Yeah to Howard's defense, at the time they were playing together (late 69-72ish) Jerry hadn't really developed much of his "Jazz senses" yet. While the recordings of jerry and wales don't really mesh well together. You can trace his influence on Garcia (along with Saunders) you can hear a mostly Blues inspired guitarist in 68-69 to a completly different sound in 73-74 (which had more jazz flavor) maybe some of that can be attributed to Howard wales. For what it's worth, that is my issue with martin ferrio (sp) when he played with the Grateful Dead. He just sorta did his own thing and the Grateful Dead (as a unit) where doing something else.