Grateful Dead | A Beautiful "Tighten Up" Jam

TIGHTEN UP JAM

The Tighten Up Jam was a very common Latin-style jam theme in 1970. It's often called a proto-Eyes jam since Weir plays two repeating jazzy chords that are rhythmically similar to the opening of Eyes of the World, but they're from the Archie Bell & the Drells tune.
Its first appearance I'm aware of was on 8/30/69, where Weir plays the chords as Garcia's changing a string during Dark Star; it gets a full band performance on 10/25/69. After that they played it steadily for a year, in many Dark Stars and after March '70 in most of the Dancing in the Streets. They apparently dropped it in 1971, except for a surprise appearance on 10/31/71. As we'll see it was normal for the Dead to use a jam-theme interchangeably between two different songs like that, and Tighten Up works well in both of them. (It's surprising it took so long for them to play it in Dancing, since it's similar to the usual Dancing two-chord jam pattern - on 12/11/69 for instance, the Dancing is extremely close to a Tighten Up.)
There used to be a webpage devoted to the Dead's Tighten Ups, but it's disappeared. These are the performances I've found so far; I've probably missed a few (I think there are some in Lovelights as well), but this is the most complete listing available.
10-25-69 Star - http://www.archive.org/details/gd69-10-25.sbd.jagla.81.sbefail.shnf
11-2-69 Star - http://www.archive.org/details/gd69-11-02.sbd.goodbear.1125.sbefail.shnf
12-26-69 Star - http://www.archive.org/details/gd69-12-26.sbd.murphy.1821.sbeok.shnf
1-2-70 Star - http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-01-02.partial-early.sbd.86.sbefail.shnf
3-1-70 Dancing - http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-03-01.sbd.hanno.4641.sbefail.shnf
3-21-70 Dancing - http://www.archive.org/details/gd1970-03-21.late.aud.lee.pcrp.21779.shnf
4-3-70 Dancing - http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-04-03.sbd.cotsman.4283.sbefail.shnf
4-15-70 Dancing - http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-04-15.sbd.kaplan.14354.sbeok.shnf
4-24-70 Star - http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-04-24.aud.hanno.19531.sbeok.shnf
5-2-70 Dancing (Dick's Pick)
5-6-70 Dancing - http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-05-06.sbd.gans.94.sbefail.shnf
5-8-70 Star - http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-05-08.aud.miller.32056.sbeok.flacf
5-24-70 Star - http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-05-24.sbd.hanno.6481.sbeok.shnf
6-6-70 Dancing - http://www.archive.org/details/gd1970-06-06.sbd.miller.86951.sbeok.flac16
6-24-70 second Star - http://www.archive.org/details/gd_nrps70-06-24.aud.pcrp5.23062.sbeok.flacf
7-12-70 Dancing - http://www.archive.org/details/gd1970-07-12.aud.unknown.sirmick.24663.sbefail.shnf
9-17-70 Star - http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-09-17.aud.remaster.sirmick.27591.sbeok.shnf
10-5-70 Dancing (Download Series with 2/4/70)
10-24-70 Dancing - http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-10-24.sbd.hollister.103.sbeok.shnf
10-30-70b Dancing - http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-10-30.sbd.cotsman.20044.sbeok.shnf
11-8-70 Dancing - http://www.archive.org/details/gd1970-11-08.aud.weiner.28609.sbeok.shnf
12-17-70 Dancing - http://www.archive.org/details/gd1970-12-17.sbd.unk.87356.sbeok.flac16
10-31-71 Star (Dick's Pick)
(I might add that Deadlists claims there's a Tighten Up in the 2/2/70 Star, but there isn't.)

The Tighten Up and Feelin' Groovy jams have often been confused, even by Latvala who should have known better! There were Dark Stars where they did both of these jams, but the 1970 Dancings generally have Tighten Up jams, not Feelin' Groovy jams. The easy way to check: is Weir repeating two chords or four chords?
Sometimes the two themes are done back-to-back. Check out the Dark Stars from 11-2-69 or 1-2-70, which have the same structure after the first verse: - a space, weird & wild, - then the Feelin' Groovy jam, almost sounding more fully developed than it was in later years with different variations, and when that dies down, - the Tighten Up jam, again done fully & at length; when this is done it's time for the second verse.
http://www.archive.org/details/gd69-11-02.sbd.goodbear.1125.sbefail.shnf
http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-01-02.partial-early.sbd.86.sbefail.shnf

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