Garcia Live, Vol. 3: Dec 14-15, 1974 Northwest Tour

The third installment of the series, an ongoing concert-recording archive for die-hard / fans, finds over two and a half hours of previously unreleased material from a two-night stand by one of 's more obscure incarnations . The project quietly grew during a year-long hiatus in 1974, starting out as a collaboration between and organist and quickly expanding to include drummer , bassist , and multi-instrumentalist . includes unheard audio from some of the group's first shows, and the vibe is more experimental, proggy, and coldly adventurous than much of the rest of 's massive ouvre. Beginning with an incredibly jammed-out 18-minute cover of 's "Boogie on Reggae Woman," things just get wilder from there. A painfully slow reading of "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," jazz improvisations, and burning, manic renditions of classic soul tunes make up a large patches of the set, and things culminate with the unbelievably slow-burning intensity of the almost half-hour-long tune "Wondering Why," which simmers endlessly in a silent, moody fog without ever reaching a predictable boiling point. With the oceanic amounts of live recordings from and , even the biggest Deadheads can get bogged down by the repetitive elements of their complete catalog of live shows. represents some truly reaching and challenging sounds even for the ever-searching . It's an anomaly and a somewhat lost page in the history book, certainly one of the more interesting releases of its type, and a must-hear addition to anyone even remotely interested in the countless hours of material. ~ Fred Thomas