R.I.P. Phil Lesh: “Lately it occurs to me. What a long, strange trip it’s been.”

Click the link to read the obituary on The New York Times website (Jim Farber). Here’s an excerpt:

Oct. 25, 2024

Phil Lesh, whose expansive approach to the bass as a charter member of the Grateful Dead made him one of the first performers on that instrument in a rock band to play a lead role rather than a supporting one, died on Friday. He was 84. His death was announced on his Instagram account. No further information was provided. In addition to providing explorative bass work, Mr. Lesh sang high harmonies for the band and provided the occasional lead vocal. He also co-wrote some of the band’s most noteworthy songs, including ones that inspired adventurous jams, like “St. Stephen” and “Dark Star,” as well as more conventional pieces, like “Cumberland Blues,” “Truckin’” and “Box of Rain.”…

Mr. Lesh’s bass work could be thundering or tender, focused or abstract. On the Grateful Dead’s studio albums, his lines held so much melody that one could listen to a song for his playing alone. At the same time, he shared his bandmates’ love for unusual chord structures and uncommon time signatures. In constructing his bass parts, he drew from many sources, including free jazz, classical music and the avant-garde…He had formal training in those last two areas, having played both classical violin and trumpet, composed music for orchestras and studied with the avant-garde composer Luciano Berio, all before taking up the bass and joining the Dead. His work with the band held such value for a significant portion of its massive following that devotees at concerts would position themselves in the “Phil Zone,” an area named for “the proximity to Lesh’s position onstage,” according to the 1994 Grateful Dead guidebook “Skeleton Key: A Dictionary for Deadheads.”