Merl Saunders & Jerry Garcia - Live At Keystone (2LP)

 
This 1973 release features a Bay Area bar band led by Merl Saunders (keyboards) and Jerry Garcia (guitar) during some downtime from the Grateful Dead.

Live at Keystone includes performances drawn from the quartet's July 1973, run in the intimate confines of Keystone Korners in Berkeley.

Bill Vitt and John Kahn support Saunders and Garcia as they jam their way through an eclectic assortment of covers. The funky "Finders Keepers, Losers Weepers" "pulsates through some downright greasy interactions that recall a cross between Sly Stone and Billy Preston." - Lindsay Planer, allmusic.com

The five-year association of keyboardist Merl Saunders and guitarist-vocalist Jerry Garcia was fruitful for both musicians, as well as for fans who witnessed their now-legendary performances at clubs in the San Francisco Bay Area. It made the venerable jazz organist and pianist an icon in the world of rock, and it opened new avenues of improvisation for the innovative rock guitar player. As Grateful Dead authority Blair Jackson points out in his booklet notes, Saunders helped Garcia expand his harmonic knowledge and even showed him some Art Tatum runs. “He taught me music,” Garcia said of his friend.

Recorded live at Keystone/Berkeley, July 1973