I dug out a Guitar Player magazine interview from 1988 with Garcia. It doesn't talk about steel playing, but there are some interesting points. He says that he really only started playing lead guitar when he got into the Dead. Before that, he had just done some stuff in high school that was down in the first position.
He discusses the time he spent playing with Ornette Coleman. He discusses some technical things relative to that experience, and also some things that could occur to him to play out of during the "Space" segment of a Dead show. His comments here indicate a pretty advanced knowledge of modes and scales, as well as some "outside" ways of superimposing things from one key over another, that are unfamiliar to me. He also talks about the need for all of that to become second nature.
The Dead more than about anybody exemplify the attempt to embody transcendence in musical expression, but it appears to me that Jerry Garcia was a very intelligent musician who on a mental level had the technical side of music very together. It appears, however, that this learning is something that occurred along the way, as the Dead's history unfolded.
Bob's comments about Garcia being a great example for the approach of matching scales to chords is very much the way I see him. I think that is something that sets him apart from a lot of blues rock players that started in the 60's and 70's. On the earlier stuff you can readily hear how he changes the framework that he is improvising out of with each chord, in a way that sometimes gets in the way of emotional continuity. That's something he learned how to do in front of people! It takes a long time to learn how to play that way and sound natural at it. In his later years, I think he had it down very well, and I've often looked to him as an example for this.
I have no way of knowing at exactly what point he learned the names for all the modes and stuff, or what he knew (if anything)at the time he played steel.
Donny, are you going to start an e-mail list for those that want your "uncensored" commentaries? Be sure to put me on it.
