Take You to the Leader of the Band

     With just about a month before Dead & Company's "Summer" Tour, I thought I'd put forward an idea that I don't think is too controversial, and I'll be shocked if anyone disagrees with me.  While I often describe Dead & Co as Bobby's band, and while Mayer is obviously the lead guitarist and the main soloist, neither of them are truly the leaders of the band.  The true leader of the band, and perhaps the most powerful man in the Dead world, is Jeff Chimenti.

     Jeff got introduced to the Dead world when he joined Ratdog in 1997, and has played in every iteration of the Dead since 2002, at first being partnered up with Rob Barraco, but they soon realized (and I'm editorializing here) that he could do the job of two keyboardists and then some.  Not only has he played in the main Dead bands and the individual members' own solo projects, but he even has his own group Golden Gate Wingmen with some other Dead alums.  At this point he has played just about every song in the Dead's canon, including rarities like "What's Become of the Baby," "Rosemary," and "Blues for Allah."  While Phil has traditionally been the driving force behind reviving old songs and plays a much larger section of the repertoire than Dead & Company, I think that Chimenti at this point knows the music better than any other living person, and is truly the heir apparent to the Dead's legacy.

     While he doesn't get that many actual leads in Dead & Company, Jeff is really the one that keeps the music going.  In a band like Furthur where the band as a whole seemed more familiar and confident with the songs he could step out and play outside of the songs' traditional confines, but with Dead & Co he instead functions as the backbone of the band.  He provides a solid structure and outline for how the song progresses, especially in songs that are newer to them.  Their most recent tour in Fall of 2017 saw them break out a number of songs, and ones like "Greatest Story Ever Told" or "Spanish Jam" were incredibly Jeff heavy.  Some of these are songs that the drummers and Bobby have been playing for over fifty years, but with "Spanish Jam" especially Jeff was absolutely the driving force keeping everyone on track.  And when even his best efforts don't keep the drummers or Mayer in line, he can slip into whatever erroneous groove they've created and steer the train back onto the right tracks.

     Not only has Jeff mastered the piano, rhodes, organ, and synthesizer, but he is also a good singer.  Now this is a spot where he definitely has to concede to Mayer and Oteil that they are better, but the fact that he can not only play anything with keys on it but he can also provide harmonies and back-up vocals puts him at the top of the list of the Dead's keyboardists.  Brent was great on the organ and synth, and sang some great songs really well, but I always thought that his palette was too electronic in a cheesy 80's kind of way (don't even get me started on Vince's 90's sounds).  His early electric piano sounds almost empty to me, and his mid-80's MIDI sounds really kill my buzz.  In '81 and '82, and then from like '87-'90, he had a slightly more full-bodied sounding keyboard, with the later years actually having some good MIDI tones.  He was of course a master of the organ himself, and Chimenti often plays his same organ.  But I think that Jeff has the advantage of 50+ years of hindsight to look back on the music and really get a feel for what songs are better for which type of keyboard, and I think is overall more versatile.

     Keith has of course always been the piano player, with his grand piano from '71-'77 being the best sounding keys to ever be played with the Grateful Dead.  While comparing his piano skills to Jeff's is really more of a difference in taste than a comparison of skill, I will say that Jeff is way more confident and up front with his playing, whereas Keith was pathologically shy and froze up during some of his solos.  Keith was great at creating a tapestry behind the band that they could play off of, feeding into and off of Jerry and creating shimmering patterns in the music.  But it is no secret that Keith's playing and enthusiasm tapered off severely in the late 70's, resulting in several trainwrecks and, even worse, boring moments in the music; at least with a trainwreck there's a difference in musical opinion and some excitement.  He also allegedly resisted the band's efforts to get him to branch out into synthesizers and electronic tones, and while a purist might defend that decision, and while I disparaged some of Brent's tones, I think that Keith basically forced himself out of the band by being a stick in the mud.  I think when they took away his real piano and stuck him with a tiny little electronic thing he really deflated, and you can hear that in the music.

     Some people prefer Bruce Hornsby's piano to Keith's, which I think is nonsense, but so is a lot of what I think.  He is definitely a great pianist, can sing very well, and can play accordion, which is a bonus.  He definitely did enjoy playing with the Dead, and was in The Other Ones before Chimenti was, but I think he just can't...swing as well as Jeff.  He did love to play "Dark Star," and of course played very well with Jeff at Fare Thee Well, but he just feels to straight to me.  It would be cool to see him and Mayer play together, they both have pop sensibilities, and could play a neat ten-minute "Dark Star."  But for that classic "tear down the universe down" vibe, I just don't think Hornsby can provide all the time, whereas Jeff needs just the slightest provocation for him to get into total metaphysical music that transports your mind.

     As a sort of counter-point, I was not always on the Chimenti Bus.  In fact the complaint I left my first Furthur show with was that the keyboardist didn't seem to know the songs!  Looking back, I see now that I was naive, and just hadn't been exposed to any live Dead before.  I also hadn't really gotten into jazz yet, despite playing jazz trumpet in high school, and Jeff has a lot of jazz stylings in his music.  He'll play chords that are just a little dissonant, and I originally thought that was because he was just playing the wrong chord, but now know that he's just thinking outside the box, which is what this music is all about.

     Like I said up top, I don't expect this to be a controversial opinion, but I'm curious to see if any of you disagree or have anything to add, so feel free to leave a comment below.  I think that Dead & Company is a great band, but the only way for them to reach their full potential is to let Jeff get out there!  He's done a great job keeping the foundation of the songs strong, but by now hopefully the members of the band are all confident enough that Jeff can play more leads and stretch the music in new directions without losing anyone along the way.