Album review: Dave McMurray - Grateful Deadication

Dave McMurray (tenor/baritone sax/keys/perc.); Ibrahim Jones, Don Was (bass); Jeff Canady, Jay Lane (drums); Wayne Gerard, Greg Leisz, Bob Weir (guitars); Larry Fratangelo, Sowanda Keito (perc.); Luis Resto (piano); Maurice O’Neal (keys), Betty LaVette (vocals).

I don’t know how many jazzers are also Deadheads, several I imagine. Despite being nominally a rock group the Grateful Dead, rooted in folk and blues, also incorporated every other type of American music (soul, jazz, funk, country, modern classical, electronic) into their grooves and whatever they came up with was always a platform for endless improvisation in any case. 

This album by Dave McMurray is a fitting, I nearly said tribute, but it feels more than that and more than a simple covers album as well. Having the sax as the main lead removes the need for anyone to play the Jerry Garcia lead guitar role but still leaves Ibrahim Jones with the duty to carry the bass duties showing how crucial Phil Lesh was to the feel of the Dead.

McMurray has taken songs from across the full Dead lifespan, from the early Dark Star, The Eleven, and Loser to the late ‘hit’ in Touch of Grey and proves again the breadth of the Dead’s music.  He shows his audacity in taking on Dark Star, the Deadhead’s iconic, holy, sacred ‘text’ but he pulls it off with aplomb, rolling into it the same way that the Dead would, building over the bass line, almost sneaking the melody in as if trying to disguise what it is for as long as possible. This is classic Dead and McMurray alludes to the attraction that the group’s melodic and rhythmic complexity had for him and that drew him to making this album. He says that he ‘looks for songs that have magic in them’. Well, he’s found them here.

McMurray is in full voice throughout and, to a great extent, this is a classic Blue Note blowing session. Now we need to start a campaign to get Radio 2 to realise that the version of Eyes of the World that graces this album should be part of the perfect summer soundtrack. (Rather than endless Electric Light Orchestra).

I hadn’t heard of Dave McMurray before and wasn’t too excited when I did find bits by him on the net, but he’s really raised his game for this one. This album was available for buttons on the big river around Christmas time and is available from all the usual outlets.

There is a cracking video HERE on YouTube of Dave McMurray and band taking on Fire On The Mountain and Dave McMurray’s website is HERE - 
Dave Sayer