Ya'll Order the Pizza?

Please be forewarned, this is a bluegrass post perhaps like none ever before to the Bangers, so if you're turned off by harmony vocals, mandolin, upright bass and alot of lead guitar, skip above or below. If this kind of stuff switches you to on, prepare to ejaculate like Sting with Megan Fox after a session with the Maharishi. (If that made no sense, see here. If it still doesn't make sense, blame it on the east coast/west coast rap feud [or Suge Knight.])

As legend goes, at some point in the early 1990s, a pizza delivery man stole a cassette tape containing a momentous yet seemingly impromptu jam session between Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia, his longtime mandolin player and muse David Grisman, and Garcia's friend, guitarist Tony Rice. The recordings were made in February of 1993, just over a year before Garcia's untimely death (Who could have seen that coming? He looked so healthy.)

All joking aside, this album is extremely unique in a Yankee Hotel Foxtrot kinda way. Basically, the album leaked, became fodder for Deadhead tape traders and then, over a decade after it was recorded, finally saw an official release and remastering by Grisman. There are mistakes amidst the conversations, but the most unbelievable thing about this recording, and please accept my apologies if I sound sappy, is its heart and soul. These are the intimate recordings of an incredibly epic, prolific guitarist playing the music he first fell in love with in the company of a few close friends. Truly incomparable.

Highlights include "Shady Grove," "House of the Rising Sun," Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door," and Miles Davis' "So What." I think it's more than ironic that the trio covered Miles, given the fact that I consider this gem to be the closest to jazz that bluegrass music has ever come. Enjoy.