Jefferson Airplane

Unreleased Live Shows; Re-mastered (Collector's Choice Music)

By Andrea Rice
Published: December 16th, 2010 | 7:00am

Live at the Fillmore West 10/15/66 Late Show—Signe’s Farewell

A hush grew over the San Francisco crowd at the Fillmore Auditorium, as an announcer made an introduction to the budding psychedelic sextet collective powerhouse of the late ‘60s.“Candidates for the sexual freedom relief—Jefferson Airplane.” As the show began, the roar of the audience was deafened. The grandeur sound of an aircraft as its engine accelerates down a runway to take flight, couldn’t have been a more appropriate way to re-introduce the colossus that is the newly re-mastered Jefferson Airplane; live at the Fillmore, San Francisco in 1966. Getting right into “Jam” (literally) the stage was set for the first of many ten-or-so minute jammed-out, spaced-out jam sessions that would follow. Much like the Grateful Dead, this was what gave the Airplane their following.

For the true Jefferson fanatic, this re-mastered collection of unreleased live material, won’t introduce the classic hits until much later in the catalogue. Signing off on this particular night was Signe Toly Anderson, who sang alongside her fellow founding member Marty Balin since the band’s inception in 1965. Anderson, who decided to leave the band to pursue the stability of “family life”, paved the way for the arrival of Grace Slick, who would later perform at the Fillmore the very next night with the band. Anderson’s departure wasn’t even officially announced publicly until nearing the end of the show. “I want you all to wear smiles and daisies and ‘thoughts balloons’, I love you all and thank you. Good bye.” Anderson bid farewell to her audience of flower-power hippies just before the band broke into another (more twangy) jam session in “Chauffeur Blues.”

While the same old Airplane we knew then and yet are still familiar with now resonates throughout this massive re-release, the rawness of a real live show ricochets about the Fillmore, giving a younger generation of virgin ears a chance to hear what these iconic pioneers of psychedelia might have actually sounded like in a live setting. While the overall sound is somewhat muffled and at times flat, the audio quality is impressive, given the era of the recordings. One might still get the distinct sense of “being there” with the echoing shrills of a hard-hitting high hat and groovy reverb of an electric guitar, that can really only be captured during a live performance.

Live at the Fillmore West 10/16/66 Early & Late Shows—Grace’s Debut

Re-enter the Airplane version 2.0, new and improved. The show began on night two with even more aircraft-carrying noises, this time the revving of a propeller and engine, complete with the whooshes of take-off into full flight. The Airplane saved the heavy jam session for much later in the performance this time, to introduce their latest secret weapon; a new lead female vocalist. “Would you like to know a secret, just between you and me/ I don’t know where I’m going next, I don’t know who I’m gonna be.” The twin vocals of Marty Balin’s balladry combined with the unveiling of the famed wail that is Grace Slick (who made her debut that night) are just as we might recall from the dusty vaults of mom and dad’s subculture record collection. Although the transition from Anderson to Slick was not officially publicized until after she made her debut, ticket holders received a history-in-the-making surprise without even knowing it, and surely wouldn’t have been disappointed.

The set was similar to night one, consisting of even more material from their debut, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, that had not been played the night prior. Repeats include “Tobacco Road” and “3/5 of a mile in 10 Seconds.” The main difference was Slick’s introduction to the psychedelic stage, which begun none-shy of grace and modesty. She backed up Balin at the start of the show, before showing off her true prowess and soul singing chops during the latter portion. During this progression, the real Grace Slick was revealed as arpeggios of mid-Eastern guitar riffs built up, demonstrating the bands status as a solid psychedelic rock group, giving their fans a taste of what was to come (queue our next ten-minute instrumental breakdown).

Live at the Fillmore West 11/25/66 & 11/27/66—We Have Ignition

In the short month since Slick’s introduction as the new female vocalist behind JA, the band was already one of the most talked about must-see live shows on the San Francisco circuit, no doubt by the aide of their spiritual guru, Jerry Garcia— the mastermind behind psychedelic originators, the Grateful Dead. Clearly, We Have Ignition is aptly named, as the band had grown and adjusted to its new female lead and was more than ready for take-off. Their accomplishments during this brief interim might imply the band were in a time warp of sorts, sounding as if they had been practicing together for years. They were also busy cutting a new record in the studio that would later be known as Surrealistic Pillow. The two discs span two nights back at the Fillmore, where it had all started with Slick. Most of the same mishmash of tracks were performed again, and a few new tunes were introduced. It was there that Slick’s infamous “White Rabbit” made its debut (assuming this was perhaps the first time the song was ever played publicly).

Return to the Matrix

Just shy of two years later, JA delves right into it at the Matrix— a former pizza parlor turned club, dubbed by Balin in ’65 to serve as a home base for his band and other similar acts like Janis Joplin to follow. The cult classic “Somebody to Love” begins the final two-disc masterpiece— the most universally appealing of all six in the collection. With Slick’s polished vocals as the evident driving force behind the band, Return to the Matrix is pure San Francisco treat and the Airplane have at last released full-throttle. By then, they were less experimental per se, with more quasi-traditional rock songs like “She Has Funny Cars.” The Airplane still maintain their instrumental-heavy psychedelic nature, all the while transcendent to the next-level of musicianship, like in “Kansas City,” a bluesy rockabilly number. In fact the Airplane is SO Airplane by now, that they even dedicated an entire song to an all-instrumental ten-minute breakdown in “The Ice Cream Phoenix.”

The Matrix is a celebration of what the Jefferson Airplane still are to most of us today. Although everything JA was to its fans in the late sixties and early seventies doesn’t quite have the same revolutionary impact to us here in 2010, it’s still healthy to reminisce on any radical period and identify with its nostalgia. Let’s face it; the days of sexual free love and experimental drug culture are long behind us. The 60s might be over, however, in retrospect there are also many of us who feel that we are now on another brink of major social change (call it revolution if you will). We ought to continue to fight for what we believe in and against what we might find unjust. At the end of the day, there are bands that simply latch onto movements (much like many of our beloved pop stars of the moment) and don’t necessarily stand the test of time. One might argue that JA might not hold up to that particular honor, due to their extensive drug use and the notion of merely riding the coattails of the Grateful Dead. In hindsight, they changed their name three times after all, re-branding themselves before the music industry even knew what re-branding was.

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Jefferson Airplane official site

Collector’s Choice Music