This is the final Save Your Face mix derived from the Grateful Dead’s “Complete Circulating 1975 Ace’s Sessions” (2026 compilation).
The SYF curations of the 1975 sessions total 6.5 hours, in contrast to the 24 hours of source recordings. While these mixes obviously exclude a great deal, I will arrogantly assert that I think I’ve compiled a proper and generous “listener’s edition” of the sessions. As always with Save Your Face mixes, the focus is on material that I think won’t get boring, no matter how many times a Head listens to it. Indeed, I think nearly everything I’ve included will become increasingly delightful, the more you get to know it.
I’ve presented my picks as seven listening arcs (“discs”), ranging from 40-60 minutes each. However, I’ve adjusted all the volume levels to about the same place, and I’ve re-EQ’ed outliers (murky/stabby), so you should be able to re-sequence my picks any way you like, and it will sound okay. Create your own essential companion to the “Blues for Allah” album. If these SYF mixes are not the last word on the 1975 sessions, they are at least a massive head start for anyone who wants to dive in fully.
The SYF Ace’s Sessions mixes:
1-4: Sand Castles - unedited performances that approach live performance concentration/intensity. This stuff is a sequel to 1974 live Dead, with considerable repetition of different approaches to Slipknot, King Solomon’s Marbles, the Blues for Allah Suite elements, and vibes-adjacent themes/jams. Subtitle: “Hardcore Blues for Allah.”
5-6: Grooves Regrooved Volume 1 and Volume 2, which feature edits that turn baggy and/or fragmentary material into more coherent tracks. This stuff charts interesting evolutionary moments of formal songs and highlights numerous themes that died in the cradle, despite being quite pleasing. If the Dead were the Stones, they could have looked at this unfinished material in 1976-1977 and finished it out into an album or two - and thereby established several more improv zones for their live shows. Subtitle: "You Could Probably Dance to This."
7: The mix featured in this post picks up two zones of music that didn’t fit on the above frames:
- Cover songs and generic vamps (GD "Get Back" sessions)
- A handful of particularly gentle and beautiful performances (too subtle for the stage)
I hereby unite these orphans in the spirit of a band playing its last set, as the bar approaches closing time. The musicians and the remaining patrons are just hanging out at this point.
The set begins before the full band is even on stage, but gradually everyone (but Keith) appears for a blues jam. The loose start encourages the musicians to pull out a series of cover songs and just-for-fun grooves that they’d never spitball in their main set. Inevitably, this casual trajectory slides into a looser, jazzier, chiller zone of exploration, until everyone but the band and bartender is gone, and Garcia (probably) sits down at the piano to lead the evening to a gentle close.
I particularly recommend the chill “Side Two,” which is all gorgeous.
41-minute mp3 mix here, edited from FLAC.
Side one (18 minutes)
- Blues Groove Composite Edit (4/2/75)
- Hideaway (4/2/75)
- Surf Jam Condensed Edit (3/26/75)
- Swing Warmups (4/29/75)
- Tico Tico (2/28/75)
- Just Kissed My Baby Condensed Edit (2/28/75)
- Meters Jam Condensed Edit (2/28/75)
Side two (23 minutes)
- The Girl from Ipanema (4/17/75)
- Sage & Spirit (3/5/75)
- Unknown Instrumental (3/21/75, de-hissed edit) *
- Homeward Through the Haze, Mix 2, Jam Only Edit (3/17/75)
- Piano Jam (3/5/75)
* Heartfelt thanks to Grady Don Sandlin for de-hissing this beautiful piece of music.
Cover image: Adapted from a photograph of the band at Ace’s in 1975 by Stephen Barncard (also the producer/engineer of American Beauty).