Jefferson Airplane

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)

 

 

 

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.

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.

 

 

 

I mention them, but Sunfoghter is definitely inferior to Blows and Baron is too Psyched-out for my tastes although Zappa could appreciate it. But I will re-check out Sunfighter soon. Thanks!!!