Inspired Grateful Dead Show with Branford Marsalis Now Available in Official Version

If not for bassist Phil Lesh, the Grateful Dead’s March 29, 1990 show at the Nassau Coliseum wouldn’t have been quite as noteworthy as it was.

On that night, Lesh invited jazz saxophonist Branford Marsalis to sit in for one tune — “Birdsong.” He played it, and then, with the band’s encouragement, stayed for the entire second set.

In the process, he helped create a classic late-career Dead show that’s now available as as the 3-CD box set, Wake Up To Find Out: Nassau Coliseum, Uniondale, NY 3/29/1990.

“When I agreed to sit in with the Dead in 1990, I didn’t know what to expect, aurally or visually,” Marsalis has said. “What I experienced was what I remembered music to be in my younger years, something that I’d felt was lost long ago. Process over product.

The show is available as a stand-alone set, or as part of a huge set, covering eight shows from that tour, called Spring 1990 (The Other One).

Wake Up to Find Out is available as a CD set and for digital download (iTunes and Amazon MP3).

Wake Up to Find Out Track List:

Disc 1:

1. Jack Straw
2. Bertha
3. We Can Run
4. Ramble On Rose
5. When I Paint My Masterpiece
6. Birdsong
7. Promised Land

Disc 2:

1. Eyes of the World
2. Estimated Prophet
3. Dark Star
4. Drums

Disc 3:

1. Space
2. Dark Star
3. The Wheel
4. Throwing Stones
5. Turn on Your Lovelight
6. Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door