Though nominally the soundtrack to filmmaker Gillian Grisman's documentary about the close musical friendship between her father, legendary mandolinist
David Grisman, and
Jerry Garcia, late founder of
the Grateful Dead,
Grateful Dawg also functions as the sixth release by the duo and their first live recording. The live recordings of a
Garcia and
Grisman show from the early '90s (backed ably by members of
the David Grisman Quintet) are intercut with several archival cuts by the likes of
Bill Monroe,
Ewan MacColl, and
Old and in the Way, the bluegrass supergroup both
Garcia and
Grisman picked in during the early '70s. There is a nice narrative flow to the arrangement of the material which provides a depth to the wonderfully warm musical rapport shared by the duo. The background material focuses on the band's folk and bluegrass roots but, unfortunately, leaves the group's undeniably huge jazz influences aside. There is hardly room on the CD, but a cut by
Django Reinhardt would have done well to accentuate that element of the pair's music. Though the disc is poorly annotated (a rarity in the
Grisman catalog), it is little matter. The live cuts are impeccably mixed and a joy to listen to, particularly quiet numbers like the jazzy "Dawg's Waltz" and the sprawling 16-minute reading of "Arabia." Perhaps even more impressively,
Garcia is at relatively full control his spectacularly expressive voice for what might be the last point in his career. The David Grisman Quintet, including ultra-subtle percussionist
Joe Craven, provides an accompaniment far more sensitive and sympathetic than what
the Grateful Dead were capable of at the time. ~ Jesse Jarnow