Garcia, Mandel and Miller - The Matrix (?), San Francisco, California, August 26, 1970

Garcia, Mandel and Miller - The Matrix (?), San Francisco, California, August 26, 1970One thing you could never accuse Jerry Garcia of is laziness — at least at the dawn of the 1970s. To take just one day as an example, on August 26, 1970, Jerry (likely) recorded some basic tracks for American Beauty at Wally Heider Studio on 245 Hyde Street. Then, he apparently hightailed it over to the Matrix in Cow Hollow for a jam session with Canned Heat guitarist Harvey Mandel. A couple days later he’d be back with the Dead for some mysterious acoustic shows in LA, followed by the famed KPIX broadcast on August 30. All in a week’s work, right, Jerry? American Beauty we all know well; this 30-minute Mandel/Garcia jam session just emerged out of the Bob Matthews reel to reel collection, which archivist Charlie Miller has been diligently digitizing in recent weeks. And it’s very cool, very much in keeping with some of the excursions Jerry was taking with Howard Wales at the Matrix around the same…