Alone Again Or
10/9/94, Pittsburgh, PA, A.J. Palumbo Center
One of the best tells that a music critic has no idea what they’re talking about with Phish is excessive use of the word “solos.” It’s up there with “noodling,” “patchouli,” and “Grateful Dead” as conclusive evidence of fundamentally misunderstanding the band and a lazy unwillingness to look beyond the critical party line. Most of all, it’s just bad listening; anyone who makes an honest effort can hear that there’s almost always much more going on in a Phish performance than just featured soloist and backing band. To describe every extended musical segment as “soloing,” misses the exact thing that makes Phish so special, the four-way communication and egalitarian idea generation that underlies their improvisation.
This is not to say that the members of Phish never solo. There are cover songs that call for it (Jesus Just Left Chicago, My Soul…basically any time they do “blues”), there are winking joke solos (Lawn Boy, Scent of a Mule), and there are times when Trey decides to play guitar hero. But most interesting of all is when members of Phish perform real solos, as in completely unaccompanied, alone, single, solitary.
10/9/94 contains one of the more famous examples of Phish solo performance in its first-set-closing performance of The Squirming Coil, destined for inclusion at the very end of A Live One. But there is another notable solo moment the show, one which joins the Coil coda to illustrate, ironically, exactly why describing a Phish concert as solo after solo is such a wrongheaded interpretation.
First, the Coil solo, which is the most traditionally indulgent of the bunch. For nearly five minutes, after the other three band members drop out and leave the stage, it’s just Page and his piano, as has been customary for the song since at least 1991. One slight disappointment of this project, at least so far, is that Page’s time in the spotlight doesn’t actually vary all that much — it’s typically a florid dance around the jam’s chord progression, without a lot of unexpected diversions. It tends to justify Page’s reputation, particularly at this time, as the humblest, least flashy member of the band, better known for adding depth and color to improvisations instead of leading the charge.
The 10/9 Coil doesn’t fulfill that description though, perhaps inspiring its selection as the earliest Fall 94 performance on A Live One. For the solo’s first minute, after a delightfully delicate interplay from all four kicks off the jam, we get the auto-pilot version, a lush embroidery on the standard progression with whiffs of Debussy or the soundtrack to an 8-bit role playing game. But about 8:15, there’s a sudden invasion from the right side of the keyboard, a cascade of high notes that steers Page off the main path. The next minute suddenly turns modern classical in its repetition — dig how the rapid-fire “rhythm” part jumps from his right hand to the left — and thereafter the song tears off into the wilderness, melodies sprouting left and right in the style of Keith Jarrett’s marathon improvisations.
Then, Page being Page, he brings it home for the heartbreaking finish, and meekly tells the crowd they’ll be right back (spliced over with “we had a great time tonight” banter from another show, presumably the only post-production trickery on ALO?).
Besides being a worthy display of Page’s talent, the Coil solo offers a stripped-down peek at the Phish process, as it were. It’s not a demonstration of speed or virtuosity over a repeated cycle of chords, it has directionality, and a charming fickleness to chase after any shiny new idea that suddenly, often accidentally, falls into its view. Nothing about Page’s five minutes alone at the keyboard feels forced, it’s an organic wandering that goes far afield before finding its way back home. At this time, the full lineup of Phish isn’t yet capable of navigating between themes so smoothly (it’s easier to do within one brain instead of between four, after all), but Page’s solo provides a glimpse of what they aspire to.
The show’s second solo moment is less typical, and tucked away in the middle of the night’s longest number. You Enjoy Myself is the anti-solo…a lengthy, tightly composed piece that relies upon all four players to contribute equally to the whole. But in this version, just as the tramps section ends and the jam begins (around 11:00), the volume drops way down, leaving only Trey and a clapping audience doing a credible job of staying on beat.
A typical guitarist would happily take this opportunity to showboat. Trey goes the opposite direction, doodling a miniature at low volume, and then playing, of all things, solo rhythm guitar: two notes, then scratchy chords like he’s just a sideman in a bandstand. To finish off his 70 seconds of solitude, he dismounts with an eerie descending sequence, a baton happily taken up by Mike to drive the next phase of the jam, a very cool stop-start with Trey looping a sustained note to fill the spaces between.
Cut this segment out of the YEM and drop it into any cow-funk breakdown sequence of fall 97, and a listener wouldn’t notice any anachronism. And like that future era, this solo is a study in selflessness, a featured moment where Trey continues to play the accompanist, whether to the crowd’s clapping or the music in his head. He even thinks forward to what’s next, tossing out an entirely new idea for his bandmates to pursue as he follows his own post-solo path…would it have been too easy for them to just jump in on the funk riff he’d developed?
Both of these moments are the textbook definition of solo. But to automatically equate these solos with musical masturbation does Phish a disservice, and entirely misses the point. These unaccompanied passages aren’t ego stroking, they’re challenges: to the musicians themselves, to the well-worn format of the “rock concert,” to the audience members who just want to dance to a steady beat. It’s self-indulgent, but not that kind of self-indulgent.
