Let me in (Jefferson Airplane) (LP 2044 - 2054)

Jefferson Airplane  Jefferson Airplane Takes Off (Vinyl, RCA Records, 1966) ****  

Jefferson Airplane    Surrealistic Pillow (Vinyl, RCA Records, 1967) *****  

Jefferson Airplane   After Bathing At Baxter's (Vinyl, RCA Records, 1967) ***  

Jefferson Airplane   Crown Of Creation (Vinyl, RCA Records, 1968) *****  

Jefferson Airplane   Volunteers (Vinyl and CD, RCA Records, 1969) *** 

Jefferson Airplane   Bless It's Pointed Little Head (Vinyl and CD, RCA Records, 1969) *****  

Jefferson Airplane   The Woodstock Experience (CD, RCA, August 17, 1969 released 2009) ****  

Jefferson Airplane   White Rabbit. Live. (CD, Master Tone, recorded sometime in the sixties) *  

Jefferson Airplane   Live At The Fillmore East (CD, RCA, May-June 1968 released 1998) ***  

Jefferson Airplane   At Golden Gate Park May 7 1969 (Vinyl, Charly, 2015) ***  

Jefferson Airplane   Almost Starshipshape (Vinyl, Bootleg) ****  

Genre: San Francisco rock 

Places I remember: Marbecks Records (for all the studio records); Toad Hall (for the bootleg); JB Hi Fi (Golden Gate); Real Groovy (for the CDs)

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Let Me In (Takes Off)

Gear costume: It's No Secret (Takes Off); Won't You Try/Saturday Afternoon (After Bathing At Baxter's)

Active compensatory factors: This band is one of my favs of all time; I long ago became a completist for their albums. 

This first part takes in their sixties' output. A bumper edition, in other words.

First album, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, and the sound is right there!  

The album builds strongly on a folky base, there's the male and female interplay that Paul loved, the sinewy guitar lines from Jorma and there's Jack (he carries it, according to Marty).

The unique sound of the magic combination between Jorma, Jack, Marty and Paul (with Skip Spense on drums briefly and Signe Anderson providing the female foil in the harmonies) defines Jefferson Airplane.

It's a great start - most of the songs are brilliant and fully realized. Takes off is right!!

Second album, Surrealistic Pillow, sees the entrance of the force of nature that is Grace Slick, and new drummer Spencer Dryden.

The Jefferson Airplane folk rock sound from Takes Off is still there but with a different level of confidence, and there's a rockier edge now (3/5 of a Mile in 10 Seconds). Grace takes over the Signe role and is a presence but this is still Marty's band. Although less than half of the songs are his this time out.

Grace's sublime Somebody To Love finishes off the album, and although there was a bit of a wait, she's signaling her presence. Big time!

Side note: My copy is a UK one which repeats a couple of tracks from Takes Off and ignores White Rabbit and Plastic Fantastic Lover! Weird.

Third album, After Bathing At Baxter's, and we're not in Kansas anymore. Given it's their second album of 1967, it's quite some evolution.

Starting with some wild feedback, the album takes us all on a trip in the newly psychedelic Airplane. 

Even though it's clearly influenced by LSD, the songs are still there and it's much more democratic now - everybody gets in on the act. Overall though, it's dominated by Paul Kantner rather than Marty (who only contributes one song). Paul's Won't You Try/Saturday Afternoon is pure class! Big shout out to Jack Cassidy on this album and those last two songs.

As for Grace on this album? Rejoyce gives a glimpse of her maniacal sensibilities. It's plain scary! And utterly brilliant!

In 1968 the band produced Crown of Creation and it feels like a quantum leap in terms of sound design and songs. Lather kicks off the album and is just extraordinary in so many ways. Grace in top form!

From there on it's one great song after another with highlights thick and fast: Grace's version of Crosby's Triad (wohsers!!); Jorma's Star Track is an early pointer to Hot Tuna; Crown Of Creation; Greasy Heart; and finally, the majestic album closer - The House at Pooneil Corners.

Volunteers, from late 1969, is the last studio album to feature Marty and Spencer, as the band went into a hiatus for two years.  It has its moments (We Can Be Together, Wooden Ships, Eskimo Blue Day) but it's more uneven than Crown Of Creation. Garcia's pedal steel, for instance, on countryish The Farm doesn't quite work for me. Nor does the honky tonk-ish A Song For All Seasons.

As an album it's quite a muddle of styles - at times too bombastic, at others the country influence sits alongside science fiction or calls to man the barricades. I guess it's of its time but it does point to a certain fracturing of intent.

Live albums from the sixties: 

JA were a great live band. Not only did they sound great but they looked like a sixties psychedelic rock band should look.

There was only one live album released at the time - 1969's Bless Its Pointed Little Head, but there have been a number of excellent live albums released since then. Here's a run down:

Bless Its Pointed Little Head has a great intro from King Kong - the bit about the airplanes, beauty and the beast, gets a roar. 

The sound is tough, no nonsense (like the cover featuring just Jack). 

Highlight - 3/5's Of A Mile In 10 Seconds. Jack's bass and Spencer's drive kick off the 1968 live version of JA superbly. Not only that, Grace soars, Marty has that wide open voice, the harmonies are spectacular and we're off!

N.b. The CD version has three extra tracks.

The Woodstock Experience will forever be imprinted on my brain! 

There's Grace in bare feet and her white dress with fringes, her chirpy  'Good morning people', Jack looking like he'd just alighted from a Viking longship, Jorma/Marty/ Paul in shirt sleeves and Spencer with his natty cowboy hat on drums. Yeah - the regular guys and Nicky Hopkins. What a band!

Highlights - The Other Side Of This Life (first song, it's morning and they tear into it like people possessed!! The Ballad of You and Me and Pooneil (Jack and Spencer on fire stoked by Grace!) - it peaks and peaks and then Paul throws in some stuff from Starship. Unbelievably great!

White Rabbit. Live. This one's provenance is unclear as the package doesn't reveal much and online sources only say that it's from sometime in the sixties.

It looks budget with that terrible cover and title, and while the music is sometimes great (and mostly recorded well - doesn't sound like a radio broadcast), it isn't a cohesive concert - applause fades until the next song starts. It even includes a song called Ride that is clearly NOT Jefferson Airplane, and even though the band did do a version of Get Together on Takes Off, the version here sounds more like The Youngbloods. All very strange and shonky.

Highlight: She Has Funny Cars

Live at the Fillmore East contains a compilation of the best performances from four shows May 3 and 4 (early and late show). It's still a bit hit and miss (hit - Fat Angel and It's No Secret; miss - The Other Side Of This Life)

Highlight: Fat Angel

At Golden Gate Park May 7 1969 is a looser Airplane playing in a polo field. It's basically a bootleg, but a superior quality one. The band sound blissed out - Somebody To Love is  slowed down and woozy.

Highlight: Good Shepherd - Grace asks Jorma at the end if he wrote it or if it's a traditional arrangement. He confirms Trad. The sincerity of his playing inspires the band on this one. A beautiful moment - would have been a great moment in the park.

Finally, Almost Starshipshape and this one is a bootleg. It includes Have You Seen The Saucers? and Mexico on the track listing but nothing from Bark - and, according to Discogs comes from a concert at Winterland, 1970, so it's well named as it straddles the sixties JA and the emerging new version of JA.

The sound is pretty good for a bootleg. Clear and on the whole better than Golden Gate Park. Marty is still a presence but he'd split the scene fairly soon (April '71 in fact).

Highlights: One of my favourite Airplane songs - Have You Seen The Saucers?; Somebody To Love (a very spirited, together, performance).

Where do they all belong? A lot more JA to come. Next up: The seventies albums.

Supplementing the records there are a couple of other things worth mentioning: Richard Butterworth's effort in the On Track... series looks at every album, every song by Jefferson Airplane. It's an invaluable source of information. I got this from Foyles in Charing Cross.

A visual delight that I have in the DVD collection is Fly Jefferson Airplane - a collection of complete performances from various sources. It's wonderful seeing the band in all their colourful glory!