For around two years now, I have had the wish to include in our beloved Prog Archives Jefferson Airplane, as I believed these guys were pioneers and helped created the style of music we are on this site for. Although I would never even think of pretending that JA were a full-blown prog group, there is a tendency by proghead to dispel this group as psychedelic rock (which of course they certainly were also), but right from their start, this group will be at the centre of one of the most important moment of rock music’s history: the Haight-Ashbury’s Summer Of Love. Jefferson Airplane were at the forefront of the movement (musically anyway) and were constantly experimenting and opening the path for just about every single group, often even slightly ahead of the Fab Four. The object of this blog is to make progheads discover just how influential this band was (Donovan even wrote a tune where he propose to fly the Jefferson Airplane)

 

I will highlight in colour the feats I consider as progressive music firsts (or among the very firsts to happen).

 

 

 

 

 

This blog is dedicated to Spencer Dryden who passed away still recently.

May you rest in peace, Spencer.

And flying the Airplane when you were not aboard was not quite the same.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

JEFFERSON AIRPLANE – Volunteers

 

 

Threatened of anti-Americanism for its anti-war stance and counter-culture championing, the Airplane countered with their next album (recorded a full year after COC) that they intended to call Volunteers Of America, but some charity organization blocked this, so the Airplane got revenge by displaying their patriotism in another manner: check the artwork and imagine the establishment’s reaction. However, it was impossible for JA to repeat their incredible artistic success of COC without making a “son of COC”, so the sextet went in a different folkier musical direction (returning to their roots really), but this album is overtly political: revolted by the R Kennedy assassination and the return to Republican rule, they just had allergies that had to come out one way or another.

 

Starting out on the Kantner protest classic We Can Be Together and the traditional Good Shepherd (arranged by Jorma), the album is off to a deceiving start especially compared with the previous three albums, but if those tracks remain good (and very good), the real dud is the (thankfully) short countryish Farm. Saving the first side of the album is Grace’s Hey Frederick, where Grace is reminding us of the previous album; she shines all the way through the 8-min+ of the track on her piano, while Jorma wails away and Jack (a bit under-mixed compared to the previous albums) is pounding the thunderous bass background. But even in this album highlight, there is a slight flaw as the group gets lost for about a minute while improvising, but catches up brilliantly. Another relatively weak track closes a deceiving first side.

 

While the first side closes off one another weaker track, the second side opens with another absolute Airplane classic, the Stills-Crosby-penned (him again ;-) Wooden Ships, which takes to the magic of tape effect intros (creaking masts waves and seagulls) has a delightful crescendo with one of Balin’s best  singing performance, Grace on piano  and Jorma pulling a superb solo. Just after this gem, comes another Slick-penned track which is reminiscent of the previous album and where Grace picks up her flute again (something she had not done in the previous COC), and reveals her anger, swearing and ranting openly. Casady is again providing some superb bass layers but is again under-mixed.

 

After two such great tracks, there was hope for another good album, but sadly the folk-country spirit returns and the album ends in a tailspin, with a sub-par title track even if it oozes rebellious revolution, it is a noisy (intended of course) call to rise and protest. Kantner still being quite a political rebel up to nowadays even though he has had major health scares. Unfortunately the album fails to raise this writer’s interest outside the three long tracks, and maybe one of the mistake done was to ignore two of the members’ contribution: Balin as the founder and Dryden’s experiments are what fails in this album.

 

The five bonus tracks on the remastered album are a live late-69 concert excerpts, just a week before the disastrous Altamont festival, where bikers would beat up (and kill one of) the audience members and Balin also. Nothing really essential in the bonus tracks, but interesting to notice the speeded-up Somebody, the updated Plastic Lover and the extended Wooden Ships. One gets to see just how much of a rock band they were.

 

This album would be the last really good and influential album, with Marty Balin now departing, as his role was fast eroding (only one partial credit on the album), but also Spencer Dryden leaving on grounds of exhaustion: he was doubling with Casady and Kaukonen in the Hot Tuna-aftermaths of JA concerts (the trio could play up to six hours a night), but his love affair with Grace was now over as she was now frequenting Kantner. The group also created their own label (which at the time was only done by the Beatles, The Moody Blues and the Rolling Stones) named Grunt (oh the humour!). What the Airplane will do after this album is really not quite as classic or influential as their albums up to now. Even if I do not appreciate this album as much as the previous ones, please be assured I am in a minority, even if I still call this album highly influential

 

AND

 

 

 

JEFFERSON AIRPLANE – Bless Its Pointed Little Head

 

 

Between Creation and Volunteers came out this live album, recorded in autumn of 68 in both the Fillmore East and West. This weirdly-titled (you don’t want to know how this came about ;-) live album came with an equally weird artwork depicting a drunken French-bereted Casady in a ballroom. This album is interesting in a few ways as it shows the different live facet of the Airplane that might not have been so obvious in their studio recordings. Indeed the blues facet was not shunned in studio, in concert it became more present and the backbone of the group (the three virtuosos, Kaukonen, Casady and Dryden) took on a lengthy and improvisational turn as much as was tolerable for the “singers” of the group. So much so, that this would lead to the trio actually creating their own unit (first called Hot sh*t, then Hot Tuna) and started opening the JA concert or doing aftershows as the trio was sometimes playing up to six hours a night.

 

Another first in JA concerts came the pre-recorded intros (here the track called Clergy), something to would be commonplace for some of the “prog” giants (Yes and RB’s Rainbow among others). Of course are present a good deal of the shorter and better known tracks, but there are plenty of other ones that were first released including the longer more jam-oriented tracks. Some covers such as the standard Rock Me Baby, the lengthy Bear Melt, Donovan’s Fat Angel (in which the Scott troubadour sang JA’s praises) and Fred Neil’s Other Side Of This Life. One of the striking thing is that most of the band’s shorter tracks (the “hits” if you wish) are all speeded-up, something rather usual and hardly noticeable in concert, but disturbing while sitting at home. Disappointingly, there are no tracks from their masterpiece Crown Of Creation and no preview of the album to come, Volunteers. The three bonus tracks on the remastered version of the album are well in the line of the album, exploring more the Baxter and Pillow albums.

 

So this album is not essential to progheads (the jams are fairly straightforward and do not go in uncharted or difficult terrain), but those confirmed JA fans will find it indispensable, especially those wishing to see the genesis of Hot Tuna.

 

 

JEFFERSON AIRPLANE LOVES YOU

 

 

 

Fly Jefferson Airplane, won't you fly?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last batch of reviews for their studio output

 

 

 

JEFFERSON AIRPLANE – Bark

 

By the time Bark had been released, almost two years had passed since Volunteers (well there was a typically JA-styled compilation actually called “The Worst of JA” released since), and the group had been busy getting the Grunt record label going and a few albums had been released and Hot Tuna was gaining more momentum. So it was not liked they did anything. But with the newcomers in the fold, the feeling had changed quite a bit and the album would actually be a bit of a disappointment for fans, but this writer does not think that Bark is any better or worse than Volunteers (which is definitely not been up to par to their previous album), just different. At first glance, it is easy to see that the group  once again opted for more concise and tighter song, with none exceeding the 4¾-mark.  Actually the first side of the album was of a rather high calibre with a trilogy of excellent songs from Feel So Good to Pretty As You Feel running through Crazy Miranda. All three of these tracks are definitely worthy of their earlier masterpieces: the Kaukonen-penned FSG Tuna (I know, but I could not help it ;-) is Hot (eeehmm!!! Toooo easy ;-), while Grace’s Miranda track show again her songwriting and piano skills. PAYF is one of the tracks where Papa John gets in his violin lines beautifully Jorma’s guitar. 

 

Unfortunately, the second side will not really follow suit and it has a real blunder in that stupidly-titled Never Argue With A German track, which would cause them harm. One of the things that the average Airplane flyers can complain about is that Casady’s bass is again slightly under-mixed, because musically speaking the man is still at the top of his game, but less audible. Part of was made the Airplane special (the Balin-Slick duel/duets) and Dryden’s crazy electronics doodlings was now history and for progheads, this was not good news.

 

As it turns out, the group had just waited too long between the over-rated but high-profile Volunteers and this much lower-keyed affair not as well distributed or promoted. Two years was simply too long a break and their dropping out of the public eyesight allowed others to step in the gap and get their share of sunshine exposure.

 

 

JEFFERSON AIRPLANE – Long John Silver

 

 

 

 

With young Joey Covington having flown from the nest (he would later reappear in Hot Tuna), the Airplane had to resort to a real outsider in the name of John Barbata as a new drummer. By the time this album came out in July 72, it was clear that the Airplane’s best days had gone and it was only a matter of time before it would be grounded indefinitely if not permanently. But the Airplane was not about to go out without a bang, and it came in the form of their gimmick artwork sleeve: It could be folded out and turned into a cigar-box while the inner sleeve represented the aligned cigars layer. But once it was pulled out, you could see the bottom of the box depicting a stash of weed (Jamaican Lamb’s Bread just in case you ask me ;-). Yet another way to rile up the establishment, but this kind of provocation was only possible because of their Grunt record label.

 

 

The Opening title track is a relatively strong start with Jorma pulling a scorching solo while Jack is soaring like he had not since COC (in terms of volume), especially with the follow-up Areie (aptly sub-titled Gang Of Eagles) is another superb (as usual) Slick track, where Papa John and Jorma trade licks over the hood of Grace’s piano. But unfortunately the rest of the tracks will not be up to par, even in the potentially explosive (lyrically anyway) Son Of Jesus.

 

Likewise the second side contains two excellent tracks like the typical Slick-track Easter (although it sounds like a remake of Aerie) and the Hot Tuna-like Trial By Fire is a very catchy (and Jack .is superb) The intended funny Alexander The Medium track falls a bit flat on its face, while their ultimate send-off (Eat Starch, Mom) is rather average. Again for the proghead, the harvest for gems is rather meagre, but remains another good rock album that many of their compadres would love to call their own.

 

Again for long-time frequent flyers, this album was slightly deceiving, but it remained qualitatively on the height of Volunteers and Bark. But sales were dwindling (a good deal of the fans were disappointed at Balin not coming back), the world was changing and it was some three years since the Airplane had lost their front rank in terms of groundbreaking music and political rebellion, and the Golden 60’s hangover was simply tenacious.

 

 

 

JEFFERSON AIRPLANE LOVES YOU

 

 

 

Fly Jefferson Airplane, won't you fly?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Waddya think?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The aftermath:

After the Airplane finally landed, the members headed in different directions, but their respective paths kept crossing each other. Their official home site:

 

http://www.jeffersonairplane.com/ - http://www.jeffersonairplane.com/

 

 

 

The backbone of the group had already decided to keep Hot Tuna going and went on for a lengthy career (still touring nowadays) first as a blues and folk band (mainly acoustic) and later during the mid-70’s released a series of classic Hard Rock albums of which can be noted: Burgers ***, Phosphorescent Rat **** and Hoprkov***.

 

http://rateyourmusic.com/misc/link_image?album_id=21453&q=+Hot+Tuna+The+Phosphorescent+Rat">

 

 

The couple of Grace Slick and Paul Kantner started an interesting series of three solo (or duo) albums: Blows Against The Empire ( Jefferson Starship ) ****, Sunfighter ** and Baron Von Tolbooth And The Chrome Nun (with Quicksilver MS’s David Freiberg) ***. Warmly recommended and fairly similar in Spirit to JA is Blows against The Empire, especially the second side of the album.

 

http://rateyourmusic.com/misc/link_image?album_id=13058&q=+Paul+Kantner+%2f+Jefferson+Starship+Blows+Against+the+Empire">

 

Then with Marty Balin , the pair decided to reform the band, but being incredibly honest, they used a different name in Jefferson Starship. While the first albums are worth a listen (good rock, increasingly AOR as new albums got released), there is little for the proghead in those albums, until Balin and much later Kantner left. The group then shortened their name to Starship (following some bad blood between Kantner and the rest of the band while Slick was coming and going at will) and did some quite awful records until the late 80’s.

 

In parallel with JS, Grace Slick got a solo career on track, releasing four or five albums of which only the first is of real interest to progheads. Manhole**** and Dreams**.  Manhole is very warmly recommended to progheads with two excellent "progressive" lengthy tracks.

 

http://rateyourmusic.com/misc/link_image?album_id=21590&q=Grace+Slick+Manhole">

 

In 89, came out a new Airplane album with the classic line-up (minus drummer Dryden), but this album is not fondly remembered by fans.

 

 

 

JEFFERSON AIRPLANE LOVES YOU

 

 

 

Fly Jefferson Airplane, won't you fly?

 

 

 

 

Thanks Micky, will publish them soon!

 

Another compilation that seems to be forgotten is Flight Log, which featured material from all of the JA and transition period releases except one, Early Flight, which I presume was released after Flight Log. Flight Log ends on the early Jefferson Starship album-Dragonfly and has an unreleased live song "Please Come Back". 

 

 

 

The couple of Grace Slick and Paul Kantner started an interesting series of three solo (or duo) albums: Blows Against The Empire ( Jefferson Starship ) ****, Sunfighter ** and Baron Von Tolbooth And The Chrome Nun (with Quicksilver MS’s David Freiberg) ***. Warmly recommended and fairly similar in Spirit to JA is Blows against The Empire, especially the second side of the album.

JEFFERSON AIRPLANE – Live At The Monterey Festival

 

 

 

For decades, the Airplane's performance at the Monterey Festival (which was part of their legend) was only seen with the movie performance of Today and High Flying Bird, which was only one fifth of their full set. At the start of the 90's, Thunderbolt Records released the full set, which was greatly awaited by fans. Now remember that this recording took place at one single (and legendary) event with all its flaws and lack of experience and technology. So if the recording is not excellent, it is actually quite good, still and quite acceptable for younger generations. Remember that the Monterey Festival took place between their Surrealistic Pillow's release and probably as they were nearing the end of writing the songs of ABA Baxter's.

With the intro presenting the band as "a perfect example of what the world was coming to" and Grace laughing with much of it, the groups launches its set by using their two aces right away: Somebody and Rabbit are first and third in the setrlist and played out faithfully. While Other Side Of This Life and High Flying Bird are both excellent, the gropup is only still getting warmed up and has not yet done any improvisations, playing the songs faithfully. With the superb She Has Funny Cars, they start to digress slightly and by the time of the last track on their set, they were getting warm and gave us ablistering 11-min version of You & Me & Pooneil, with blistering improvs and solos. Sadly the set is a bit too short (always is the case in Festivals) as it was clear that Kaukonen, Casady and Dryden were set for more.

 

Overall, this live album is just as essential as Bless Its Little Pointed Head and more so than the latter 30 Seconds Over Winterland, which came at the end of the group's life. Somehow, one can hope that one day, the full set that was recorded by cameras will also be available.

 

JEFFERSON AIRPLANE – JEFFERSON AIRPLANE  (89)

 

http://www.progarchives.com/Progressive_rock_discography_CD.asp?cd_id=12324">

 

 

Well, I am not sure that JA needed to risk their legend on this album. But after the final crash of that awful Starship (which had lost its Jefferson moniker some four or five years earlier), which had no link at all with the original group, Grace Slick and the other reunited in its almost classic line-up. Everybody was present from either Hot Tuna or other projects. Only Spencer Dryden was missing, and from what I gathered, they simply thought he would not be interestred, which turned out to be false.

 

But was the Airplane going to succeed in a second take-off, or was this a just-once reunion? Well it turned out to be a one-shot deal and when listening to the album, we can safely say that, it was not going to last too long. After a strong start with the first three songs being of the calibre of bark or LJS, and the excellent Ice Age (Kaukonen-penned), unfortunately when you expect the album to really head for the higher atmosphere with the promising Summer Of Love, things come to an almost-crash. Indeed this Balin-penned track is a syrupy ballad, and no matter how much a frequent Airplane flyer you are, it is insipid and mediocre. Unfortunately, this was not just one air-hole; the flight would become quite turbulent for the rest of the album. On the up-side of things, one could've expected disaster with such a risqué album, but JA avoids a few traps that other classic bands fell into later: the usual awful drumming of that 80's period is not present here (well just one track). Their drummer does have the sound of 80's drummers but plays very much the 70's way throughout most tracks (well playing with Casady as your bassist will kick your butt in to shape), and although not great, the drumming is fitting. I wish groups like T2 or Procol Harum (with the awful Prodigal stranger album), had not fallen into this trap (set by the industry), but JA had too much a rebel attitude left in them, to refuse too much pressure. Unfortunately the second part of the album is made of sub-par tracks that have a filler feeling to them. The instrumental Upfront Blues being the better track in the end of the album, this gives a clear view that most of the members brought their own songs beforehand and therefore few (just one IMHO) were written collegially.

 

Hardly essential, even for the more die-hard fans, this album is not far from the level of Bark or LJS, and almost on-par with the better Jefferson Starship albums, and certainly better than the dreadful Starship crap discs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

xx

 

Although I never considered JA as part of "progressive rock", but rather psychedelic folk rock, given they are among my top favorites I must congratulate you sincerely.

 

Excellent essay!

 

Was there a change of personnel and style each time?

 

The biggest change between Jefferson Starship and Airplane is that both Jack Casady and Jorma Kaukonen (the better musicians in the band) had left and formed Hot Tuna.

 

I wasn't around, but I heard this from Casady himself: Jack and Jorma loved to play for hours on end and usually extended JA concerts beyond reasonable point, that they first started to have their own slot during the JA concerts, then when Hot Tuna was a side project, they opened for JA, and since they kept playing, apparently they were holding JA to appear. So they were told to play after JA also if they wished. The duo could go on to play some six or seven hours/night.

 

 

Jefferson Starship's name first appeared in the first Kantner solo album (this was much better than the remaining two JA studio albums) Blows Against The Empire  when he started including Sci-Fi  texts into his songs (well before Yes' Starship Trooper) and his album got a nomination for the Hugo Sci-Fi awards (the only time that a record was up for ballots back then). This album was a who's who in Frisco and the first of three albums which should be included as prog-related. Sunfighter (again loaded with Sci-Fi) and Baron Tollboth And The Chrome Nun are both excellent. The last one is loaded with Mellotron and the line-up is almost the same than the future JS (including teen ager Craig Chaciquo on lead guitar).

 

Grace Slick's first solo album Manhole is also brilliant prog-related and 1980's Dreams  is in the same vein. 

 

 

But when JA's final moments did come in 73, Jack and Jorma's Hot Tuna (first name was hot sh*t >> vetoed) was a complete group, pumping out some very solid album (Phosphorescent Rat and Burgers), but Hot Tuna is nothing prog except the brilliant virtuosi qualities from the duo.

 

So when the rest of group did get back together, they changed the name to Jefferson Starship (for contractual and human reasons.

 

They actually played some pretty good RnR in their first two albums, (with original singer Marty Balin back in the fold) but the weak point is that there were so many songwriters trying to get their songs in the albums that this was creating tensions, so they started writing communally, unfortunately taking away the personal sides of most songs. They quickly became one of the leader of AOR of the late 70's.  Listen to Miracles for the template AOR.

 

Jefferson Starship is mostly AOR and never had a stable line-up (Journey, also a Frisco band rising from the ashes of the first Santana group, learned everything from them, after Rollie and Dunbar left), but in general Jeffesron Starship is the logical continuation of the last two Airplane studio albums and the Kantner-Slick solo albums, but I do not favor JS in the Archives at all.

 

 

When Kantner got really sick of touring in 83 and quite a few increasingly less interesting albums, he was the only old guy around: Freiberg (ex-QMS, not productive), Balin (also not productive and bored) and Slick (substances and alcohol)  were gone for various reasons, he tried to stop JS. The rest of the group (all young guys busy to make a career) tried to kick him out highjacked the Jefferson Starship name, got Slick to clean up and come back and started to tour. Kantner won his lawsuit, and the group had to drop the Jefferson part, so then went on as Starship.

 

But everything Starship has ever done is destroy the Jefferson legacy. Calling them corporate rock is rather correct description, because anything went with them, their were for full exploitation.

 

We Build This City On RnR was voted as the worst N° 1 ever, a few years back  and I really believe this is so. I hated Grace for singing that! She was an icon in my eyes until then, but she destroyed her legend around that time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hot Tuna are an old favourite of mine, from way back when I picked an LP by them without a clue who they were. I loved "Hit single number 1" instantly!

 

If memory serves, that comes either from America's Choice or Yellow Fever album (that one borders on metal).

 

But nowadays Hot Tuna is playing acoustic US folk, ranging from Appalachian Folk to Cajun andf from Acadian to Bluegrass and Hillbilly. Not fascinating but both are from West Virginia, which is stuck in the middkle of the Appalachian mountain range (they might even have electricity there nowadays ).

 

Yes Jorma was ever a follower of the Rev Gary Davis and his finger picking style of blues.  This is not your three chord blues structure of most blues groups of the day.  The idea was to pick not just a melody but a contrasting, for lack of a better term, bass line as well.  Sort of a counterpoint.  Davis was a master of it.   Jorma runs a school now called the Fur Peace Ranch where and Jack among others teach this style to a new generation of players.

 

http://www.FurPeaceranch.com - WWW.FurPeaceranch.com

 

 

I thought the Water Song on Burgers and a couple of the songs on Phosphorescenct Rat were pretty stellar if not Prog.  Some great playing on those.  Jack and Jorma call the albums after that such as America's Choice Hopkorv and Yellow Fever  as Hot Tuna the Metal years.

 

I have seen both versions of Tuna electric and acoustic and I like both but I prefer the acoustic. 

 

One another note in your commentaries Hughes you mentioned that fist band actually called theJefferson Starship.  I saw that band perform in 1975.  The band consisted of Kantner/Slick and David Frieburg, Peter Sears (Jeff Beck Group) on bass and keys, John Barbata on drums and Chaquico on lead guitar,.  (Grace introduced him as Jail Bait) They played the second side of Blows against the Empire in entirety.  As much a prog suite as anything.

 

Great thread. 

 

 

I am green with jealousy, for I was only 12 and even had they come to Canada in 75, I'd probably have missed them anyway.