The Great American Music Band with Maria Muldaur - Pilgrimage Theater, Hollywood, CA, 4-20-1974

Back in May 2026, I posted a concert by the Great American Music Band. Here's how I described it in my write-up back then: "This band was a collaboration between David Grisman, Jerry Garcia, Taj Mahal, and others. It was a mostly instrumental and acoustic band that combined folk, bluegrass, and jazz. It was a loose association, with people coming and going." 

Unfortunately, for the Ebbets Field concert I posted then, Jerry Garcia didn't take part in that particular concert. His involvement in this music project was one of the most interesting things about it, so I was interested to find a concert where he did take part. Nothing from this band has ever been officially released. But I did find this concert with great soundboard sound quality, and it does have Garcia playing on all the songs. 

Plus, this concert has a guest vocalist: Maria Muldaur sang lead or backing vocals on many songs. Interestingly, this came right around the time her song "Midnight at the Oasis" reached the Top Ten in the U.S. singles chart. (It was released as a single in November 1973, made a slow climb, peaking in June 1974.) 

It seems this band was basically a bunch of musical friends experimenting with musical collaboration on stage. Perhaps that's why nothing from the band has ever been released. For instance, Garcia played banjo instead of guitar on all the songs, and he rarely played banjo, relatively speaking. He also didn't sing at all, and kept a low profile. Taj Mahal played stand-up bass, an instrument he also rarely played. However, he did sing some, although about half of the songs are instrumentals.

This album is 58 minutes long. 

01 talk by emcee (Great American Music Band)
02 talk (Great American Music Band)
03 Limehouse Blues [Instrumental] (Great American Music Band)
04 talk (Great American Music Band)
05 Dawg's Bull [Instrumental] (Great American Music Band)
06 talk (Great American Music Band)
07 My Plastic Banana Isn't Stupid [Instrumental] (Great American Music Band)
08 talk (Great American Music Band)
09 Swing '42 [Instrumental] (Great American Music Band)
10 talk (Great American Music Band)
11 Coloured Aristocracy [Instrumental] (Great American Music Band)
12 talk (Great American Music Band)
13 Rollin' in My Sweet Baby's Arms (Great American Music Band)
14 talk (Great American Music Band)
15 Dawg's Rag [Instrumental] (Great American Music Band)
16 talk (Great American Music Band)
17 I'll Be a Gambler If You Deal the Cards (Great American Music Band)
18 talk (Great American Music Band)
19 Midnight at the Oasis (Great American Music Band)
20 talk (Great American Music Band)
21 Sweet Georgia Brown (Great American Music Band)
22 talk by emcee (Great American Music Band)
23 talk (Great American Music Band)
24 Will the Circle Be Unbroken (Great American Music Band)
25 talk by emcee (Great American Music Band)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/1gNENLpH

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/x6UZLnVagHrp0F5/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. From left to right: David Grisman, Jerry Garcia, Maria Muldaur, Taj Mahal and David Nichtern. As an aside, Nichtern is the person who wrote "Midnight at the Oasis." Another band member, Richard Greene, is not shown. Bob Gurland guested on trumpet on some songs in this concert, and he also isn't shown.

The Great American Music Band with Eric Andersen - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 5-7-1974

Here's another concert from the Ebbets Field radio broadcasts. But this is a rather unusual one, because it's from a band that never officially released any music: the Great American Music Band. This band was a collaboration between David Grisman, Jerry Garcia, Taj Mahal, and others. It was a mostly instrumental and acoustic band that combined folk, bluegrass, and jazz. It was a loose association, with people coming and going, and unfortunately, Garcia didn't take part in this concert. However, singer-songwriter Eric Andersen did join in to sing two songs.

In my opinion, the main figure in this band was mandolin player David Grisman. After playing in some bands in New York City in the late 1960s, he moved to the San Francisco Bay Area. He made a key musical connection with Jerry Garcia. He played some mandolin on the classic Grateful Dead album "American Beauty" in 1970. He also played with Garcia for about 50 concerts and one album in 1973 as part of the bluegrass band Old and in the Way. 

That association apparently led to this different grouping a year later. The liner notes to the official David Grisman compilation album "DGQ20: A Twenty-Year Retrospective 1976-1996" explains what happened next:

"In 1974, mandolinist David Grisman and violinist Richard Greene, with Jerry Garcia, Taj Mahal, and others, formed a loose aggregation called the Great American Music Band.  The concept was simple: sophisticated folk and bluegrass instrumentalists creating a format to play and improvise without vocals.  The repertoire would draw on varied sources: traditional fiddle tunes, swing tunes from the Hot Club of France, and music from great American composers Bill Monroe, Fats Waller, and Duke Ellington. David Grisman had also been writing music, mostly bluegrass style mandolin tunes, patterned after those of his heroes Monroe, Frank Wakefield and others. Now, with this new vehicle, David started composing pieces with greater scope and a more personal stamp; 'dawg' music had come into being."

The band only played about 20 shows in the middle of 1974 before breaking up. Six of those were from this stand at Ebbets Field. By the end of the year, Grisman and Greene formed a new band with a similar style. That evolved into the David Grisman Quintet, which released its debut album in 1976. 

The quote above says the band was designed to be an instrumentals-only band. That was mostly true, but it wasn't entirely true. I find it curious that the band's bassist was Taj Mahal, who was a concert headliner of his own by this time, and generally played guitar, not bass. Maybe he just wanted to try something different for a while, and hone his bass playing skills. Anyway, he was a very capable vocalist, so although this concert was mostly instrumental, he did sing a couple of songs near the end ("Will the Circle Be Unbroken" and "Sweet Georgia Brown"). 

Also, singer-songwriter Eric Andersen was a surprise guest lead singer on two other songs. It seems like he just happened to be in town, and otherwise didn't have any involvement with this band.

By the way, this band was such a loose, low-key thing that even its name wasn't certain. Apparently, for most of the 20 or so concerts the band played, they were introduced as the "Great American String Band." But sometimes they were introduced as the "Great American Music Band." I went with the second name, since that's the name used for the band in the liner notes to an official David Grisman album years later. 

I was rather disappointed to find out that Jerry Garcia wasn't a part of this concert. So I looked around, and found that there is a excellent recording of a different 1974 concert that did involve Garcia, as well as Maria Muldaur. I plan on posting that here soon as well.

This album is an hour and two minutes long. 

01 talk by emcee (Great American Music Band)
02 Instrumental (Great American Music Band)
03 talk (Great American Music Band)
04 Dawg's Rag [Instrumental] (Great American Music Band)
05 talk (Great American Music Band)
06 Bud's Bounce [Instrumental] (Great American Music Band)
07 talk (Great American Music Band with Eric Andersen)
08 Beautiful Brown Eyes (Great American Music Band with Eric Andersen)
09 talk (Great American Music Band with Eric Andersen)
10 Why Don't You Love Me (Great American Music Band with Eric Andersen)
11 talk (Great American Music Band)
12 Swing '42 [Instrumental] (Great American Music Band)
13 talk (Great American Music Band)
14 Will the Circle Be Unbroken (Great American Music Band)
15 talk (Great American Music Band)
16 My Plastic Banana Is Not Stupid [Instrumental] (Great American Music Band)
17 talk (Great American Music Band)
18 It's Cold Outside [Instrumental] (Great American Music Band)
19 Back on the Porch [Instrumental] (Great American Music Band)
20 talk (Great American Music Band)
21 Sweet Georgia Brown (Great American Music Band)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/6yJaPsQc

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/I2VyZUac9aJWYOp/file

The cover photo shows Taj Mahal. It features him playing upright bass in a 1974 Great American Music Band concert, but a different one than the one presented here.