A while back, I learned how to play the Dead’s epic suite of “Help On The Way” into “Slipknot!” into “Franklin’s Tower”. However, I skipped the jam, because I wanted to focus on the composed parts. But since this is apparently the Summer of Jerry for me, I thought it was time to work out his solo on “Slipknot!” too. I decided to do the version from Blues for Allah because it’s short, concise and punchy. I think it’s one of Jerry’s finest solos on record. It starts at 4:18.
There are three sections to the solo, which I call A, B and C. The A section is the first 28 bars of the solo, about a minute and ten seconds long. The B section is the four-bar passage when Jerry lays out and Bobby and Keith play an ascending riff that the Grateful Dead Guide calls “Slipcord” (the idea being that they are pulling the ripcord to signal the end of the jam.) Finally, the C section is Jerry’s last ten bars of solo before they go back into the written part.
Here’s my transcription of the solo with guitar tab. The basic idea is simple: it’s a groove in A Dorian mode at a laid-back 90 BPM, with straight eighths and very lightly swung sixteenths. Jerry plays a few choice notes from outside the mode, but the main musical interest is in the phrasing and melodic shape.
A section (4:18-5:32)
There are six phrases in the main solo that get gradually more complex and far out as Jerry gets into the flow.
- First phrase (four bars): Simple walk up A Dorian from A to E, though with each little idea beginning on beat two rather than one.
- Second phrase (four bars): An elaboration of the first phrase, with some rhythmic fragmentation and chromaticism. It ends on a long F-sharp, the characteristic natural sixth of Dorian.
- Third phrase (four bars): A more angular line that starts a sixteenth note before beat two and jumps up and down in fourths before flowing through a broken scale run that includes the sharp fourth. Hip!
- Fourth phrase (five bars): Even more angularity, with fourths and larger interval jumps, climbing way up the neck. There are some wild pitch bends exploring the region between D-sharp and E, and then another flowing line of broken scale runs.
- Fifth phrase (four and a half bars): Starts on another very weak subdivision, a sixteenth note after beat two. The line runs way up the neck and includes some chromatic sixteenth note triplets, climaxing in a high B and then leaping down to G-sharp. It’s a classic Jerry-ism to use natural seven as a dissonant note in a Dorian or Mixolydian context. After that, the line runs unpredictably up and down, with continual disruptions of the sixteenth note flow.
- Sixth phrase (six and a half bars): A run up the scale with added D-sharps in rapid triplets. From there, things get chaotic, with C-sharps and G-sharps and wild crying blues bends. After a broken scale run back down off the peak, the solo ends on a bar-long A5 power chord.
B section (5:33-5:43)
I have seen many inaccurate transcriptions and explanations of the Slipcord riff online. In fairness, the band themselves are vague about it. It’s hard to pick Bobby out of the murk on the studio recording, but I think my transcription is plausible. It’s just a walk up the A Dorian mode harmonized in thirds, but the first phrase has a D-sharp/E-flat in it.
C section (5:44-6:10)
The most harmonically adventurous part. This is really one long phrase, but you could think of it as being three subphrases.
- Subphrase one (three and a half bars): Nice rising motif: long A, short syncopated C-sharp leading into long D, short syncopated D-sharp leading into long E. Then the scalar flow resumes, with even more chromaticism. Jerry uses A-sharp/B-flat four times, three of them as a passing tone between A and B and once as the peak of a short melodic arch. That is a bold and rich dissonance in A Dorian!
- Subphrase two (two and a half bars): Kicks off with F and G-sharp, both of which are outside notes. Lots more chromaticism and triplets, culminating in a crying motif between F-sharp and A way up the neck.
- Subphrase three (four bars): The band plays the big D7 that signals the end of the jam, with Jerry singing out a sustained F-sharp on top. Then he does an arch-shaped chromaticism-infused scale run with an unexpected and bluesy B-natural on top. The run bottoms out into a two-bar A5 power chord.
Here is the question: is this “jazz”? Specifically, is it modal jazz? I mean, of course it’s not jazz, it’s rock, but it’s also not not jazz. The Dead were certainly not a jazz band. Keith Godchaux was exclusively a straightahead bebop and standards player before joining the Dead. Phil Lesh had played some jazz trumpet in college. Jerry’s solo project repertoire included a few standards like “Russian Lullaby“, though he played those tunes more like a country musician than a jazz musician. Everybody in the band appreciated Miles and Coltrane. There is more to jazz than modal improvisation, but the “Slipknot!” solo has plenty of jazz vocabulary, even if the string bends and distorted tone are more suggestive of rock. I think Jerry could have been a very good jazz player if he was determined to become one, but he mainly wanted to play music for people to dance to, and his audience wanted to dance to rock.
Anyway, whatever genre “Slipknot!” belongs to, the solo on the Blues for Allah recording is special. Given that the Dead were usually not at their best in the studio, what gives this recording its special sauce? The band was just coming off a hiatus and were free of burnout, that had to help. The recording environment probably helped too: they made the album in Bob Weir’s home studio, with the band producing themselves. This had its pros and cons. The album is not well recorded or mixed, the sounds are muffled and indistinct, and the drums sound like mattresses. On the other hand, the band is clearly relaxed and in a good creative flow, and the lo-fi vibe suits the music.
By the way, if you want to hear more of Jerry on this tune, The Save Your Face blog collects all the 1976 “Slipknot!” jams. Enjoy!
I was talking to a musicologist friend who can’t stand the Dead. He compares the Rolling Stones to an under-rehearsed bar band, and the Dead to a completely unrehearsed bar band. Fair! The Help Slip Frank suite is frustrating because you can count the number of times they played it correctly across their career on one hand. I appreciate the Save Your Face edits because I can enjoy the improvisational magic without having to listen to them fumbling the through-composed parts that surround it.