Phil Lesh - Musical Background

Musical Background

Lesh started out as a violin player. While enrolled at Berkeley High School, he switched to trumpet. Studying the instrument under Bob Hansen, conductor of the symphonic Golden Gate Park Band, he developed a keen interest in avant-garde classical music and free jazz. At the College of San Mateo, Lesh played trumpet in and wrote for the school's big band. (A snippet of tape of Lesh on trumpet in college can be heard on "Born Cross-Eyed" from the Grateful Dead's 1968 release Anthem of the Sun.) After transferring with sophomore standing to the University of California, Berkeley in 1961, he befriended future Grateful Dead keyboardist Tom Constanten before dropping out after less than a semester. At the behest of Constanten, he studied under the Italian modernist Luciano Berio in a graduate-level course at Mills College in the spring of 1962; their classmates included Steve Reich and Stanford University cross-registrant John Chowning.

While volunteering for KPFA as a recording engineer during this period, he met then-bluegrass banjo player Jerry Garcia. Despite seemingly antipodal musical interests, they formed an enduring friendship. Following a brief period rooming with Constanten in Las Vegas, a stint with the United States Postal Service, and a collaboration with Reich, Lesh was talked into becoming the bass guitarist for Garcia's new rock group, then known as the Warlocks, in the fall of 1964. This was a peculiar turn of events, as Lesh had never played bass before, nor any stringed instrument. According to Lesh, the first song he rehearsed with the band was "I Know You Rider". He joined them for their third or fourth gig (memories vary) and stayed until the end.

Since Lesh had never played bass, it meant that to a great extent he learned "on the job", yet it also meant he had no preconceived attitudes about the instrument's traditional "rhythm section" role. Indeed, he has said that his playing style was influenced more by Bach counterpoint than by rock or soul bass players – although one can also hear the fluidity and power of a jazz bassist such as Charles Mingus or Jimmy Garrison in Lesh's work, along with stylistic allusions to fellow San Francisco psychedelic-era bassist Jack Casady.