9/20/68: berkeley community theater. ali akbar college of music benefit w/ace of cups, steve miller band, tabla master shankar ghosh, and vince delgado.

in 1968 mickey hart was studying at ali akbar college with the hindustani classical musician, pandit shankar ghosh. mickey would work on a number of compositions with shankar which included rhythmic cycles of 4, 6, 16, 5 & 7, teachings he would take to bill kreutzmann and add to the pair's repertoire. the influence of classical indian drumming on the dead's percussion breaks-including the improvisational rhythm devils segment folded into many second sets-can be traced to their early exposure to ali akbar khan, and to indian tabla players like alla rakha and zakir hussain. mickey would inlist rakha and hussain on his first solo album, rolling thunder. hart's second long player would join zakir, vince delgado, jordan amarantha, aushim chaudhuri, and a handful of other accomplished drummers as the diga rhythm band. in fact, one could easily speculate that the origins of diga are directly yoked to this fall of '68 berkeley performance.

the partial owsley soundboard tape cuts into a rough and tumble good morning little schoolgirl, which has an unusually raw feel—more akin to alligator. the revved-up number ends in a wash of feedback and some amusing mckernan howls. the banter that follows is hilarious. issues with the onstage mics prompt weir to inquire "what's happening?" there's no immediate reply. more microphone chatter ensues. "it's coming to life," rails garcia. "the first shock is free," he continues. in time, bear clears up the audio delivery matter and the band goes with st. stephen. the song has matured since its spring debut in st. louis, and tonight's version is compact and highly spirited. by the midpoint of the song it appears that the owsley kool-aid is starting to kick in as evidenced in jerry cracking up, and weir starting the wrong verse and singing over a laughing garcia—classic grateful dead shenanigans. consistent with the general practice, st. stephen jams into the eleven. tonight's take is short and layered with dense instrumentation.

as the eleven winds down the dead's amps are partitioned and two risers are rolled on stage between hart and kreutzmann. perched atop are shankar gosh and vince delgado. over the next 26 minutes, the four men perform a number of fixed compositions, taking a rhythmic journey through many talas cylces. composed by ali akbar khan for this occasion, the playing is hypnotic and riveting. there is nothing plodding or sloppy about it; this is a perceptive interplay between four astute percussionists who are listening and collaborating with each other. the energy is high and there is an alternating push of rhythmic patterns that contradict the tala and melodic structures that continually circle back to the fundamental scheme. at the end of the piece, the drumming becomes very quiet and the players begin to chant 'taketa, taketa,' before exploding into a final, powerful theka.

of all the 1968 grateful dead performances committed to tape, this owsley recorded fragment is one of the most unconventional sets you'll find. i know that a half hour of drums isn't everybody's thing, but where else in the dead's history can one find a percussive break with such distinguished guests in tow? the berkeley crowd's vibrant applause seems to readily acknowledge the exceptionalness of the event. and one can only imagine that the vedic sage-musician narada might have been smiling down in reverence and admiration, as well.

https://archive.org/details/gd1968-09-20.sbd.miller.115682.flac16