza Parlor in Menlo Park on May 5, 1965. Just a few weeks later, Phil Lesh was invited by Garcia to join the band, learning bass as he went - he's confirmed that some of the first songs he learned were I Know You Rider, King Bee, and Midnight Hour. (He also noted that at the first Warlocks show he went to, he was "blown back against the wall by the loudest music I'd ever heard.")
Back then, the Bay-area music scene that rose up in '66 hardly existed yet, and the Warlocks moved on from playing for the high-school crowd in a pizza place to playing at the In Room lounge (which in photos looks like a cafeteria!) and various bars, teen clubs, and strip-joints.
Garcia later said, "The only scene then was the Hollywood hype scene, booking agents in flashy suits, gigs in booze clubs, six nights a week, five sets a night, doing all the R&B rock standards. We did it all. Then we got a job at a Belmont club and developed a whole malicious thing, playing songs louder and weirder... For those days it was loud, and for a bar it was ridiculous. People had to scream at each other to talk, and pretty soon we had driven out all the regular clientele. They'd run out clutching their ears."
I have to include a link to the excellent discussion of 1965 shows over at Lost Live Dead: http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2009/09/north-to-san-francisco-warlocks-in.html

The Warlocks' early electric repertoire of 1965 had some leftovers from the jugband (like Stealin' and Don't Ease Me In) - a few Chuck Berry rockers (Promised Land, Johnny B Goode) - Pigpen's blues songs (King Bee, Little Red Rooster) - and some group-sung novelty hits (Walkin' the Dog, Woolly Bully).
Quite a few of the Dead's early songs had also been covered by the Rolling Stones - Not Fade Away (Holly), Hi-Heel Sneakers, Empty Heart, Pain in My Heart (Otis Redding), I Just Want to Make Love to You (Muddy Waters), King Bee (Slim Harpo), Little Red Rooster (Howlin' Wolf), Walkin' the Dog (Rufus Thomas), It's All Over Now (Womack), Around & Around (Berry)....
This was no coincidence. The Stones were the #1 influence on American garage-bands in the mid-'60s, lots of bands wanted to sound like them - pick up any Nuggets collection and you'll find a dozen Stones wannabes under the rocks. Garcia said later, "For me, the most resonant thing was hearing the Rolling Stones play music that I'd grown up with, the Chess stuff. That was surprising because it was music that had already happened in my life, and then hearing it again was like, 'Right, that would be fun to play.' In the Grateful Dead's earliest version as a bar band, the option was to play Beatles stuff or Rolling Stones, and we always opted for whatever the Stones were doing."
Dylan's Bringing It All Back Home came out in March '65 - this was the first Dylan album that Garcia liked, and the Dead immediately took a couple songs from it. She Belongs To Me (originally sung by Weir!) would unfortunately never be caught on tape until 1985.....but Baby Blue would often recur in Dead sets over the years. (Garcia later said, "Dylan was able to tell you the truth....to talk about the changes that you'd go through, the bummers...and say it in a good way... Back in the folk music days I couldn't really dig his stuff, but on Bringing It All Back Home he was really saying something I could dig, that was relevant to what was going on in my life.")
Though Garcia had been a folk-song devotee in his pre-Dead years, this side of him disappeared once he went electric, and would only occasionally resurface in Dead shows of later years. (It's surprising how few songs from Garcia's early-'60s folk or bluegrass tapes would be picked up by the Dead - just Deep Elem Blues and, in the later acoustic sets, Rosalie McFall.)
Although Pigpen was into Lightnin' Hopkins (playing Katie Mae as early as '63), after the McCree's days he didn't play anything in this style until the acoustic sets of 1970. But in keeping with Pigpen's tastes, their repertoire was very blues-heavy. Garcia said later, "What we were playing back then was basically a harder, rhythm & blues-oriented rock & roll, especially Pigpen's stuff. We were going for a sort of Chess Records school of R&B - Howlin' Wolf & Muddy Waters, those are the records we stole a lot of our tunes from. We didn't have that midwestern authority, we weren't like the Butterfield band - but we were a funky blues band."

I suspect that some of the songs the Dead covered in the '80s (Satisfaction, Last Time, Day Tripper, Gloria), they may well have done in '65.... Other than that, we can only guess what their 1965 setlists were from what they played in 1966 (when they were constantly adding new songs). This is tricky, and often people's memories of old setlists have too much hindsight.... The Warlocks may well have played Do You Believe in Magic (by the Lovin' Spoonful), but Rock Scully's claim that they played the Beatles' Good Day Sunshine at an early Acid Test in December '65 is quite dubious, since the song wasn't released til August '66!

Our first glimpse of the band's repertoire comes with the November 1965 demo, six songs which were pretty unrepresentative - they seem to have chosen tunes that were relatively new and unique and poppy (no Stones, Berry, or blues covers!), but only two of the songs would outlast 1966.

1966
In December '65, tired of being a bar band, the Warlocks renamed themselves the Grateful Dead and discovered the Acid Tests. (Garcia: "We were already burning out....by the time the Acid Test came to our attention.") Within a year, they'd graduated from being the Pranksters' houseband and become a fixture in the San Francisco ballroom scene. Though their place in society transformed as the society changed, and though they were zonked on acid pretty much all year round, the type of music remained a constant throughout the year - lots of poppy dance music and blues, only 'psychedelic' in spots, still very close to the garage-band bashings at the pizza parlor.

It's notable how much the early sets are dominated by blues and R&B songs - up til mid-year, jugband and blues songs were the primary sources for Dead covers, and they didn't play many originals. But in the spring, they seem to have started adding a wider variety of songs. They were quite dissatisfied with their own songs - as a result, almost all of their originals disappear from the setlists after July.
Almost all the songs are sung by Garcia or Pigpen - Weir just gets a few token shouters, but Lesh sings more than he did in later years. Fitting the times, there are lots of songs where the group sings the choruses in harmony. Pigpen plays lots more harmonica than he would later, but mainly supports the songs on a chintzy organ, which is very prominent. This helps fill out the sound (depending how loud he is), since Weir's guitar is sometimes inaudible! - it also gives the music that jaunty '60s pop-radio feel.
Garcia said later, "Pigpen was the only guy in the band who had any talent when we were starting out.... He had no discipline, but he had reams of talent.... Pigpen is what made the band work." This was in spite of Pigpen not liking rehearsals - "We had to browbeat him into being a performer." One early fan noted, "Pigpen was the only one who was really a showman. He'd get out there and work the audience and the band would be behind him...." Lesh adds, "Pig was the perfect front man for the band: intense, commanding, comforting - but I don't think he enjoyed doing that quite as much as sitting on a couch with a guitar and a jug."

It's worth mentioning that the band's sound during this year was very 'conventional' - especially in their pop songs (and they did quite a few), they fit right into the garage-band scene of the day. This wasn't a band with an original 'voice' yet - their main strengths were Garcia's frenetic guitar-playing, Pigpen's talented blues vocals, and their willingness to practice endlessly. At the start of the year, they're still learning their instruments and how to play together, and by the end, their playing is much tighter and more expressive. There are still just a few songs where we can glimpse the breakthrough that would happen in '67.
But there is huge improvement in-between, and a huge number of songs as the newly born Dead try all sorts of things, hanging onto some, getting rid of others. There are almost 70 songs in this list, and these are just the ones caught on tape - a far bigger repertoire than they'd play for many years to come! As we might expect, many of their covers are of recent songs (dating from '56-'65) - though we might distinguish between the really 'new' '64/'65 songs that they picked up, and the '50s songs they would've liked from their teens. What's interesting, given Garcia's folk roots, is that before '56 we suddenly jump back into the '20s and '30s as the most frequent time period for their cover songs. (Which also goes to show how divorced rock music was from the mainstream white music of the '40s and '50s!)

For those interested in the origins of the Dead's songs, here are a couple (very incomplete) pages on their roots, with a few leads -
http://taco.com/roots/
http://www.musicbox-online.com/gd-roots.html
It would be good if a more comprehensive "Dead roots" site could be written someday (if there isn't one already). Blair Jackson's roots researches, for instance, are not online. In the meantime, there are a few sites that list all of the Dead's songs along with the original cover versions - deadlists for one, but also:
http://www3.clearlight.com/~acsa/intro.htm
http://www.deaddisc.com/GDFD_Songs_Perf.htm

There are some songs we know they must have played in 1966, but don't have any tapes of. It's too bad She Belongs To Me never made it onto tape ("Bob used to croon it," Garcia said in April '67). Garcia said they played Johnny B Goode and Little Red Rooster in the early days, so it's strange not to hear them on any '66 tapes. There are some songs the Dead revived in later days that they must have done early on - like Gloria (Them), Searchin' (the Coasters), and It's All Over Now (Womack/the Stones) - but not in any shows we have.
However - the Dead played over a hundred shows this year - we only have fourteen and a few fragments on tape. Many Acid Test tapes disappeared in the havoc - what happened to Bear's stash of journal tapes can only be imagined - he left the band after the July shows, and after that there were only a few stray tapes made by theater-owners. So, with almost 90% of the year missing, our view of the year is very limited. (The situation in 1967 is even worse, with only about a dozen tapes remaining from a year with over 120 shows!)

LIST OF SONGS :
These are all the songs the Dead did in 1966 that we have on tape, along with the original artists and the dates performed.
There are a couple abbreviations:
RC stands for the Rare Cuts & Oddities CD - these are mostly studio rehearsals.
??/66 is the mystery-reels collection from early '66.

ALICE D. MILLIONAIRE (NO TIME TO CRY) (GD) - 12-1
The Dead wrote this song inspired by a newspaper headline about Bear: "LSD Millionaire Arrested". This is a very poppy song, sung by Pigpen. Apparently new in December, it was recorded for the first album and then dropped, despite being one of their catchiest tunes.
BEAT IT ON DOWN THE LINE (Jesse Fuller 1961) - ??/66 (two versions) ; 2-6 ; 3-19 ; 5-19 ; 7-16 ; 7-29 ; 7-30 ; 11-19 ; 12-1
Weir did this early and did it often. It never changed.
BETTY & DUPREE (traditional) - RC demo ; 12-1
A distant ancestor of Dupree's Diamond Blues - Pigpen & Jorma Kaukonen recorded a version in 1964. Garcia sings this slow ballad with lots of guitar tremolo.
BIG BOSS MAN (Jimmy Reed 1960) - 7-3 ; 7-16 ; 7-17 ; 7-30 ; 11-29 ; 12-1
A Pigpen strut. The Dead always did this the same way. (Although after '67, it's unheard until June '69.)
BIG BOY PETE (Olympics 1960) - 11-29 ; 12-1
These early performances are done just the same as the Dead's '69 and '70 versions - though with less of a wink.
BIG RAILROAD BLUES (Cannon's Jug Stompers 1928) - RC
This gives us an idea what this song sounded like in Mother McCree's - it's played jugband-style, Garcia singing and Pigpen on harmonica, very similar to On the Road Again or Stealin'. When the Dead started doing it again acoustically in 1970, it was with a very different guitar arrangement.
CAN'T COME DOWN (GD) - 11-3-65
Garcia sings and Pigpen plays harmonica in this brisk original song with suspiciously Dylanesque lyrics by Garcia.
CARDBOARD COWBOY (GD) - 6/66 studio ; 7-16 ; 7-30
Lesh wrote and sang this song, which is interesting because you can tell it's a Lesh composition - it has that over-arranged, awkward feel common in his songs. The band called it "The Monster" because it was so hard to play! Lesh has said this song was so godawful he can't listen to it....the performances sound good, though. One time Weir announces the song as "No Left Turn Unstoned".
CAUTION (GD) - 11-3-65 ; 1-8 ; RC 3/12 ; "2-25" [same as RC]
A copy of Them's Mystic Eyes (with some Pigpen mojo lyrics added), the two early live versions are very similar to how this was done in later years (albeit with more harmonica). They're able to stretch out longer than they could in the Nov '65 demo, and it's a shame we don't have any live versions between March '66 and June '67.
COLD RAIN & SNOW (traditional) - "2-25" ; 3-25 ; 5-19 ; 6/66 studio ; 7-16 ; 7-17 ; 7-29 ; 11-19 ; 11-29 ; 12-1
This old folk song was done by many bluegrass groups - the Dead apparently took it from Obray Ramsey's 1961 version, but considerably altered the arrangement, with a bouncy riff and swirling circling-note break. These early versions are done much faster than in later years - it was played through '67, but then dropped until May '69.
CREAM PUFF WAR (GD) - RC demo ; 5-19 ; 7-16 ; 7-17 ; 7-30 ; 11-19 ; 12-1 - also in early '67, 3-18 and the 4/67 TV show
Easily their most successful original song from '66, this was the only one to make it onto their first album. With lots of live versions, it's interesting to see how it progresses, with the early versions short & clunky, then late in the year it's much faster with the solo flying way out. Garcia said twenty years later that this song was "totally embarrassing. I'd just as soon everybody forgot about it."
DANCIN' IN THE STREETS (Martha & the Vandellas 1964) - 7-3 ; 7-16 ; 7-17 ; 7-29 ; 9-16 ; 11-19 ; 12-1
Weir is no Martha, but this cover was a nice addition to their July sets, and by the end of the year it had become one of their big jam-songs, going way out in the solo.
DEATH DON'T HAVE NO MERCY (Gary Davis 1960) - 1-8 ; 3-19 ; 12-1
The Dead's first big slow blues song, this never changed much over the years. Seems pretty heavy to lay down at an Acid Trip.... A basic track was recorded for the first album, but the song eventually made it onto Live/Dead.
DEEP ELEM BLUES (traditional) - 12-1
The one performance we have has a more strident, rocked-up arrangement than when it resurfaced in the 1970 acoustic sets. (Nice ending, too!) This folk standard was first recorded in the '30s - there are also a couple tapes of Garcia playing this in '62/'63.
DON'T EASE ME IN (traditional) - ??/66 ; 6/66 studio ; 7-16
A fun song, if you don't hear it too often.... It was dropped after this until the 1970 acoustic sets. The Dead probably took this song from Henry Thomas' '20s recordings, which are highly recommended for anyone interested in American music.
DON'T MESS UP A GOOD THING (Fontana Bass/Bobby McClure 1965) - RC ("live 7-3")
Pigpen sings this brisk R&B pop trot. The band sings "Good thing, good thing...."
DOWN SO LONG (GD) - 11-29 ; 12-1
Sounds like a traditional pop song, but apparently it's a short-lived Dead original sung by Garcia, inspired by the Richard Farina novel. (The extra ending is a nice touch.) Deadlists says an instrumental version was recorded in the studio for the first album sessions in Jan '67.
EARLY MORNING RAIN (Gordon Lightfoot) - 11-3-65 ; 11-29
We have two versions a year apart, with Lesh singing - the second one is much faster & arranged differently, but I think the first demo has a more effective mood. This song was covered by many artists in 1965, including Judy Collins, the Kingston Trio, and Ian & Sylvia.
EMPTY HEART (Rolling Stones 1964) - RC
Pigpen & Garcia sing the only Dead version of this Stones song. This is actually one of their hottest early performances, with a long guitar/harmonica duel. (Try listening to this back-to-back with Keep Rolling By for a twin blast of Stones-drenched Dead.)
GANGSTER OF LOVE (Johnny "Guitar" Watson 1957) - RC ("live 7-3")
Garcia sings this swaggering blues song, trying to sound like Pigpen.
GOOD LOVIN' (Olympics 1965 / Young Rascals 1966) - RC demo ; 5-19
Pigpen sings this breakneck cover, which for some reason was dropped almost immediately. It's pretty different from the later versions - more brutish, lacking the intro riff, and having more backing vocals. When they reintroduced it in May '69, Garcia sang it for a while.
GOOD MORNING LITTLE SCHOOLGIRL (Sonny Boy Williamson 1937) - ??/66 (as a medley) ; 7-16 ; 7-29 ; 7-30 ; 9-16 ; 11-29
This song had been a standard since the '30s, covered by many blues artists. It was perfect for the lascivious Pigpen, though in these early versions the band's playing is noticeably stiffer and less rhythmic than it would be by '68.
HE WAS A FRIEND OF MINE (Mark Spoelstra 1965) - 7-3 ; 7-16 ; 11-19
The Dead try out their harmonies. This was actually a recent song, not a standard but (as common in the folk world) based on an old blues melody - there were many '60s covers, including Dave van Ronk & the Byrds (1965). After '67, the song was pretty rare in Dead shows until April '69, when they revived it for about a year with a much-improved guitar part.
HEADS UP (Freddie King 1961) - 3-19
Garcia vents his Freddie King fixation - but it would be years before another King instrumental would be heard on a Dead stage. This is rather bland, but typical of the instrumentals played for dancehalls back then.
HEY LITTLE ONE (Dorsey Burnette 1960) - RC 3/12 ; "2-25" [same as RC] ; 3-25 ; 7-29
Garcia sings this intensely brooding romantic ballad, which isn't quite like anything else the Dead did.
HI-HEEL SNEAKERS (Tommy Tucker 1964) - 11-19
Garcia sings this light shuffle, which was already a standard by '66. He revived it for a bit in August '69.
I JUST WANT TO MAKE LOVE TO YOU (Muddy Waters 1957) - 11-29
The Dead give this a very fast treatment, forsaking the slinky approach. Written by Willie Dixon, this was one of his instant classics, covered by Chuck Berry '59, the Rolling Stones '64, and many others. (The Dead apparently didn't play this again until 1984!)
I KNOW YOU RIDER (traditional) - 11-3-65 ; ??/66 ; "2-25" ; 3-19 ; 5-19 ; 6/66 studio ; 7-3 ; 7-16 ; 7-30 ; 9-16 ; 12-1
The Dead's most successful conversion of an old folk/blues into a Byrds-style pop song. An instrumental was recorded for the first album in Jan '67, but unfortunately not finished; and for whatever reason they dropped it until Sept '69.
I'M A HOG FOR YOU BABY (Coasters 1959) - 1-8 ; 3-25
A light, catchy song. The first version is somewhat marred by Prankster chatter & mix changes. The only later version was on 4-6-71.
IN THE PINES (traditional) - 7-16
Garcia sings this old blues tune (which had many folk & bluegrass variants). It's odd they didn't do this more often - there are a couple tapes of Garcia playing this song in 1964.
IT HURTS ME TOO (Elmore James 1958) - 5-19 ; 9-16 ; 12-1
Soulful blues from Pigpen, sounding exactly like it did til '72.
IT'S A SIN (Jimmy Reed 1959) - ??/66 ; 3-19 ; 5-19
Garcia sings this blues with Pigpen on harmonica. He kept a fondness for this song, doing it much the same way when they picked it up again in April '69.
IT'S ALL OVER NOW, BABY BLUE (Bob Dylan 1965) - 5-19 ; 7-16 ; 7-17 ; 7-30 ; 9-16
The Warlocks picked up this Dylan song right away, and it was still going strong through '66, sounding much like it did in later years. (Garcia mentioned this in April '67 as the Dylan song they were still doing live, but we don't have any more performances until April '69.)
KEEP ROLLING BY (GD)
The Birth of the Dead CD offered a big surprise - an unknown original Dead song, sung by everyone and including a Pigpen rap, from an unknown July '66 show. It's a good one, resembling some lost early Stones show-closer. (Actually, the riff was almost certainly developed from the Stones' Empty Heart!)
KING BEE (Slim Harpo 1957) - 1-8; RC 3/12 ; "2-25" [same as RC] ; 7-17 ; 7-29 ; 11-19
Pigpen is the King Bee. The Dead played this song well early on (it was one of their first blues covers), and the arrangement stayed the same for years, though we don't have any more performances until Feb '69. An instrumental track was recorded for the first album in Jan '67.
LINDY (OVERSEAS STOMP) (Memphis Jug Band) - 9-16 ; 11-29 ; 12-1 - also a brief fragment from 8-4-67
A carryover from the jugband days, the Dead even recorded this charmless tune for their first album, Garcia singing with his Dupree's smirk. It's surprising to see it still being played in August '67!
ME & MY UNCLE (John Phillips) - 11-29 ; 12-1 (two versions)
Judy Collins covered this in 1964, but it was probably widespread in the folk circuit. Weir's early versions are very different from how it developed - more jammed-out and desperate-sounding. After early '67, it disappeared until April '69.
MIDNIGHT HOUR (Wilson Pickett 1965) - ??/66 ; 3-19 ; 9-16 ; 11-19
Pigpen doesn't seem like the type to wait.... But this is a very interesting tune to follow through the early years - it's the first song the Dead used to enter into a long dance jam, and we can hear them get much better by the end of the year.
MINDBENDER (CONFUSION'S PRINCE) (GD) - 11-3-65 ; 2-6 ; 5-19
The Dead get spooky and want to bend your mind..... Garcia and Lesh cowrote and harmonize. The only original song from the Nov '65 demo that we have a live version of (not very different). Another studio version was played on the Taper's Section (see below).
MY OWN FAULT (BB King 1965) - 12-1
A rather dreary slow blues, done once with a guest singer, and the Dead doing their best to sound like the Butterfield Blues Band.
NEW MINGLEWOOD BLUES (Cannon's Jug Band 1930) - 5-19 ; 7-16 ; 7-29 ; 12-1
Weir's hollers make this one painful to listen to. Was it this noisy in Mother McCree's? After '66, we don't have any more performances until April '69.
NEW ORLEANS (Gary Bonds 1960) - 2-12
As the source notes say, this is "sort of an attempt"....this isn't an actual version, mostly just Pigpen improvising over a drumbeat. (They probably did do it sometime in '66, since they revived it a few times in '69/70. See Twist & Shout.)
NEXT TIME YOU SEE ME (Junior Parker 1957) - "2-25" ; 3-19 ; 3-25 ; 7-3 ; 7-16 ; 7-30 ; 12-1
A Pigpen strut. The Dead always did this the same way. (After early '67 though, it was apparently dropped until September '69.)
NOBODY'S FAULT BUT MINE (Blind Willie Johnson '20s) - 7-16
Garcia sings an old favorite of his. Though there's just one '66 version, the Dead weren't through with it....I continue the story in my 'thematic jams' post.
NOT FADE AWAY (Buddy Holly 1957) - RC demo
Our only '66 version is clearly not taken from Holly's original, but the Stones' 1964 version, done at a quick pace with Pigpen on harmonica - in fact, it's played much like Caution, dark and shamanic. It's a mystery why it took the Dead so many years to adopt this song (after a couple false starts, not until Dec '69).
ON THE ROAD AGAIN (Memphis Jug Band 1928) - "2-25" ; 12-1
One of those authentic jugband classics that didn't make it out of '66, done with surprising faithfulness - Garcia singing, Pigpen blowing harmonica. The Dead did pick it up again in the revivalist 1980 acoustic sets, though.
ONE KIND FAVOR (SEE THAT MY GRAVE IS KEPT CLEAN) (Blind Lemon Jefferson 1928) - 2-6 ; 3-19 ; 7-29 ; 11-29 ; 12-1
Garcia sings this blues song, which had already been a standard since the '20s. It sounds a lot like Death Don't Have No Mercy, which may be why it was dropped in '67 - perhaps one death-blues was enough!
ONLY TIME IS NOW (GD) - 11-3-65 ; 2-6
A unique Dead original, Lesh singing lead while the others back him. It sounds like an attempt to write a Zombies-style pop-radio song.
PAIN IN MY HEART (Otis Redding 1963) - 7-16 ; 11-19
Pigpen channels Otis.
PROMISED LAND (Chuck Berry 1964) - RC demo
A surprise - Garcia sings this one, the only known version until May '71.
SAME THING (Muddy Waters 1965) - "9-16" ; 11-19 ; 11-29
Another Willie Dixon song - this is possibly the Dead's finest blues. The way they slip into a jazzy jam is especially impressive - similar to the tempo changes in Schoolgirl, but better-done, and unusually advanced for '66. So it's a shame that after 3-18-67, the only later Pigpen version we have was on 12-31-71.
SICK & TIRED (Fats Domino 1958) - RC ; 5-19
Pigpen sings this strong R&B complaint. "I'm sick an' tired of foolin' aroun' with you!"
SILVER THREADS & GOLDEN NEEDLES (Wanda Jackson 1956) - RC demo ; 5-19
One of the few 'country' tunes of the early Dead - Weir sings this, with Lesh doing the nice harmony. It's surprising we don't have more early versions since this one's very strong, sounding like a pop single, but they dropped it until April '69. This was covered by lots of artists including the Springfields ('62) & the Everly Brothers ('63).
SITTIN' ON TOP OF THE WORLD (Mississippi Sheiks 1930) - 5-19 ; 7-3 ; 7-16 ; 7-30
Another of the Dead's first country covers - and a rare example of later versions being played about as fast as in '66! There's one lone example from '68, then they started doing it again in April '69. This is one of those 'traditional' songs that became standard in both slow blues & fast bluegrass variants - Garcia got it from Bill Monroe's ('57) & Carl Perkins' ('58) versions.
SMOKESTACK LIGHTNIN' (Howlin' Wolf 1956) - 11-19
A great live exploration of this hypnotic blues groove. This is one song Pigpen never brought out too often - we only have one version per year until '69! There is also a very nice, though short, undated studio version (see below).
SOMETHING ON YOUR MIND (Big Jay McNeely 1959) - 11-29 ; 12-1
A nice, slow & soulful Pigpen talking-blues.
STANDING ON THE CORNER (GD) - RC demo ; 5-19 ; 7-16 ; 7-30
One of the few early Dead originals we have several performances of (usually they quickly abandoned their own songs in disgust) - Garcia sings this snotty teen-angst song.
STEALIN' (Memphis Jug Band 1928) - RC demo ; "2-25" ; 3-25 ; 6/66 studio ; 7-17 ; 7-30 ; "9-16" ; "10-7" ; 11-29
The Dead liked this jugband song and did it often in '66, but it disappeared come '67. Garcia sings, with Weir on harmony.
TASTEBUD (COME BACK BABY) (GD)- ??/66 ; 2-6 ; 5-19 ; 6/66 studio
A good Pigpen blues original, unique to '66. They remade the Scorpio recording for the first album, but the song then disappeared. Perhaps the best version was played on the Taper's Section (see below).
TWIST & SHOUT (Isley Brothers 1962) - 2-12
This was an instant rock classic, done by many and perhaps already considered an 'oldie' by '66. Pigpen leads this version, which doesn't stick too close to the original - along with New Orleans, at this Acid Test he was looking for songs where he could sing "yeah!" a lot to soothe an acid-fried audience. Someone bleats tunelessly on harmonica. (A possible instrumental version was played on the Tapers' Section - see below.)
VIOLA LEE BLUES (Cannon's Jug Band 1928) - 1/66 studio rehearsal ; ??/66 (three versions) ; 3-19 ; 5-19 ; 7-3 ; 7-16 ; 7-30 ; 11-29 ; 12-1
A dark jugband song transformed beyond recognition. Early versions are pretty weak, but by the end of the year they're close to getting it down.
WALKIN' THE DOG (Rufus Thomas 1963) - RC demo
Weir leads this rockin' novelty, which is the only known '66 version. It resurfaces a couple times in 1970, then disappears til 1984!
WHO DO YOU LOVE (Bo Diddley 1957)
The only '66 version is a studio recording - see below. This song wouldn't surface in Dead shows until a couple snatches in '70 & '72.
YONDER'S WALL - aka Look Over Yonder Wall (Arthur Crudup 1960) - 12-1
This was a blues standard done by many bands (like Elmore James, Junior Parker 1962, Paul Butterfield 1965) - the Dead did it with a harmonica-playing singer who sounds a lot like Butterfield. (Surprisingly, there is another quasi-Dead version - from the 10-10-68 Hartbeats show, sung by another harmonica player!)
YOU DON'T HAVE TO ASK (GD) - ??/66 ; 3-25 ; 5-19 ; 6/66 studio ; 7-16 ; 7-29 ; 7-30
One of the Dead's best early songs, they did this quite a few times. Unusually, Weir sings lead - live, the ending could feature a blazing Garcia solo while Weir shouted "you already know!" They seem to have dropped this after July, though, as they purged original songs from their sets.Possibly the Dead called this song "Otis On A Shakedown Cruise".
YOU DON'T LOVE ME (Willie Cobb 1961) - ??/66 ; 12-1
First done in a medley with Schoolgirl, with Garcia singing. The Dead probably took this from Junior Wells' 1965 version. The Allmans did much better with this song.
YOU SEE A BROKEN HEART (GD) - RC demo ; 3-19
Pigpen wrote this song, though it sounds like an R&B cover. It's catchy in the '50s style, and the back-and-forth vocals are pretty cute.

And, though we don't have any tapes from '66, I should mention the Dead's cover of Walkin' Blues (a standard originated by Son House & Robert Johnson in the '30s) - we only have a fragment of this, played in an April '67 TV show which compared different San Francisco bands. (Deadbase used to list this song as being played on 10-7-66, but have removed that listing.)
http://www.archive.org/details/gd67-04-08.tv.hanno.12623.sbeok.shnf

INSTRUMENTALS
Blues Jam (with Jorma and Jack) - ??/66 (Self-explanatory.)
Slow Blues Instrumental - 3-19
I don't think this has been identified. If an original, it's not very original - mainly a chance for Garcia to lay down some stinging guitar licks.
Jam - 3-25
This is more of a Twist-like dancefloor groove than a jam. Interestingly, it's also the last instrumental the Dead played until '68.

TAPER'S SECTION
There is a handful of rehearsals and rare tracks from early '66 available on the Taper's Section at dead.net - presumably from the same pile of Bear's unlabeled reels that was used for the Rare Cuts & Oddities CD. It would be nice if Lemieux could share the rest of what's on these reels, but that's unlikely. In the meantime, we have these:

"Tuning/Blues Jam" - 1-1-07
http://www.dead.net/features/tapers-section/january-1-january-7-2007
The "tuning" label doesn't seem too promising - actually, it's one of the best things played all year. It turns out to be a full-blown Space! - if this bit of music were plopped into a show from ten or twenty years later, it wouldn't seem out of place at all. There's nothing else like it from '66 (and not much in '67) - this is True Primal Dead. Sadly, it cuts into a dull blues jam.

Tastebud, Mindbender, BIODTL - 2-5-07
http://www.dead.net/features/tapers-section/february-5-february-11-2007
The Mindbender is about the same as the 11/65 demo, but the Tastebud is surprising since it sounds much stronger than the live versions from early in the year, with a smoking Garcia solo. (Though the show is tentatively dated 2/6 in the Vault, I could swear Garcia doesn't have that guitar tone until late '66.)

"Jam>Good Lovin' Jam>Jam" - 2-23-09
http://www.dead.net/features/february-23-march-1-2009
From a 2/23/66 session, we have a mislabeled jam! It starts with an It's A Sin jam, then drifts into what is unmistakably Ritchie Valens' La Bamba, then heads back into the It's A Sin jam. Though the chords are much the same, this isn't played at all like the early Good Lovin's. On the other hand, it could be a Twist & Shout jam since it sounds exactly like the Twist & Shout from the '66 mystery reels. La Bamba was played again on 11-11-70, and revived in '87.

Other '66 studio selections on the Taper's Section (NFA, Creampuff) are from the Rare Cuts CD.

STUDIO
There is an early-'66 studio or demo version of Who Do You Love with Pigpen singing, which gets pretty wild and is fully developed at six minutes. It actually sounds quite a bit like the Not Fade Away demo on Rare Cuts. (Deadlists notes, "This is often listed as 3/6/66 or March '66. The actual date is unknown.")
https://archive.org/details/gd1966-03-09.sbd.sorochty.125516.flac16

There is also a stray, undated Smokestack Lightning (studio '66/67?) -
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1967-xx-xx.sbd.studio.81259.flac16
(This turned out to be a fake - it's actually a fragment of 11/19/66.) 

A number of songs were recorded for the first album in January '67 but dropped - a few of these outtakes were released on the CD reissue:
Alice D Millionaire (aka No Time To Cry) ;
Lindy (Overseas Stomp) ;
Tastebud (aka Come Back Baby) ;
Death Don't Have No Mercy (inst.)

The "12-5-66" studio session on the Archive actually has a few instrumentals from the first album sessions in January '67 - Minglewood Blues, Cream Puff War, Sitting On Top Of The World, I Know You Rider, Cold Rain & Snow, and King Bee (which is mistakenly listed as The Same Thing). Since these are all '66 regulars, this might as well be a '66 studio session! (An instrumental version of Down So Long is unfortunately missing from this tape.)
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1966-12-05.sbd.kimbro.23064.sbeok.shnf

Only two new songs were considered for the album - the Bonnie Dobson cover Morning Dew (first known show 1/14/67), and Golden Road, which was quickly written that January to be the single. Golden Road didn't last long in live shows, and we only have two performances from 3/18 and "5/5/67". Morning Dew proved more endurable.
Aside from these two songs, only one '66 original made it onto the album (Cream Puff War), and six covers (BIODTL, Cold Rain, Minglewood, Schoolgirl, SoToW, and Viola Lee). The excellent 3-18-67 show (from the day after the album release) shows how far the Dead had advanced in just a few months - soon they would start writing jam-centered songs that would transform their music and leave their 1966 repertoire in the dust....
http://www.archive.org/details/gd67-03-18.sbd.fink.10282.sbeok.shnf

LIST OF SHOWS
The early part of 1966 has many shows which are misdated or have unknown dates. I'm not going to try to clear this up - it's impossible to settle whether some half-hour fragment comes from March or May or some other month - so I'll accept the common dates for most of these shows. There are a large number of sources with conflicting dates, but this is a complete listing of what's available for 1966 - the rest of the Archive sources are all duplicates.

A couple Acid Tests are available on the Archive with no Dead music - 1/29/66 and 10/2/66 - for those interested in Prankster madness. 
There's a fake Dead jam from the Acid Test Graduation, the "10/31/66" jam, which is worth hearing anyway.
There is also an early Dead radio interview available from November '66:
https://archive.org/details/gd1966-11-00.FM.interview.ordon.sorochty.125586.flac16

Many of deadlists' entries for this year have not been updated - in fact, deadlists' 1966 section is a complete mess, with many wrong or badly edited entries. Use with caution.
For more 1966 dating info, see:
http://deadessays.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-1966-mystery-reels-guest-post.html

Updated October 2015.

11/3/65 GOLDEN GATE STUDIOS -
Early Morning Rain
I Know You Rider
Mindbender (Confusion's Prince)
The Only Time Is Now
Caution
Can't Come Down
NOTE: Studio demo recorded as the "Emergency Crew", just before they found the name "Grateful Dead". Available on Birth of the Dead.

Deadbase has a couple setlists for uncirculating shows in January '66: 

1/7/66 MATRIX -
Mindbender
On the Road Again
She Belongs to Me
I'll Go Crazy
Can't Come Down
Death Don't Have No Mercy
Parchman Farm
Midnight Hour
The Only Time Is Now
Early Morning Rain
It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
NOTE: Deadbase says that "This setlist came from Matrix soundman Peter Abram in 1983," and it certainly looks plausible. For a couple original songs from their Nov '65 demo, this is one of only a couple known live performances. She Belongs To Me is, sadly, the last appearance for 19 years. I'll Go Crazy is the James Brown song (later covered by Garcia & Grisman) - Parchman Farm may be Bukka White's or Mose Allison's - what could they have sounded like? It's sad that this tape never got circulated.

1/13/66 MATRIX -
All of My Love
Hog For You Baby
NOTE: "All Of My Love" may be Buddy Holly's Oh Boy ("All of my love, all of my kisses...."), which Weir pulled out a few times in later years. (This seems like a short setlist, but perhaps the Dead took too much acid that day and fell apart?)

1/8/66 FILLMORE -
I'm A King Bee
Hog For You Baby
Caution (Do Not Stop On Tracks) >
Death Don't Have No Mercy
NOTE: Also includes much Prankster madness. This is taken from a video soundtrack.
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1966-01-08.sbd.bershaw.5410.shnf

Late January '66, Unknown Location - 
Viola Lee Blues rehearsal (many takes) 
NOTE: The Dead work out the arrangement, which makes me think they hadn't played it in '65. Pigpen initially sings and plays harmonica, before leaving. 
http://www.archive.org/details/gd66-01-xx.sbd.hanno-uli.18846.sbeok.shnf

"2/6/66" Unknown Location -
/Tastebud
Mindbender
One Kind Favor
Beat It On Down The Line
Only Time Is Now// 
NOTE: This fragment was included in a Jam of the Week on dead.net, and isn't available except for the three songs included in an earlier Taper's Section (noted above).

ASSORTED ??/66 REELS -
"Possibly 2/12/66" - Speculated to be from 7/31/66:
Viola Lee Blues
Don't Ease Me In
Tastebud

"Longshoreman's Hall 1st Night" - Possibly April:
Beat It On Down The Line
Schoolgirl>You Don't Love Me>Schoolgirl //

Unlabeled Reel - 2/12/66:
Pigpen Raps> "New Orleans" (sort of an attempt)
/Twist and Shout

"Longshoreman's Hall 3rd Night" - Possibly April:
//It's A Sin
Viola Lee Blues
Midnight Hour
Beat It On Down The Line
Blues Jam (with Jorma and Jack) //

"Pauley Ballroom #2" (no date) - Now thought to be from 1/28/66:
//You Don't Have To Ask
Viola Lee Blues
I Know You Rider
Midnight Hour (plug pulled)

NOTE: This set added a lot to our knowledge of early '66. For instance, Pigpen's "who cares" rap from 2/12 had circulated by itself for a long time - he soothes a freaked-out lady in the audience by summoning up a gospel vibe. And now that we have the complete reel, we can hear that after that, he does a little medley of songs where he can sing "yeah, yeah" to everyone like a blues preacher, keeping things under control.
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1966-XX-XX.sbd.GEMS.81254.flac16 - ??/66

Good Morning Little Schoolgirl>You Don't Love Me>Good Morning Little Schoolgirl // -
This is on the mystery-reels set, but I single this out partly because it's ubiquitous on '66 tapes - practically every date has this medley as filler, and the true date is unknown (it could be from April) - and partly because it's the first known Dead sandwich. They were doing some segues in '66 (for instance, Caution>Death Don't on 1/8 or King Bee>Caution on 3/12) - but here, the transition in and out of You Don't Love Me in the middle of Schoolgirl, though not skillful, is one of the few hints of the later Dead in early '66. What's also interesting is that both of these songs were on Junior Wells' 1965 album Hoodoo Man Blues, which Garcia admired.

Feb/March '66 Rehearsal Session, Watts -
Walkin’ the Dog
Big Boss Man
Beat It On Down The Line
It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
You See a Broken Heart
One Kind Favor
Promised Land
NOTE: This was available on the "San Franciscan Nights, series 2" compilation. It's more complete than the selections for the Rare Cuts & Oddities CD. (For more demo songs, see that entry at the end.)

3/12/66 DANISH CENTER, LA -
/Viola Lee Blues
/One Kind Favor
I Know You Rider
You See A Broken Heart
It's A Sin //
Beat It On Down The Line
Heads Up
Next Time You See Me
Slow R & B Instrumental
/Death Don't Have No Mercy
Midnight Hour //
NOTE - Lots of PA trouble in this show - this early, the Dead are already hounded by equipment trouble! Almost every song is blues or R&B. (The most recent source has this as the 3/19/66 Acid Test, but more likely it's from the show on 3/12.)
http://www.archive.org/details/gd66-03-19.sbd.scotton.81951.sbeok.flac

3/25/66 TROUPER'S CLUB, LA -
//Stealin'
Jam
Hey Little One
Hog For You Baby
You Don't Have To Ask
Cold Rain And Snow
Next Time You See Me //
NOTE - Pigpen's organ is especially loud at this show.
http://www.archive.org/details/gd66-03-25.sbd.unknown.38.sbeok.shnf

5/19/66 AVALON -
Beat It On Down The Line
Standing On The Corner
Mindbender
It Hurts Me Too
Viola Lee Blues
I Know You Rider
It's A Sin
Sick And Tired
Cream Puff War //
Sittin' On Top Of The World
Minglewood Blues
Cold Rain And Snow
Tastebud
Silver Threads And Golden Needles
It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
Good Lovin'
You Don't Have To Ask
NOTE: The bass drum is far too loud in the mix. The Vault tape is misdated as 3/12/66, but as heard on the 3/12/07 Taper's Section, it's in wide stereo; the circulating tape is more compressed.
http://www.archive.org/details/gd66-05-19.sbd.lestatkat.6516.sbeok.shnf

"2/25/66" Unknown Location -
On The Road Again
Next Time You See Me
I Know You Rider
Hey Little One
Cold Rain & Snow
King Bee >
Caution
Stealin' //
NOTE: The Vault also has this tape as 3/12/66, but that date is false. This show cannot be from Feb/March, but dates from sometime in the spring. See the comment below. (It also circulates as "6/15/66" from Gans' Dead Hour show - a nonexistent date, but closer to the real one.)
http://www.archive.org/details/gd66-02-25.sbd.unknown.1593.sbefail.shnf

6/66 SCORPIO SESSIONS -
Stealin'
I Know You Rider
Don't Ease Me In
You Don't Have To Ask
Tastebud
Cardboard Cowboy
Cold Rain And Snow
NOTE: The studio Cardboard Cowboy is in the Archive 6/66 studio session (mislabeled as Tastebud), but was not released on Birth of the Dead - however, it was released on the Searching for the Sound bonus CD, complete with comments from Lesh! Tastebud and multiple takes of Cold Rain & Snow are unfortunately missing from the Archive tape.
It's interesting that the Dead decided to release Stealin' and Don't Ease Me In as their first single - a clear nod to their jugband roots, but leaving more catchy songs in the can. This may have been a compromise, due to their unhappiness with the sessions. As the producer noted, "It was an effort to get out of the zone of indecision.... The early Dead was trying to find themselves in a sense and get a product out when Phil wanted to do one thing and Jerry wanted to do another... So it was frustrating for everybody, but we had to get something finished."
After the very limited release, the band talked about the single. Garcia: "We never got in on the mixing of it and we didn't really like the cuts and the performances were bad and the recordings were bad and everything else was bad so we didn't want it out.... It doesn't sound like us.... It's not that bad, but - " Pigpen: "Bullshit." Weir: "Go burn it."
http://www.archive.org/details/gd66-06-xx.sbd.vernon.9513.sbeok.shnf - 6/66 Scorpio Studio Outtakes 

7/3/66 FILLMORE -
Nobody's Fault But Mine
Dancin' In The Street
I Know You Rider //
He Was A Friend Of Mine
Next Time You See Me
Viola Lee Blues
Big Boss Man
Sittin' On Top Of The World /
Keep Rolling By
New Minglewood Blues
Cold Rain & Snow
Tastebud
Beat It On Down The Line
Cream Puff War
Don't Mess Up A Good Thing
Cardboard Cowboy (The Monster)
Gangster Of Love
You Don't Have To Ask
In The Midnight Hour
NOTE: The Archive track listing isn't right, but the music is. Also, the circulating tape is only part of set one, but the whole show was released on the 30 Trips box set. 
http://www.archive.org/details/gd66-07-03.sbd.unknown.40.sbeok.shnf 

7/16/66 FILLMORE -
/ I Know You Rider
Big Boss Man
Standing On The Corner
Beat It On Down The Line
In The Pines
Cardboard Cowboy
Nobody's Fault But Mine
Next Time You See Me
He Was A Friend Of Mine
Cream Puff War
Viola Lee Blues
Don't Ease Me In
Pain In My Heart
Minglewood Blues
Sittin' On Top Of The World
You Don't Have To Ask
Cold Rain And Snow
Good Morning Little Schoolgirl
It's All Over Now Baby Blue
Dancin' In The Streets //
NOTE: The majority of the live tracks on Birth of the Dead are from this show. As an encore, the band played Midnight Hour with Jefferson Airplane, with Marty Balin, Joan Baez & Mimi Farina joining on vocals...but it's not on tape!
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1966-07-16.sbd.miller.89555.sbeok.flac16

7/17/66 FILLMORE -
// Big Boss Man
Cold Rain And Snow
It's All Over Now Baby Blue
Cream Puff War
King Bee
Stealin'
Dancin' In The Streets //
NOTE: There's a lot of date confusion in July. As Charlie Miller says, "This is the complete 7/17/66. What was earlier had as 7/17/66 is really part of 7/16/66." All the other Archive copies of "7/17", and the deadlists listing, are just the incomplete first set of 7/16. Also, the Vernon "7/1/66" file (in deadlists as 7/??/66) is actually another copy of 7/17.
This is only one set of the show. David Gans wrote, "There was another 7/17 tape that was unusable because of damage to the reel."
http://www.archive.org/details/gd66-07-17.sbd.miller.21064.sbeok.shnf

7/29/66 PNE GARDEN AUDITORIUM, VANCOUVER -
Dancin' In The Street
Cold Rain and Snow
King Bee
One Kind Favor
You Don't Have To Ask
Hey Little One
Beat It On Down The Line
Good Morning Little Schoolgirl
New Minglewood Blues
NOTE - The Gans and Vernon files are incomplete copies of 7/30. Lesh called this "one of the worst performances I can remember...."
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1966-07-29.sbd.GEMS.94633.flac16

7/30/66 PNE GARDEN AUDITORIUM, VANCOUVER -
Standing On The Corner
I Know You Rider
Next Time You See Me
Sitting On Top Of The World
You Don't Have To Ask
Big Boss Man
Stealin'
Cardboard Cowboy
It's All Over Now Baby Blue
Cream Puff War
Viola Lee Blues
Beat It On Down The Line
Schoolgirl //
NOTE - The Vernon file is a very incomplete copy of 7/29.
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1966-07-30.sbd.GEMS.94631.flac16

10/7/66 -
Deadbase used to list: Stealin', Don't Ease Me In, Cold Rain, Cream Puff War, Walkin' Blues. They've deleted this setlist, so presumably their information was wrong. The circulating tape has these songs -
Cream Puff War
Good Morning Little Schoolgirl
Stealin'
This is a fake; the Creampuff and Schoolgirl are actually from 7/16, and Stealin' from 7/17.
http://www.archive.org/details/gd66-10-07.sbd.unknown.14102.sbeok.shnf (if you want to check....)

11/19/66 FILLMORE -
Cold Rain And Snow
Hi-Heel Sneakers
Pain In My Heart
Beat It On Down The Line
Cream Puff War
Same Thing
He Was A Friend Of Mine
Dancin' In The Street //
Smokestack Lightnin'
King Bee
Midnight Hour
NOTE - A blues-drenched show, dominated by Pigpen and some incredible jams. (This was labeled on some tapes as 3/17/67, which was an incorrect date.)
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1966-11-19.sbd.miller.94106.sbeok.flac16

11/29/66 MATRIX -
Me And My Uncle
Same Thing
Stealin'
Big Boy Pete
One Kind Favor
Early Morning Rain
Cold Rain And Snow
Viola Lee Blues
Down So Long
Something On Your Mind
Lindy
Good Morning Little Schoolgirl
I Just Want To Make Love To You
NOTE: The tape is from sets two & three; the first set is missing. These two Matrix shows have rather poor sound, due to a burnt-out tapedeck. Matrix owner Peter Abram said, "The heads were worn out on my machine. The tapes sounded great over the headphones, but when I played them back between sets, I knew something was wrong."
http://www.archive.org/details/gd66-11-29.sbd.ret.20448.sbeok.shnf 

12/1/66 MATRIX -
Minglewood Blues
Betty And Dupree
Next Time You See Me
I Know You Rider
Big Boss Man
One Kind Favor
Alice D. Millionaire
Me And My Uncle
Cream Puff War
You Don't Love Me
Beat It On Down The Line
It Hurts Me Too
On The Road Again
Yonder's Wall
My Own Fault
Down So Long
Cold Rain And Snow
Viola Lee Blues
Deep Elem Blues
Something On Your Mind
Big Boy Pete
Death Don't Have No Mercy
Lindy
Dancin' In The Street
Me And My Uncle
NOTE: An unknown guest sings Yonder's Wall and My Own Fault. And oddly, the Dead play Me & My Uncle twice in the same show (as well as a false start).
http://www.archive.org/details/gd66-12-01.sbd.sirmick.26968.sbeok.shnf

"9/16/66" AVALON -
I Know You Rider
It Hurts Me Too
It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
Good Morning Little Schoolgirl
Lindy
Dancin' In The Street
Midnight Hour
NOTE - The playing in this show is a quantum leap ahead of the July shows. It actually isn't from September, but from one of the late December Avalon shows.
Stealin' and The Same Thing on the Historic Dead album are from the 11/29/66 Matrix show. Apparently the rest of the Avalon tapes were erased after the shady LP releases of this tape in '70-71.
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1966-09-16.sbd.davenport.95970.flac16

RARE CUTS & ODDITIES - Miscellaneous Early '66
DEMOS:
Walking the Dog
You See a Broken Heart
Promised Land (these three songs are from the Feb/March session listed above)

Good Lovin'
Standing on the Corner
Cream Puff War (these three songs are from an April/May session, and are close to the 5/19 versions)
 
Betty & Dupree 3/2
Stealin' 3/2

Silver Threads & Golden Needles (late '66)
Not Fade Away (early '66)

LIVE: 
Big Railroad Blues
Sick & Tired
Empty Heart (date unknown for these three songs)

Gangster of Love 7/3
Don't Mess Up a Good Thing 7/3

Hey Little One 3/12
King Bee 3/12
Caution 3/12 (date for these three songs aka "2/25" - actually from the spring)
NOTE: These are selections from a box of Bear's unlabeled reels. Apparently the band taped many demos and rehearsals in early '66 at their house in Watts. The rest of the reels' contents are unknown outside the Vault.

BIRTH OF THE DEAD - LIVE JULY 1966 - Most of these are from 7/16, except for a couple songs which could be from either 7/15 or 7/17.
Viola Lee Blues - Don't Ease Me In - Pain In My Heart - Sittin' On Top of the World - It's All Over Now Baby Blue - King Bee - Big Boss Man - Standing on the Corner - In the Pines - Nobody's Fault But Mine - Next Time You See Me - One Kind Favor - He Was A Friend Of Mine - Keep Rolling By (this was the only song not on circulating '66 tapes)
NOTE: This was a somewhat disappointing selection.... One CD from one or two shows wasn't a wide illustration of '66 Dead, particularly since many of the better songs were left out. (This has been somewhat redressed by the 7/3/66 release.)

SO MANY ROADS (box set)
On The Road Again - 3/12, aka "2/25" ("from unlabeled reel")
You Don't Have To Ask - 7/16
Cream Puff War - 7/16
I Know You Rider - 9/16
Same Thing - 3/18/67

And finally, some last words -

"I'd never heard anything like it. Garcia was sort of frightening with that cosmic electric intensity he had then.... The music was scary. Pushing me to the edge. The sound of Garcia's guitar was like the claws of a tiger.... I thought to myself, 'These guys are going to be greater than the Beatles someday.'" - Bear, on first seeing the Dead at an Acid Test, December 1965

"I don't believe the live sound, the live excitement, can be recorded." - Garcia, December 1966

The Dead's Early Thematic Jams

This is a short guide to the various themed jams the Dead did in their early years. I've listed a lot of them here & there before, so some of these are repeated from previous posts. But I thought it might be useful as a handy reference for others, to have all the early jams gathered together in a brief introduction.
Note that this guide stops at 1974. There's also a good overview of many of these jams in the first Taping Compendium.

In no particular order....


FEELIN' GROOVY JAM

The Feelin' Groovy jam is basically four chords based on the 1966 Simon & Garfunkel song, and was frequently done in Dark Stars from '69-'72. This first appeared in Dark Star in late '69 - in '73 it migrated into the middle of China>Rider, with a rather different feel and an extra 'bridge' section added. (A lot of people also call it the "Uncle John's Jam" since the four chords are very similar. There's not that much resemblance between the Dead's chords and Paul Simon's fingerpicking, even if his song was the inspiration - with most of these jams, the Dead just used the basic song chords as a starting point, with Garcia creating his own melodies.)
The first Feelin' Groovy jam appears in the 9/26/69 Dark Star, around the 11-minute mark, unfortunately hard to appreciate due to the sound quality:
http://www.archive.org/details/gd69-09-26.aud.hanno.14856.sbeok.shnf
Since it's an audience tape, most people probably haven't heard it - but this one from the Dark Star a month later is well-known:
http://www.archive.org/details/gd69-10-25.sbd.jagla.81.sbefail.shnf
- and just a week after that it had one of its best performances:
http://www.archive.org/details/gd69-11-02.sbd.goodbear.1125.sbefail.shnf
Feelin' Groovy appeared in many Dark Stars thereafter, too many to link - almost every one through 1970. Some of the best-loved versions might include 1/2/70, 2/13/70, 5/15/70, 9/19/70, 10/21/71, 4/14/72, and 5/25/72. (In 2/13/70, Garcia comes closest to quoting the melody of the Simon & Garfunkel song.) From the end of '69 and through '70, Dark Star had a particular format: after the first verse the band would evaporate into space, explore weirdness for a while, then slowly return back to melody - and here the Feelin' Groovy jam (or sometimes the Tighten Up jam) would emerge, like bright joy after the darkness. (Sometimes though, they mixed things up or weren't in the mood, and you sometimes catch Garcia refusing to enter a Feelin' Groovy jam even when Lesh is trying to drop one in - for instance, repeatedly in the 2/14/70 Dark Star.) Over time the Stars changed, and became more dense and complex, particularly after Keith joined - a couple fine examples of '71 Feelin' Groovy jams are 7/31 and 10/21/71. The '72 Stars got jazzier with more jamming elements and meltdowns, and the Feelin' Groovy jam often became more brief and fleeting - sometimes just a hint from Phil (as on 8/27/72).
All these appearances are in Dark Stars:
11/7/69
11/8/69
12/11/69
12/26/69
12/30/69
1/2/70
1/17/70
2/2/70
2/8/70
2/13/70
2/14/70
3/24/70
4/24/70
5/8/70
5/15/70
9/19/70
11/5/70
7/31/71
10/21/71
10/24/71
3/23/72
4/14/72
4/29/72
5/4/72
5/25/72
One reader has written a comprehensive descriptive guide to these Feelin' Groovy jams in Dark Star:
https://archive.org/post/1053485/guide-to-the-feelin-groovy-jam
Feelin' Groovy almost never appeared in the Other One, with one prominent exception - 4/11/72:
https://archive.org/details/gd1972-04-11.sbd.jackson.smith.94377.sbeok.flac16 
Late '72 saw the end of its stay in Dark Star - one instance is 10/18/72, a classic version at the end of the Star, after the Philo Stomp:
http://www.archive.org/details/gd72-10-18.sbd.weir.7295.sbeok.shnf
By contrast, from 11/13/72 we have an extremely fast version in a Star filled with intense meltdowns:
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1972-11-13.aud.cotsman.7518.sbefail.shnf
The last time I recall Feelin' Groovy being played in a Dark Star is 11/26/72, a great version that should be known by more people - the end of the Star has a bass solo>Feelin' Groovy>Tiger meltdown - Garcia's tone in the Feelin' Groovy is just amazing:
http://www.archive.org/details/gd72-11-26.sbd.cotsman.9248.sbeok.shnf
A couple times the Feelin' Groovy jam would appear 'solo': on 10/2/72, in the post-Truckin' jam it's one of the themes after Nobody's Fault But Mine and is played very loosely, leading up to Morning Dew:
http://www.archive.org/details/gd72-10-02.sbd.lai.158.sbefail.shnf
And on 2/24/73 it's part of the jam coming out of Eyes of the World (unfortunately the more complete audience tape isn't on the Archive), and follows a long bass solo - Garcia initiates it and they play it very sweetly, segueing into Sugar Magnolia:
http://www.archive.org/details/gd73-02-24.sbd.elliot.11929.sbeok.shnf (mislabeled as a Truckin'>Nobody's Fault jam, and cuts off just before Sugar Magnolia starts)
The first time Feelin' Groovy entered the China>Rider transition was on 3/16/73; and there it would stay over the next two years, with many exciting versions as it became increasingly jammed-out - a couple examples would be the Dick's Picks of 6/26/74 and 8/5/74.
https://archive.org/details/gd1973-03-16.sbd.miller.79186.sbeok.flac16 
One unique variation happens in the 3/31/73 show - after toying with the Spanish Jam in the Other One, out of the Other One space they suddenly shift into Feelin' Groovy, and from there head naturally into Rider without bothering with the China Cat:
http://www.archive.org/details/gd73-03-31.sbd.yerys.2237.sbeok.shnf
After 1974, Feelin' Groovy mysteriously disappeared.


SOULFUL STRUT JAM aka TIGHTEN UP JAM

The Tighten Up jam was a very common Latin-style jam theme in 1970. It's often called a proto-Eyes jam since Weir plays two repeating jazzy chords that are rhythmically similar to the opening of Eyes of the World; but they were commonly thought to be from Archie Bell & the Drells' 1968 tune.
This has been debated, though - some people have pointed out that there's also a similarity to the intro of Chicago's 1969 song 'Beginnings'. And it turns out there's even a stronger resemblance to the 1968 Young/Holt Unlimited tune 'Soulful Strut,' which has similar chords and piano melody. I've come to think that this should actually be called the 'Soulful Strut' jam since that could be the main inspiration for the Dead; but in this post I'll leave the name as the better-known Tighten Up jam.
One writer analyzes the chords here:
http://www.deadforayear.com/why-the-tighten-up-jam-should-henceforth-be-known-as-the-soulful-strut-jam/ 
Its first appearance I'm aware of was on 8/30/69, where Weir plays the chords as Garcia's changing a string during Dark Star; it gets a full band performance on 10/25/69. After that they played it steadily for a year, in many Dark Stars and after March '70 in most of the Dancing in the Streets. They apparently dropped it in 1971, except for a surprise appearance on 10/31/71. As we'll see it was normal for the Dead to use a jam-theme interchangeably between two different songs like that, and Tighten Up works well in both of them. (It's surprising it took so long for them to play it in Dancing, since it's similar to the usual Dancing two-chord jam pattern - on 12/11/69 for instance, the Dancing is extremely close to a Tighten Up.)
These are the performances I've found so far; I've probably missed a few (I think there are some in Lovelights as well), but this is the most complete listing available.
10-25-69 Star - http://www.archive.org/details/gd69-10-25.sbd.jagla.81.sbefail.shnf
11-2-69 Star - http://www.archive.org/details/gd69-11-02.sbd.goodbear.1125.sbefail.shnf
12-26-69 Star - http://www.archive.org/details/gd69-12-26.sbd.murphy.1821.sbeok.shnf
1-2-70 Star - http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-01-02.partial-early.sbd.86.sbefail.shnf
3-1-70 Dancing - http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-03-01.sbd.hanno.4641.sbefail.shnf  (AUD - SBD is available here: http://www.dead.net/features/tapers-section/march-18-march-24-2013 )
3-21-70 Dancing - http://www.archive.org/details/gd1970-03-21.late.aud.lee.pcrp.21779.shnf
4-3-70 Dancing - http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-04-03.sbd.cotsman.4283.sbefail.shnf
4-12-70 Dancing - https://archive.org/details/gd70-04-12.sbd.kaplan.3820.sbeok.shnf  (also released on Fallout from the Phil Zone)
4-15-70 Dancing - http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-04-15.sbd.kaplan.14354.sbeok.shnf
4-24-70 Star - http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-04-24.aud.hanno.19531.sbeok.shnf
5-2-70 Dancing - https://archive.org/details/gd1970-05-02.sbd-fm-aud.unknown.108955.flac16 (and Dick's Pick)
5-6-70 Dancing - http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-05-06.sbd.gans.94.sbefail.shnf
5-8-70 Star - http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-05-08.aud.miller.32056.sbeok.flacf
5-24-70 Star - http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-05-24.sbd.hanno.6481.sbeok.shnf
6-6-70 Dancing - http://www.archive.org/details/gd1970-06-06.sbd.miller.86951.sbeok.flac16
6-24-70 second Star - http://www.archive.org/details/gd_nrps70-06-24.aud.pcrp5.23062.sbeok.flacf
7-12-70 Dancing - http://www.archive.org/details/gd1970-07-12.aud.unknown.sirmick.24663.sbefail.shnf
9-17-70 Star - http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-09-17.aud.remaster.sirmick.27591.sbeok.shnf
10-5-70 Dancing - http://www.archive.org/details/gd1970-12-17.sbd.unk.87356.sbeok.flac16 (mislabeled; also released in the 2/4/70 Download Series)
10-24-70 Dancing - http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-10-24.sbd.hollister.103.sbeok.shnf
10-30-70b Dancing - http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-10-30.sbd.cotsman.20044.sbeok.shnf
11-8-70 Dancing - http://www.archive.org/details/gd1970-11-08.aud.weiner.28609.sbeok.shnf
10-31-71 Star - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4jOqjRA49c (and Dick's Pick)
(I might add that Deadlists claims there's a Tighten Up in the 2/2/70 Star, but there isn't. It is teased at other times, like in the 9/18/70 Dancing or 10/17/70 Dark Star.)

The Tighten Up and Feelin' Groovy jams have often been confused, even by Latvala who should have known better! There were Dark Stars where they did both of these jams, but the 1970 Dancings generally have Tighten Up jams, not Feelin' Groovy jams. The easy way to check: is Weir repeating two chords or four chords?
Sometimes the two themes are done back-to-back. They were introduced into Dead jams around the same time, and for a few months they're often paired in Dark Stars, as in 10/25 and 12/26/69, then again in 4/24 and 5/8/70. (After that they went their separate ways.)
In particular, check out the Dark Stars from 11/2/69 or 1/2/70, which have the same structure after the first verse: - a space, weird & wild, - then the Feelin' Groovy jam, almost sounding more fully developed than it was in later years with different variations, and when that dies down, - the Tighten Up jam, again done fully & at length; when this is done it's time for the second verse.
http://www.archive.org/details/gd69-11-02.sbd.goodbear.1125.sbefail.shnf
http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-01-02.partial-early.sbd.86.sbefail.shnf

This was an older (outdated) website covering some of the Tighten Up jams:
http://web.archive.org/web/20030825202854/www.stellarjay.net/timle/tighten_up_jam.htm
One reader has written descriptive reviews of all the Tighten Up jams:
https://archive.org/post/1055387/guide-to-the-tighten-up-jam 


MIND LEFT BODY JAM

The Mind Left Body jam originated in the PERRO sessions, where we can hear an early, faster version of the four descending chords. Paul Kantner took this riff for his 1973 song 'Your Mind Has Left Your Body,' which Garcia played pedal steel on. Garcia in turn adapted it into a Grateful Dead theme, which first showed up on occasion in '72, but started regularly entering the jams in fall '73. It added a transcendental feeling to many shows up through '74 - these are some of the most notable jams:
4-8-72 Dark Star
9-21-72 Dark Star
10-19-73 Dark Star
10-30-73 Dark Star
11-11-73 Dark Star
12-2-73 Playing
5-19-74 Truckin' jam
6-28-74 WRS jam
7-31-74 Truckin' jam
10-17-74 Other One
In 1975 the MLB theme was turned into the bridge section in Weir's Music Never Stopped (some 1976 versions of that song have particularly pronounced mini-MLB jams); but in later years it made some infrequent appearances in unexpected places.
Sometimes the MLB jam is mistaken for Feelin' Groovy - on Dicks Pick 12, Latvala even called the China>Rider transition the 'Mud Love Buddy' jam, which is misleading. The segue jam in the '73/74 China>Riders is definitely Feelin' Groovy, not MLB - Latvala just messed that up. (For instance, on DP12 the jam from 6/28 IS the MLB jam, but doesn't get named!)

I go into much more detail about this theme with more examples, links, and jam descriptions in the Mind Left Body post -
http://deadessays.blogspot.com/2009/08/mind-left-body-jam.html


SPANISH JAM

Weir based the Spanish Jam on the song 'Solea' on Miles Davis' album Sketches of Spain, sometime in late '67 when the Dead started recording Anthem of the Sun. As it was, a little bit of the Spanish Jam actually got on the album, in the form of a short Davis-flavored trumpet break from Phil in the middle of Born Cross-Eyed (after the verse, "Think I'll come back here again, every now and then, from time to time"). For a moment, it seems like Garcia and the band are about to break into the Spanish Jam, but they quickly cut back to the song....
In any case, the Spanish Jam debuted on the Anthem tour of early '68 and was played regularly - but, was soon dropped from the setlists (along with Born Cross-Eyed). Weir kept it in mind though, and it made a surprise reappearance at the 2/11/70 allstar-jam show, out of Dark Star. It then disappeared for three more years - was revived for two shows in March '73 (tied with Dark Star again on 3/24/73) - was dropped again - and, once again, emerged from nowhere in another Dark Star jam on 6/23/74. Finally the Dead felt ready for it, and played it frequently through the rest of '74. However, aside from one show in '76, the Spanish Jam remained unheard for several years after the hiatus, until another revival on 5/6/81. After that, it appeared now and then, from time to time in shows up to the end in '95, making it one of the longest-lasting Dead jams.
Here is an older post with a brief history of the Spanish Jam:
http://www.archive.org/iathreads/post-view.php?id=114745
And here are some more examples of notable early Spanish Jams not linked in that post:
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1968-01-17.sbd.cotsman.11795.shnf - the first
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1970-02-11.late-set2.aud.smith.99152.sbeok.flac16
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1974-07-19.sbd.gans-finney.217.sbeok.shnf
http://www.archive.org/details/gd76-07-16.set1aud-set2sbd.miller.23569.sbeok.shnf

 UPDATE: I've done a more complete post on this theme: 

 http://deadessays.blogspot.com/2021/07/the-spanish-jam.html

THE MAIN TEN

The Main Ten was a ten-beat Mickey Hart riff the Dead started playing in mid-'68. It popped up in shows now & then for a couple years, when they felt like taking an excursion. It also appeared on Hart's first album Rolling Thunder. It's strange to hear this riff today, when it's so identified with Playing in the Band, but in its original incarnation it embodies a mysterious, otherworldly feeling.
The earliest performance we have is from 2-19-69 (mislabeled):
http://www.archive.org/details/gd68-06-19.sbd.cotsman.4511.sbeok.shnf
It resurfaces, surprisingly, in a couple '69 Dark Stars:
4-11-69 in Dark Star (short, at 10-minute mark) -
http://www.archive.org/details/gd69-04-11.sbd.cotsman.15404.sbeok.shnf
4-15-69 in Dark Star (short, at 17 minutes) -
http://www.archive.org/details/gd69-04-15.aud.miller.31435.sbeok.flacf
11-8-69 (in the Caution) - Dick's Pick.
12-5-69 (after the Uncle John's jam, segueing into a lovely Baby Blue) -
http://www.archive.org/details/gd69-12-05.sbd.cotsman.11256.sbeok.shnf
5-3-70 (for completeness' sake, a short bit inside this Lovelight - although the band can barely be heard, it's interesting to hear the crowd clapping to the beat) -
http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-05-03.aud.cotsman.9378.sbeok.shnf
6-7-70 (a mystical groove in-between the great Cryptical outro and the first Sugar Magnolia) -
http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-06-07.sbd.hollister.98.sbeok.shnf
11-6-70 (inside the Good Lovin') -
http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-11-06.aud.warner.17183.sbeok.shnf
11-8-70 (out of Dark Star, and into Dancin' in the Streets) - http://www.archive.org/details/gd1970-11-08.aud.weiner.28609.sbeok.shnf
In early '71, the Dead decided to turn the riff into a complete song, and merged it into Playing in the Band, which debuted on 2/18/71. It's credited to Weir/Hart/Hunter - presumably Hart originated the Main Ten, Weir added the other sections of the song, and Hunter wrote the lyrics. (Weir also turned Hart's "Pump Song" into the Greatest Story Ever Told.) Playing was a catchy tune which wouldn't become a 'jam' number for another year, but it lost the spooky feel that the Main Ten had.


THE SEVEN

The Seven is another riff from the experimental days of '68, and there are very few tapes. The earliest Seven riff is played briefly by Garcia at one point in the long 5/21/68 Carousel jam. There are a couple Sevens in the Hartbeats Matrix shows on 10/8/68 and 10/10/68, and there's a short one coming out of the Viola Lee on 3/21/70 (they had sometimes teased it in '69 Viola Lees) - but the best is on the AUD recording of 9/29/69, it's very tight!
http://www.archive.org/details/gd68-10-08.sbd.belaff.17691.sbeok.shnf
http://www.archive.org/details/gd68-10-10.sbd.miller-ladner.4513.sbeok.shnf (Hartbeats practice)
http://www.archive.org/details/gd69-09-29.aud.early.hollister.79.sbeok.shnf (out of Doin' That Rag, into Good Lovin')
http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-03-21.early.lee.pcrp.20184.sbeok.shnf (brief, out of Viola Lee & into Cumberland Blues)


WE BID YOU GOODNIGHT JAM

One jam that switched places over the years is the 'We Bid You Goodnight' jam. This is unique as a song the Dead would jam instrumentally during Alligator, and then sing a cappella at the end of the show after "feedback"! It was introduced during the Anthem '68 tour - Garcia had been listening to Joseph Spence & the Pindar Family's version and liked this song.
The earliest sung version we have comes from 3/16/68. [One copy of 1/22/68 has it tacked on at the end from a later show.] The earliest instrumental Goodnight theme I recall is in the 2/24/68 Dick's Picks show, 5 minutes into the Alligator, played in Garcia's usual staccato fashion at the time.
By '69 the instrumental Goodnight theme frequently appears in Alligators, played a lot faster than it was later. I looked up a few shows where it's tracked separately and easy to find:
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1969-02-15.sbd.goodbear.2175.sbeok.shnf - Alligator
http://www.archive.org/details/gd69-11-01.sbd.cotsman.6298.sbeok.shnf - Alligator
http://www.archive.org/details/gd69-12-12.sbd.gerland.10988.sbeok.shnf - Alligator
http://www.archive.org/details/gd69-12-30.sbd.miller.28469.sbeok.shnf - Alligator
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1970-01-03.sbd.gmb.97743.flac16 - Eleven>Alligator (following a brief China Cat tease)
http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-02-05.sbd.hanno.9184.sbefail.shnf - Eleven>Caution (here Garcia almost takes it into a China Cat riff)
In 1970, as Alligators grew rare, the Goodnight jam starts showing up in Not Fade Aways, including 8/18, 9/18, and 9/20/70 - a few examples:
http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-05-24.sbd.hanno.6481.sbeok.shnf
http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-08-18.aud.yerys.1346.sbeok.shnf
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1970-09-18.sbd.reynolds.97525.flac16
http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-09-20.aud.remaster.sirmick.27583.sbeok.shnf
[It also appears in the "11/10/70" Not Fade Away, but that was a false label for 9/20/70.] 
Starting in October 1970, it became the 'bridge' between Goin' Down the Road and Not Fade Away. This brings us to the birth of Goin' Down the Road - with so many shows missing from fall 1970, we're lucky to be able to hear it take shape from the start.
On 10/10 they start playing Goin' Down the Road instrumentally in Not Fade Away, but they never sing it:
http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-10-10.aud.hanno.7590.sbeok.shnf
On 10/11 it emerges as a separate song - but they don't play the Goodnight theme afterwards, instead they jump straight from "don't want to be treated this way" back into NFA:
http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-10-11.aud.cotsman.9500.sbeok.shnf
On 10/17, the Goodnight theme ends Goin' Down the Road for the first time:
https://archive.org/details/gd1970-10-17.aud.linton.miller.119329.flac16
And at our next show, 10/23, the Goodnight theme returns in the same spot - and it's a nice version, as they're already stretching it out before returning to NFA:
http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-10-23.aud.wolfson.15080.sbefail.shnf
After this, it closed out pretty much every Goin' Down the Road for the next four years and beyond. I particularly like the versions from late '71 when they extend the two-chord jam going on after the Goodnight theme. One example is the 10/31/71 Dick's Pick, not as 'pretty' as some others but jammed out to four minutes.
There is one more version I must link, though a short one - on 11/19/72, for the only time (?), the Dead closed a show with the Goodnight instrumental:
http://www.archive.org/details/gd72-11-19.sbd.winters.17705.sbeok.shnf


MOUNTAIN JAM

Garcia was quoting Donovan's 1967 'There Is A Mountain' long before the Allman Brothers were formed, most often playing it for a bar or two in Alligator jams. I think the earliest instance is in the 9/3/67 Alligator; and you can hear it at 9:00 in the Alligator on the Anthem album, or briefly at 12:00 in the 2/14/68 Alligator. Melodically it sounds similar to the Bid You Goodnight riff, so it's interesting that both of these pieces were born in the Alligator jam - there are many early Alligators where Garcia seems constantly just about to play one of these.....
It's tricky finding good links for it though, since he always plays it as just a brief tease, and there's little point in directing you to long Alligators just to find a few seconds of a melody. But one place where it has its own track is 11/6/70 after Goin' Down the Road:
http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-11-06.aud.warner.17183.sbeok.shnf
A couple other places where Garcia is playing, not necessarily the exact riff, but an extended jam in the Mountain Jam style, include the 6/4/70 Midnight Hour -
http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-06-04.sbd.miller.12135.sbeok.shnf
- and six minutes into this expansive Not Fade Away, which in this poor AUD recording sounds like a distorted wah-wah rendition!
http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-07-11.aud.cotsman.9379.sbefail.shnf


DARKNESS JAM

Then there's the 'Darkness' jam from the 1969 Youngbloods song which was done a few times in 1970; the most well-known version is in the 9/19/70 Not Fade Away where it's very clear. (They also do the China Cat riff in that NFA, which they did frequently (and at greater length) in the fall of 1971.)
The earliest example is the 9/6/69 jam after the Jefferson Airplane show, where Garcia plays this theme around the 17-minute point.
Other places it was played:
http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-05-07.aud.weiner-gdADT04.5439.sbefail.shnf (in the Lovelight, which includes several theme-jams in a row)
http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-05-24.sbd.hanno.6481.sbeok.shnf (in the Lovelight, briefly)
http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-06-06.sbd.ashley.2172.sbeok.shnf (in the fantastic Alligator jam, following the Bid You Goodnight riff)
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1970-09-19.mtx.chappell.SB14.31510.sbeok.flac16 (Darkness/China Cat jam in NFA)
http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-12-12.sbd.clugston.5985.sbeok.shnf (after Goin Down the Road, goes into the Stephen riff, very low-key)
http://archive.org/details/gd71-04-13.sbd.unknown.32015.sbeok.flacf (in Good Lovin')
It made a surprise return on 7/31/71, which could be the last version:
http://www.archive.org/details/gd71-07-31.winberg.weiner.5678.gdADT05.sbefail.shnf (AUD) - after Goin' Down the Road, comes uniquely out of the Bid You Goodnight jam (the SBD was released on the Summer '71 Road Trips)


UNCLE JOHN'S JAM

My own favorite jam was done very few times - the instrumental version of Uncle John's Band, which is just lovely, but was done only in November '69:
http://www.archive.org/details/gd69-11-01.sbd.cotsman.6298.sbeok.shnf (in the Alligator jam - brief, following the Goodnight theme)
http://www.archive.org/details/gd69-11-07.sbd.kaplan.19783.sbefail.shnf (in Dark Star)
https://archive.org/details/gd1969-11-08.sbd.wise.17433.shnf (in Dark Star) - The most famous version, on Dick's Picks.
12/5/69 has a very short Uncle John riff preceding the Main Ten, but because it's cut by the AUD taper, it's impossible to tell whether this is the Jam or part of the full song, which had debuted the previous day.
http://www.archive.org/details/gd69-12-05.sbd.cotsman.11256.sbeok.shnf
This is one of the only jams where we have a recording from the Dead's home rehearsals, a long standalone version from the fall of '69 (very poor, distorted sound, but taped by Robert Hunter I think), which has the Dead exploring the Uncle John's jam at length - and also John Dawson's first version of Friend of the Devil, before Garcia sang it. Priceless stuff, highly recommended! (One track is labeled a "Feelin' Groovy" jam, but both the jams are based on the Uncle John's Band riffs.)
http://www.archive.org/details/gd69-06-xx.aud.tzuriel.10510.sbeok.shnf


CHINA CAT JAM

The Dead sometimes played the China Cat riff aside from the song, in moments of jamming exuberance in '70/71.
Our first example actually comes from a year earlier, when China Cat was out of the rotation - in the great Alligator jam on 2/7/69, shortly after the drums, Weir starts up the China Cat riff and the band grabs it. Garcia seems to be trying to remember how it goes, and he eventually drags them back to Alligator.
http://www.archive.org/details/gd69-02-07.late.sbd.wiley.14471.sbeok.shnf
The China Cat jam was an occasional occurrence in 1970 when the band was in a good mood - in these shows, notice how often the Dead tend to string together various common themes:
http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-01-03.sbd.ret.19440.sbeok.shnf - in the hot Alligator jam (briefly, China Cat jam>Bid You Goodnight riff)
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1970-03-21.late.aud.lee.pcrp.21779.shnf - in the Not Fade Away (Stephen riff>China Cat jam)
http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-05-07.aud.weiner-gdADT04.5439.sbefail.shnf - in the Lovelight (a great jam that includes the Stephen riff>Darkness riff>jam>China Cat jam)
http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-06-04.sbd.miller.12135.sbeok.shnf - in the Midnight Hour (briefly - it follows a very Mountain Jam-like passage)
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1970-09-19.mtx.chappell.SB14.31510.sbeok.flac16 - Darkness>China Cat jam in Not Fade Away
Later in '71, China Cat jams became a regular feature in Not Fade Away. By late '71 Not Fade Away was hitting a new peak and becoming more jammed-out than it had been in early '71, and some of the best versions come from this tour. These are the Not Fade Aways with China Cat jams in them:
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1971-10-27.ashley-bertha.32869.sbeok.flac16
http://www.archive.org/details/gd71-11-15.sbd.cotsman.12438.sbeok.shnf
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1971-11-20.sbd.miller.92908.sbeok.flac16
http://www.archive.org/details/gd71-12-05.prefm.miller.3391.sbeok.shnf
http://www.archive.org/details/gd71-12-10.sbd.yerys.1311.sbeok.shnf
and a later one - http://www.archive.org/details/gd72-04-14.sbd.hurwitt.8828.sbeok.shnf
The China Cat riff would sometimes pop up in later post-hiatus shows too, particularly in Franklin's Tower, where it fit nicely.


ST STEPHEN JAM

It's already been mentioned a few times in these notes, but frequently in 1970 the Dead would break into the St Stephen riff in the middle of a jam. This was more a 'tease' than a jam really, since they usually just jab at it for a few moments and then move on....sometimes it sounds like Lesh is pushing it but Garcia doesn't want to go that way. But these are the most notable occurrences:
3-21-70 Not Fade Away - http://www.archive.org/details/gd1970-03-21.late.aud.lee.pcrp.21779.shnf
5-7-70 Lovelight - http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-05-07.aud.weiner-gdADT04.5439.sbefail.shnf
6-4-70 Not Fade Away - http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-06-04.sbd.miller.12135.sbeok.shnf
7-12-70 Lovelight - http://www.archive.org/details/gd1970-07-12.aud.unknown.sirmick.24663.sbefail.shnf - (tracked separately - this is one of the best 1970 shows, and one of the worst tapes....)
10-24-70 Good Lovin' - http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-10-24.sbd.hollister.103.sbeok.shnf
11-11-70 Hard to Handle - http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-11-11.aud.cotsman.17081.sbeok.shnf (the jam comes very close to St Stephen, but doesn't quite go all the way)
12-12-70 Not Fade Away - http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-12-12.sbd.clugston.5985.sbeok.shnf
4-26-71 Good Lovin' - https://archive.org/details/gd71-04-26.sbd.murphy.4991.sbefail.shnf
4-29-71 Alligator jam - https://archive.org/details/gd71-04-29.sbd.frisco.16782.sbeok.shnf (just a brief tease; also released on Ladies & Gentlemen)
In 1972 the solos in Greatest Story Ever Told often edged close to St Stephen territory - one famous full-blown Stephen quote (complete with Donna's wails) happened here:
9-28-72 - http://www.archive.org/details/gd72-09-28.sbd.bill.12657.sbeok.shnf
A couple later examples are in the Greatest Stories on 5/20/73 and 5/17/74.


NOBODY'S FAULT BUT MINE

This was a blues song Garcia was fond of (done by Blind Willie Johnson, among others), and we have one full performance from 1966:
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1966-07-16.sbd.miller.21063.shnf
Nobody's Fault resurfaced as a jam inside New Speedway Boogie for a few shows in 1970, including 5/14/70 and 6/13/70:
http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-05-14.sbd.cotsman.12439.sbeok.shnf
http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-06-13.sbd.hanno.9079.sbefail.shnf (brief, but this New Speedway is notable for having piano!)
Once New Speedway was dropped, you'd think that would be the end of it, but Garcia managed to slip Nobody's Fault into the Truckin' jam starting in late '72:
http://www.archive.org/details/gd72-10-02.sbd.lai.158.sbefail.shnf
And for the next two years, Nobody's Fault would become a regular part of many a Truckin' - some two dozen in fact - sometimes sung, sometimes just jammed. Two released examples are the 12/19/73 Dick's Pick and the 6/16/74 Road Trips bonus disc. The last one played was this:
http://www.archive.org/details/gd74-07-29.sbd.goodbear.2277.sbefail.shnf
Nobody's Fault would very occasionally pop up afterwards - for instance on 10/12/77 out of Truckin', 6/4 and 7/7/78 in Not Fade Away, 1/5/79 out of Truckin' again, 5/4/81 and 9/3/85 in the 'space' slots, and about once a year in the '90s.....


PHILO STOMP

The Philo Stomp was a stomping bass solo Lesh did in fall 1972. It may have started to take shape over the summer, as he often did rather aimless solos from Truckin' into the Other One; but all of a sudden in a series of October '72 shows, it emerges full-blown:
http://www.archive.org/details/gd72-10-18.sbd.weir.7295.sbeok.shnf (in Dark Star)
http://www.archive.org/details/gd72-10-24.pset2-sbd.hamilton.159.sbeok.shnf (in the Other One)
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1972-10-28.sbd.finney.160.shnf (in Dark Star)
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1972-11-13.aud.cotsman.7518.sbefail.shnf (in Dark Star)
11/13 is the best example. After that, Lesh's long solos in Dark Stars tend to meander:
http://www.archive.org/details/gd72-11-19.sbd.winters.17705.sbeok.shnf
http://www.archive.org/details/gd72-11-26.sbd.cotsman.9248.sbeok.shnf
In 1973 the Philo Stomp got deconstructed a bit and played in more fragmentary fashion, so you'll find pieces of it in various Phil solos (like the 6/10/73 Dark Star) but not really full-fledged versions. 
From 1973, here are a couple Dark Stars that end in more organized, interesting bass solos:
http://www.archive.org/details/gd73-02-15.sbd.hall.1580.sbeok.shnf
http://www.archive.org/details/gd73-09-11.sbd.lanum.184.sbeok.shnf


CAUTION JAM

Caution started out in '65 as an imitation of Them's "Mystic Eyes". It had been a regular jam-piece in Pigpen's days, usually following Alligator, but sometimes as an instrumental theme inside Viola Lee jams. (I talk more about that in my Viola Lee Blues post.)
By the time Pigpen left in '72, the Dead had developed it enough so that they could have kept it as a jam theme even without him; but they decided not to. Somehow a couple Caution jams still slipped into the end of '74, very loose and jazzy:
9-18-74 (out of Truckin') - http://www.archive.org/details/gd74-09-18.sbd.miller.20732.sbeok.shnf
10-19-74 (out of He's Gone, into Truckin') - https://archive.org/details/gd74-10-19.sbd.miller.21927.sbeok.shnf (also released on the Grateful Dead Movie Soundtrack)
In later years, Caution would be very rare indeed, but sometimes it would burst out of a He's Gone jam - on 10/27/79, 5/12/80, and 5/6/81.


SLIPKNOT JAM

Slipknot was just a riff in '74; in the studio in '75 the Dead would work it into the "space-jazz" section of a new suite. So it's interesting to hear the Dead (particularly Garcia) toying with this new riff in some '74 shows, seeing what they could do with it. Also note how far removed it is from the more melodic, accessible jam-riffs they had done in previous years!
(Although....the Slipknot riff closely resembles the Seven riff....)
http://www.archive.org/details/gd74-02-22.sbd.patched.sirmick.21539.sbeok.shnf (in Playing)
http://www.archive.org/details/gd74-02-23.sbd.clugston.3382.sbeok.shnf (in the Other One)
http://www.archive.org/details/gd74-06-20.sbd.clugston.2179.sbeok.shnf (19 minutes into Eyes)
http://www.archive.org/details/gd74-07-25.sbd.miller.12656.sbeok.shnf (21 minutes into Dark Star)
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1974-10-20.sbd.smith-lee.GEMS.97193.flac16 (14 minutes into Eyes)


'73 and '74 saw the jams opening up in all directions. There are a number of gnarly riffs that get repeated from show to show (particularly by Phil), but without names or identities they're hard to pin down. The repeating-riff jam at the end of Eyes in these years is very similar to Stronger Than Dirt, and often gets called that, but I think it's a distinct piece. Stronger Than Dirt may have evolved from it, though - check out the Eyes>Dirt from 8/13/75 (One From The Vault) to hear the difference from the '73/74 Eyes jam.
[Stronger Than Dirt, confusingly, is also known as King Solomon's Marbles or Milkin' the Turkey. Most of these jams were not named by the band - here they gave too many names!]

PHIL JAZZ JAM

There's a particular jazzy Phil riff in 6/8 time that he plays a lot in '73. Sometimes Phil just lightly touches on it and it dies quickly, sometimes Weir joins in with a counterpoint, sometimes the whole band plays with it for a while. I think it's an original riff, rather than (as some say) a Footprints quote, but it's kind of like an early version of the Stronger Than Dirt riff.
One reader wrote a post on this riff, giving it the title of the "Elastic Ping Pong Jam" and using the 6/24/73 Dark Star as a notable example:
http://listeningnotes.tumblr.com/post/81220260170/the-deads-elastic-ping-pong-jam-during-dark
Early, undeveloped versions of it show up in late '72, I think as early as September. Phil plays this line extensively in the 11/17/72 Other One, starting about 9 minutes in and continuing it on & off for a couple minutes - then he keeps repeating it occasionally in the rest of the jam.An interesting comparison can be made with the 11/19/72 Dark Star - around 8:50 in the Dark Star, Phil starts playing what is recognizably the old Coltrane 'Greensleeves' bass line he'd used for Clementine in '68. It's a similar phrase (it's also in 6/8 meter), but at a very different tempo. The early "Ping Pong" riff in the Other One two nights earlier speeds along at a faster tempo, in 5/8 time (as usual in its early versions). A similar line, but I don't think it's the same - it's possible that one riff developed into the other, in the way that many of Phil's bass lines in '74-75 sound related; or possibly they're independent and just sound similar, since Phil favored that kind of riff. One theory is that this jam further evolved into Stronger Than Dirt/King Solomon's Marbles. 
https://archive.org/details/gd72-11-17.sbd.warner.15982.sbeok.shnf 
https://archive.org/details/gd1972-11-19.123578.sbd.gans-miller.flac16
Here's a partial list of where it shows up in '73:
12/31/72 - https://archive.org/details/gd72-12-31.prefm.vernon.20559.sbeok.shnf - start of the Other One after the bass/drums break 
2/26/73 - https://archive.org/details/gd73-02-26.sbd.kaplan.1208.sbeok.shnf - Dark Star (starts about 10-11m in)
2/28/73 - https://archive.org/details/gd73-02-28.sbd.weiner.15386.sbeok.shnf (and Dave's Pick) - Other One (around 4:40) -- These early versions start as 5/8 and switch to 6/8.
6/10/73 - https://archive.org/details/gd1973-06-10.sbd.miller.tobin.patched-89730.90979.flac16 - Dark Star (after the bass solo)
6/24/73 - https://archive.org/details/gd1973-06-24.sbd.miller.99852.sbeok.flac16 - Dark Star (after 6:20)
6/29/73 - https://archive.org/details/gd73-06-29.sbd.cotsman.11617.sbeok.shnf - Other One (around 3:25)
9/11/73 - https://archive.org/details/gd1973-09-11.113051.sbd.GoodBear.flac16 - Dark Star (about 10-11m in)
10/30/73 - https://archive.org/details/gd1973-10-30.sbd.miller.32367.sbeok.flac16 - Dark Star (at 6:20)
I'm sure more examples can be found - I haven't tried to find all the different renditions, so this list is still in progress. As far as I know, this jam dies away in late '73. 
Some more comments on it here:
http://deadessays.blogspot.com/2014/03/1972-melodic-jams.html?showComment=1396285047193#c5544692000593140465

UPDATE:
A complete list of performances of this jam is now here:
http://deadessays.blogspot.com/2018/06/the-proto-solomon-jazz-jam.html 


ONE-TIME JAMS

There may well be other distinct jams that they didn't do enough times for us to identify - the Alllmans-like Jam in the Other One of 7/25/72 is a great example, which sounds so composed it's hard to believe they only did it once - also the "Beautiful Jam", done only during the 2/18/71 Dark Star, which is quite unique, almost a song in itself. (I don't think it's closely related to the Tighten Up jam, though others hear it that way.)
Also check out the portion of 3/22/72 that was released on a bonus disc: in the jam at the end of Caution, there's a quiet part where the Dead play a mysterious instrumental theme that sounds like a lovely, unusual cross between Bobby McGee and Bid You Goodnight, but is definitely an unknown tune.....one of those haunting moments.

The "Beautiful Jam" in the 2/18/71 Dark Star -
http://www.archive.org/details/gd71-02-18.sbd.orf.107.sbeok.shnf
the "almost-China Cat jam" in the 8/14/71 Other One -
http://www.archive.org/details/gd71-08-14.sbd.ladner.21268.sbeok.shnf
the instrumental after the 3/22/72 Caution -
https://archive.org/details/gd1972-03-22.132726.sbd.miller.flac16
and the long, tantalizing "almost-Spanish jam" in the 7/25/72 Other One.
http://www.archive.org/details/gd72-07-25.sbd.cotsman.7046.sbeok.shnf

And finally, here is a listing of other various one-time-only jams the Dead played over the years, not related to their usual pieces.
This isn't the place to cover the big '74 jams out of Truckin' or Let It Grow, or the instrumental-only versions of Dark Star or the Other One, or the odd instrumental cover like Hideaway or various tuning riffs; and I've decided to skip the occasional soundcheck jams (though they can be interesting).
I also decided to leave out the Seastones '74 sets and Hartbeats '68 shows, since those were covered in this post:
http://deadessays.blogspot.com/2009/08/crowded-dead-stage-1967-1975.html

http://www.archive.org/details/gd1966-XX-XX.sbd.GEMS.81254.flac16 - generic Blues Jam with Jorma & Jack Casady
http://www.archive.org/details/gd66-03-19.sbd.scotton.81951.sbeok.flac - Slow Blues Instrumental (They also cover Freddie King's "Heads Up" at this show.)
http://www.archive.org/details/gd66-03-25.sbd.unknown.38.sbeok.shnf - Instrumental
https://archive.org/details/gd1967-07-23.aud.sorochty.125462.flac16 - Lovelight instrumental into Space, behind Casady's rap 
http://www.archive.org/details/gd69-05-07.sbd.cotsman.6028.sbeok.shnf - Instrumental after a jammed-out Me & My Uncle (sadly cut)
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1969-04-21.sbd.miller.88465.sbeok.flac16 - Foxy Lady jam (brief)
http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-04-15.sbd.kaplan.14354.sbeok.shnf - Santana-like jam after drums in the Other One
http://www.archive.org/details/gd72-10-09.sbd.vernon.5249.sbeok.shnf - short blues jam with Grace Slick
http://www.archive.org/details/gd73-07-27.aud.weiner.gdadt26.26363.sbeok.shnf - Watkins Glen Jam. (AUD version, since SBD has a small cut)
https://archive.org/details/gd1974-06-18.sbd.miller.89690.sbeok.flac16 (and Road Trips) - It's A Sin jam. (They had done the song a number of times in '66 and '69, but I don't recall other instrumental versions.)
http://www.archive.org/details/gd74-06-23.sbd.cribbs.16780.sbeok.shnf - Jam into Ship of Fools (Similar to the 6-26 jam into China Cat.)

I also did a post on 1972 melodic jams in particular (some well-known examples being in the 3/23/72 Dark Star and the 4/11/72 Other One):
http://deadessays.blogspot.com/2014/03/1972-melodic-jams.html

I'm sure there are other unique jams I've forgotten, so feel free to add examples!

P.S.:
These are some youtube links to the original songs (links updated 2016 but may be out of date now).

More Tighten Up connections -
This is Archie Bell's original version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wro3bqi4Eb8
This is Chicago's song Beginnings, with a similar intro:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-S-Z4Vh1ieA
And this is Young/Holt Unlimited's song Soulful Strut:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yX1XSOzDPik

Now here, from years later, is a tune called Hypnotize from Kingfish:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4ytWN56Sqo
Hmm....that riff is a bit similar, isn't it?
(Kingfish listeners at the time might've thought they were copying Eyes of the World...)

Feelin' Groovy (S&G on TV):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBQxG0Z72qM

A couple other '60s covers of Feelin' Groovy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKktd7TQ4ag (Kooper/Bloomfield) 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dz4mgJRB4yY (Harpers Bizarre)  

Your Mind Has Left Your Body (Garcia on pedal steel):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3thciHZ8Ve4

Solea (Miles Davis - chords start around 2 minutes in): 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHEzyqhDASw  

Darkness Darkness (the Youngbloods):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-CYWbfFoXY

There Is A Mountain (Donovan live on '60s TV):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uGnEc0DhY4

Mystic Eyes (Them live! - the Dead copied this note-for-note in Caution):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goR8Lf3YH2w

Nobody's Fault But Mine (Blind Willie Johnson):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_o4omd8T5c

Hideaway (Freddie King live on TV - Garcia was especially fond of this tune):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEmGbMd2duk

I Bid You Goodnight (Joseph Spence & the Pindar Family):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65jQXHIwy00