Live Tracks the Highlight on Dead Set

The Grateful Dead was never an average rock band. It approached rock in the tradition of jazz musicians--filling its marathon concerts with spaced-out grooves that often revolved around only a semblance of a song’s basic structure.

Between their original works and material drawn from various genres, Jerry Garcia and his mates had such a massive arsenal of music at their disposal that you never knew what to expect. The celebrated pop institution would do different songs night to night, or play the same song in such different arrangements that it was transformed.

Unfortunately, the band’s studio work--except for its earliest Warner Bros. packages--rarely reflected the vitality and range of that renegade spirit. Even in this two-disc retrospective, taken from material recorded for Arista Records between 1977 and 1990, the difference is apparent between the glow of the live numbers and the mere professionalism of the studio efforts.

Disc 1 doesn’t really catch fire until the organic simplicity of “Dire Wolf” and the buoyant “Franklin’s Tower,” both culled from live performances, suggest the playfulness and charm of the Dead.

Disc 2 contains tracks from “In the Dark,” the 1987 album that brought the group its greatest commercial success, including the Top 10 single “Touch of Grey.” Deadheads might cringe at the sound of that song because of its blatantly commercial nature. Yet it and “Hell in a Bucket,” from the same album, maintain a surprising charm after all these years.

Again, however, it’s the live tracks that hit hardest, including a fascinating, 16-minute free-for-all on “Eyes of the World” that features the nimble saxophone of Branford Marsalis. “Eyes” is the collection’s highlight, a selection that reinforces the group’s jazz instincts.

Albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good) and four stars (excellent).