I'm so glad I stumbled onto this. I was actually trying to see if there was a show on my actual birthday. But my second birthday will do. It sounds like this is the beginning of some future stuff that will be brought out in later Grateful Dead music-- something new being born. It's cool to hear the flow of ideas through Jerry's guitar. I'd love to have a CD copy of this. The sound is quite good.

Great to hear Jerry & Jack; I guess I like songs WITH jams better than just jams.

Impossible to fathom the infinities this show procures.... 1969 is well on the way. Not the Grateful Dead, but the pieces of it, that assemble into the magic of 69 quite quickly with a strength they amass from these shows- all psychedelic muscles moving together in fluid movements of a living sound. Phil has quite strong playing, Jerry progressing in some dizzying way not easily definable but most clearly evident from the way he maneuevers the ever-formed shape (leader or not!). With Jack Cassady the jams are very well solidifed, a strength beyond the Dead... this brings out the infinite way of an ethereal truth- music, the thread of an ever-woven tapestry beyond the musicians who possess that thread. Always is it woven, always is it extended from their instruments... they are brought beyond together in mastery of a most-untamable way of 'art', the extracation of fluid truths of a soul onward into the layers of music building a skyward monument of music. Outerly, within

this is Mickey and the Hartbeats, which, on this night, consisted of Jerry Garcia, Jack Casady, and Mickey, with Spencer Dryden in the first set and David Getz in the second. no Phil, Billy, or Pigpen. what a hot show though!!!! superfine.

also: Happy Birthday, Jerry. your soul rocks on forever.

I've been trying to find some thing from '68, the year I was born, preferably the latter half.
I can't tell you what reading all of your comments means to me, never having been to a dead show...i hate to say. Words but fail to describe the great loss i've endured, never having been to a show.
(I love Sun Ra, btw. )

other than that the sound on this is decent, for the time anyway.

The ending of this material gives a hint towards
We Bid You Goodnight, but in a light jam.

Am I to read that the jam with Creator is not part of this? I listened to both carefully and don't hear a hint of Creator... Both of these jams are great, preferring the second, but liking the first jam blues for sure. I know Creator has a Master Plan well, and have seen Pharoah a couple times. He was certainly based on the West Coast after high school. I'd like to hear this version of Creator. On a side note, the last time I saw Pharoah at Blues Alley in DC, he did a version of My Favorite Things for over an hour. It was like he channeled Coltrane and an experience that gives me chills just thinking about it. Another 8 minute song and that was the set. Dead fans would do well to pick up the Alice Coltrane CD, Journey in Satchidananda with Pharoah and Ptah El Daoud. And while you're at it, pick up some Sun Ra.

Jerry's playing at the beginning of the 2nd Jam seems to be influenced by the Jazz guitarist Gabor Szabo who was very popular during the late sixties. Anyway, great music!!

The "Creator has a master plan" is the title of a 30-minute long jam from free jazz saxophonist Pharoh Sanders's 1969 album Karma. Haven't heard it but if the jam listed here is the same as on Karma, how could these guys know of the tune before the album was released? Maybe they saw Pharoh live and picked it up there?

Man I love the second jam. Am I the only one who had this jam on the second disc of the "Can you pass the acid test" bootleg cd who liked it slowed down? I downloaded the version here, but just like the slower version from the bootleg better. I've always been unsure of what the "creator has a master plan" theme is from. Anyone know?

There is a show out there, which i don't have, that is not yet on the archive, that is listed as a jam with Harvey Mandel from 12/24/68. Deadlists has this to say...

VENUE The Matrix
CITY San Francisco
STATE CA
DATE 12/16/68
SET1 Jam (1) [41:54]
SET2 Jam (2) [39:23]
SET3
ENCORE
COMMENTS The tapes circulating with this date are from a "Heartbeats" show, without Bobby and Pigpen. (1) with Jack Casady and Spencer Dryden. (2) with Jack Casady and David Getz. This contains a lengthy "The Creator Has a MasterPlan"
theme and has references to Dark Star,Clementine, and China Cat Sunflower.

Bill Gadsden said he copied from Peter Abram "two reels with 45 minutes apiece of Garcia, Spencer Dryden, Cassady, Getz, etc from 12/16/68". A third jam has previously circulated as "Set 3" of this date, but Bill says that it's "with
Harvey Mandel from 12/24/68". See comments for 12/24/68.

On page 26 of issue #34 (Summer 1996) of Dupree's Diamond News, Dick Latvala stated in an interview "There are tapes of 12/16/68 marked Hartbeats at the Matrix, but I don't know if that's really accurate. You know [David] Crosby was playing with them quite a lot that month." Strangely there is a Garcia and Crosby "Hartbeats" show at the Matrix on 12/16/70.

BAND Grateful Dead
VENUE The Matrix
CITY San Francisco
STATE CA
DATE 12/24/68
SET1 Jam (1)[30:56]
SET2
SET3
ENCORE
COMMENTS The tapes circulating with this date are from a "Heartbeats" show,
without Bobby and Pigpen. (1) with Harvey Mandel (and George Chambers?). This
jam has previously circulated as "Set 3" of 12/16/68, but Bill Gadsden says that
it's "with Harvey Mandel from 12/24/68".

Just one little nitpick:
I got this show from the yahoogroup DeadWeeds, and the info file from them say that the setlist is:

1. The Creator Has A Master Plan Jam ( with excerpts of Dark Star & China Cat Sunflower)
2. Hartbeat Blues
3. Last Jam

and that "These shows are popularly known as Mickey & The Hartbeats. However, we have chosen to credit them with the original billing for The Matrix which was as Jerry Garcia & Friends."

and that this show "is often listed as having taken place on 12-16-68. However, research has shown that there was no show on that date at The Matrix. The tapes correspond to shows from the 12-23-68 & 12-24-68 at The Matrix. Although it appears that "Last Jam" originates from the show on 24th, for simplicities sake we have stuck with a single date of 12-23-68."

Anyhow, whatever date & stuff, it's great jamming!