I first learned the name Jorma Kaukonen when I was a teenager listening to my older brother's records. I still have to wonder how Mr. Beach-Boys-and-Maynard-Ferguson ended up with a copy of The Worst of Jefferson Airplane. Having absorbed that, I was moved - mostly by a song called Good Shepherd - to get the Volunteers album. That and the early Pink Floyd I was collecting at the same time cemented my affinity for psychadelic rock, and prepared me for the freaked-out tripster that introduced me to the Grateful Dead in college.

In those early college days, I had a three hour slot on the campus radio station. The station's official format was new releases, and my specific format was to ignore the official format. They had an LP library (this was toward the end of the Audio Middle Ages - 1983) that was pretty impressive in size, and went back through the 70's. There was some incredibly dull and horrible things in there, and also some really obscure gems. They were worth looking for, which I was doing one day during my show. There, I saw a name I had heard of, but knew nothing about - Hot Tuna. Checking it out, I saw that it was not only Jorma but Airplane bassist Jack Cassady as well. I had a new obsession for many years.


It was four years later when I finally got a chance to see Jorma live. It was in the summer of 1987 and the Illinois Entertainer had an ad for Jorma solo at Biddy Mulligan's, a north side bar. When I went to get tickets, however, the show had been cancelled. I was pissed. It wasn't until November 7, 1987 that a new show was announced at the Cubby Bear, a long - time landmark across the street from Wrigley Field.

At the time my friend Rick the Rat lived in a north side neighborhood called Rogers Park (where you could get the hottest Mexican food in the world, and that opinion still stands after 11 years in Albuquerue) and we saw a lot of shows together. That was my heyday as a Chicago partier, in fact. I was young, had a job, lived at home, had no worries. Ricky Rat lived next to a taper called Taper Dave. The guy had an incredible bootleg collection, much of which he had made himself. He traded with people all over, and in these days, that took a lot of correspondence and organization. Every once in a while he gave Rick a copy of something sweet, and Rick would always pass it on.

Taper Dave was seeing Jorma that night also, and participating in the recording of a show it another venue, as well. Rick and I sat and watched him talk to the soundboard guy, and hook his tape deck directly into the board. We drooled thinking about what he would make that night.


Well, Jorma came on and announced that he had just seen his friend, guitarist David Bromberg, and would see about getting him onstage later, then just started smoking the place up. He is magnificent as a solo blues guitarist - acoustic or electric, the latter in this case. I was absolutely absorbed in this show, as I have been every time I've seen Jorma ever since - about ten times, I'm guessing offhand. After a while, he said that he was taking a break and he'd be back in a little while with Bromberg. About halfway through the break is when the murmering began. The murmering said that Jorma wasn't kidding. The second set was a duet.




I wasn't familiar with Bromberg (in fact, I really can't tell you anything now that the link doesn't tell you) but I had heard his name. I got familiar pretty fast, though, because a decent chunk of the second set was his songs, scattered among the  Jorma tunes. Situations like these, when two musicians who don't normally play together do so for the fun of it only, are very much a part of why this hobby appeals to me. These things don't usually make to official release because they aren't polished, but they're so real. They pulled it off, too, melding together pretty well and recovering with a laugh and a roll of the eyes when something went wonky. Those are my favorite concerts - close up, in a small bar, listening to someone who plays because he loves to play. That's what blues especially is all about.

So after the show, we were psyched to hit Taper Dave up for the copy we were sure he would give us. And we waited. And waited. And waited and waited in vain. He had no intention of sharing that magical soundboard, the only one in existence. You see, in those days of pre-electronic trading, people were literally trading (and many still do, I'm happy to say). They communicated personally, traded lists, cut deals, shipped bug boxes of Maxells to and from places anywhere in the world. Since there was so much bother involved, there was an element of capitalism involved as well, and Taper Dave had a hot, one-of-a-kind item. He was holding on to it, waiting for word to get around about the show, and waited to see what gems he could get in exchange for a copy. We tried for a couple years, until the Rat moved away. No dice.

I kept an eye out for it for years, and then went through a period of not collecting. It was too much hassle to add to the hassle that was life at the time. When life got better and both my hobby and I entered the computer age, we re-connected.

I was at work, a job I hated that involved lots of breakneck activity punctuated by long stretches of tedium, I was on the internet screwing off. It was my job to sit there and wait for a customer call, and there were none, so it was legitimate screwing off. I was clicking around a site for traders that listed thousands upon thousands of lists to peruse. They were laid out in rows upon rows upon rows of little links. And I just pointed my mouse at one that was just like any other one and clicked. And just what do you think I saw, 17 years after the show? That very soundboard. People near me at work looked up to see why I said "Holy Crap!" a tad too loud. I sent the link home so I could write to the guy later. I needed that Cubby Bear show. Evidently, Taper Dave had finally made his trade.

I contacted to guy, who was somewhere in the Chicaco area (I'm thinking Lisle), and asked about a trade. He said he could never turn down someone who had paid to see the show, and I sent him a list FAR smaller than the list I recently completed. I got the feeling that he was humoring me by picking something, but a few weeks later we each had a package in the mail, and I finally got my Holy Grail.



And it sounds wonderful. Taper Dave did a superb job. This is such a crisp recording that it's hard to believe it was made with a little portable rig. Jorma's guitar just jumps out of my Bose towers at me. I'm there again, only with better ventilation (I had to walk outside a couple times to get air, I recall. It wasn't a problem after they remodeled.). Of course, I sent a copy to the Rat out of a clear blue sky.

I'm going to share one song from each set here . First, and the harder to select, is Jorma solo doing a song he'd done for a long time with Hot Tuna. It's called Killing Time in the Crystal City, and it stretches from the straight delta blues style of a lot of Jorma's songs. Despite that, it also strays fairly far into Elmore James territory at several points. It was the first set closer.

From the second set, I select another Jorma tune, because I don't know the titles for the Bormberg songs and frankly, I'm partial to Jorma. I chose this song, the second in the set, because it does have such a strong Bromberg presence. It's a more traditional blues styling, so even if he David didn't know the song he could join in well. He started out sort of filling in for Jack by playing a bass line and just drifts into a more confident role in the song. He might have known the song, though, as it was an old Hot Tuna song and t-shirt anthem called Keep on Truckin'.

Now, if I can only find a soundboard of my first Dead show..........