The March 29, 1990 Grateful Dead concert was the first of several to feature
Branford Marsalis as a guest musician. In a 2014 interview with
Rolling Stone, Marsalis recalled that Dead bassist
Phil Lesh had invited him to play with the band for one song. I came up for "Bird Song", and after the set was over, I said, 'Thanks for letting me play, guys.' And they're like, 'No, no, stay! Play the second half of the show. We'll do "
Dark Star".' That had no significance to me. I'm like, ' "Dark Star"? Okay. What is it?' 'Oh, you're gonna love it. It's free, it's out.' 'Great, I can play out.' They start playing that lick, and the audience goes ******* bananas. Later, I started getting these phone calls on my private number: 'Man, you were great last night. Thanks for getting them to play "Dark Star". They haven't played it in six months.' I'm like, 'Who are these people?'... There was almost nothing [the Grateful Dead] couldn't play—and make the **** sound authentic. When they played a song by
The Band or
Bob Dylan, they played it with the same spirit as The Band or Dylan. They didn't feel the need to write their own arrangement of it. They were all listeners. There is a point where musicians who establish themselves stop listening to music and start listening to their own rhetoric. The Dead didn't do that. It was obvious in the way they approached a song.
— Branford Marsalis
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