The Grateful Dead in Concert: Essays on Live Improvisation

This book offers a spirited analysis of the unique improvisational character of Grateful Dead music and its impact on appreciative fans. The 20 essays capture distinct facets of the Grateful Dead phenomenon from a broad range of scholarly angles. The band's trademark synergizing focus is discussed as a function of complex musical improvisation interlaced with the band members' collective assimilation of an impressive range of marginal musical forms and lyrical traditions. These facets are shown to produce a vibrant Deadhead experience, resulting in community influences still morphing in new directions 45 years after the band's initial impact.

Table of Contents:
Table of Contents Tuning Up Foreword: The Grateful Dead Phenomenon STANLEY KRIPPNER      Preface: Kaleidoscopic Entry to the Show      Introduction: “Shall We Go?”      First Set: Musical and Lyrical Elements of Grateful Dead Improvisation Non-Systematic Thoughts About Improvisation CRISTIAN AMIGO      Mandalas and the Dead GRAEME M. BOONE      The Eccentric Revolutions of Phil Lesh BRENT WOOD      American Chaos: Charles Ives and the Grateful Dead SHAUGN O’DONNELL      “Mr. Charlie Told Me So”: Heidegger and the Dead’s Early Assimilation to the Technology of the Blues DAVID MALVINNI      Dark Star Mandala GRAEME M. BOONE      “Where All the Pages Are My Days”: Metacantric Moments in Deadhead Lyrical Experience REVELL CARR      “Not Just a Change of Style”: Reading Workingman’s Dead as an American Commentary with Americana Roots ERIN MCCOY      Second Set: Some Philosophical Contours of Grateful Dead Improvisation Improvised Philosophy ALAN TRIST      “Pouring Its Light Into Ashes”: Exploring the Multiplicity of Becoming in Grateful Dead Improvisation JIM TUEDIO      “Searching for the Sound”: Grateful Dead Music and Interpretive Transformation JASON KEMP WINFREE      Plato’s Pharmakon: Grateful Dead Concerts and the Politics of Getting High ELIZABETH CARROLL      When “Reason Tatters”: Nietzsche and the Grateful Dead on Living a Healthy Life STAN SPECTOR      The Other One and the Other: Moral Lessons from a Reluctant Teacher STEVEN GIMBEL      Innocence and Experience in the Grateful Dead: A Reading of Stuart Hampshire NICHOLAS MERIWETHER      Third Set: Experiencing Community Through Grateful Dead Improvisation Modeling Improvisation MARY GOODENOUGH      “Mysteries Dark and Vast”: Grateful Dead Concerts and Initiation into the Sublime ERIC K. SILVERMAN      Bears and Flags: The Grateful Dead’s America and Bohemian Nationalism JAY WILLIAMS      Improvising Community: A Hermeneutic Analysis of Deadheads and Virtual Communities GARY BURNETT      Strategic Improvisation: Management Lessons from the Dead BARRY BARNES      Cultural Communication Codes Among Deadheads: A Chronological Account of Communicative Improvisation NATALIE J. DOLLAR      Examining Grateful Dead Improvisation as a Catalyst for Creating Sustained Communitas AMANDA DIEDERICH-HIRSH      “I Can’t Do Anything but Lie”: Studying Deadheads While Wearing Simmelian Lenses REBECCA G. ADAMS      Encore The Thing Is the Thing Is the Thing Is the Thing Is There Is No Thing CHRISTIAN CRUMLISH      All His Children Grew and Grew (Who Killed Uncle John?) DAVID GANS      Greensleeves The Grateful Dead Came to Our House One Day (with 20 People and a Bottle of LSD): A Story About Discovering the Power of Channeling Healing Energy JEAN MILLAY      Contributors      Index     

About the Author :
Jim Tuedio, professor of philosophy and director of the university honors program at California State University-Stanislaus, is the author of numerous scholarly articles and is a past president of the American Society for Philosophy, Counseling and Psychotherapy. He lives in Denair, California. Stan Spector is a professor of philosophy at Modesto Junior College in Modesto, California, and is the author of many scholarly articles. He is a past director of the college honors program and is currently co-chair of the Grateful Dead Caucus.

Review :
“fun collection of essays...some great writing in here”—Sacramento Book Review; “producing this volume was obviously a labor of love...remarkable...recommend[ed]...intellectually stimulating, worthwhile contribution”—Critical Studies in Improvisation.