Dave McMurray & Grateful Deadication

Dave McMurray is proof not only that it’s never too late to begin a journey with The Grateful Dead but also that the band’s music remains an open platform for so many kinds of creative expression. McMurray was just past his teenage years and playing wild jazz in Detroit when he joined Was (Not Was), starting a relationship with cofounder Don Was that has now endured for nearly four decades. His membership there served as a launching pad for session work with the likes of Bob Dylan, The B-52s, and Wilsons Nancy and Brian. He worked with Kid Rock for more than a decade, recording and touring. In all of that, though, he’d never spent much time with the Dead’s music, despite being in the vicinity of so many who had. hen, in 2018, McMurray joined Was to play with Bob Weir & Wolf Bros. “The more I listened,” he said, “the more I knew these songs would eventually become a vehicle for my jazz expression.”

Since 2021, McMurray has released two volumes of Dead interpretations dubbed Grateful Deadication, built with a band of fellow Detroit ringers like Ibrahim Jones and Maurice O’Neal and loaded with guests from Bob Weir and Bettye Lavette to Oteil Burbridge and Bob James. Rather than reenact the Dead’s skywriting jams, McMurray uses their melodies and lyricism as a starting point for his own radiant jazz. He powers through “The Eleven” with joy and verve and treats “Truckin’” like a full-body workout, sprinting with the theme and then finding forceful variations on it. McMurray was right: the Dead has become a prime vehicle for his jazz, no matter how long it took to find.