Joe Russo, who has steeped himself in the music and tradition of the Grateful Dead starting with Bob Weir and Phil Lesh’s Furthur and continuing with his current Almost Dead project, which brings the ethos of the Dead to exciting modern heights. Now, the drummer is delving deeper into that tradition, digging up a rare Jerry Garcia album that the guitarist recorded with keyboardist Howard Wales in 1971, Hooteroll?, for a performance at The Capitol Theatre on April 7.

The album marked one of Garcia’s earliest non-Grateful Dead studio efforts and brought together two of the Bay Area’s noted improvisational artists, Garcia and Wales, who had shared the stage at local clubs prior to the album’s recording. The two musicians enlisted the talents of guitarist Curly Cook, drummers Bill Vitt and Michael Marinelli, trumpeter Ken Balzall and saxophonist and flautist Martin Fierro. The album explored the jazzy, soul and even gospel inclinations of the collected musicians, resulting in a unique piece of Dead lore.

Russo will enlist an all-star cast of friend and musicians for the event, which will be dubbed “Hooteroll? + Plus: Exploring the Works of Jerry Garcia & Howard Wales + Others,” including his former Fat Mama band mates in keyboardist Erik Deutsch, guitarist Jonathan Goldberger and percussionist Kevin Kendrick, along with Antibalas horn players Stuart Bogie and Jordan McClean, with Darkside’s Dave Harrington rounding out the lineup on bass. Tickets for the show go on sale this Friday, October 28 here.

Russo spoke to Relix and Jambands.com about the event, saying that the idea came to him when one of Hooteroll?‘s tracks randomly came up on his shuffle recently and how the album reflects his own musical path. “I’ve recently been getting back to more improv based, instrumental music for my local shows—you could say getting back to my roots,” Russo says. “And it struck me that this album, in particular, holds a pretty cool link and reflection on my personal career story. A guy who came up playing instrumental, improvised music then gaining most of my notoriety while performing the Grateful Dead song book with Furthur, Phil, and now JRAD. It just really hit me as a cool idea to celebrate that bridge and I decided to put a show together to explore those links. It’s a really cool bridge of where I started my professional career, where it’s taken me and how seemly I’m starting to return.”

The drummer also spoke on his choice of band members for the occasion, noting how his time in Fat Mama opened his eyes to a deeper and freer world of music, starting with one fateful night in a sports bar. “I had really found something that night,” Russo remembers. “I think that was the first step to sounding and playing like me. I will never forget that moment and I will always thank those guys for bringing that out in me. I couldn’t imagine playing this music without these Mama guys, and I’m so excited to collaborate with this group as a whole. “

Read the full interview here.