Jefferson Airplane - Jefferson Airplane

Double Compilation from Jefferson Airplane. 16 Songs Including White Rabbit, Today, Plastc Fantastic Lover and Others. Album Details

FOR SOME REASON, ALL THE REVIEWS HERE ARE FOR A DIFFERENT ALBUM, NOT THIS ONE!

** Through some sort of technical glitch on Amazon's part, all the reviews here are for Jefferson Airplaine's self titled 1989 reunion album. Here's the real story on this album (which has been released many times, with many differeny covers and titles). **

It seems inevitable that for every major recording act, there is a stray recording which, by some legal technicality, gets out from its legitimate catalog and is replicated endlessly by disreputable firms all over the world. For Jefferson Airplane, that stray recording seems to be their performance at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, which began turning up on albums of questionable legality in the 1980s, sometimes packaged with tracks copied from the group's RCA albums and other material. British label Success' Somebody to Love & Other Great Hits is a good example of this sort of thing. It actually contains all of the tracks previously released on the Creative Sounds albums Preflight and White Rabbit. Of the 16 tracks, six come from the Monterey show; three are copied from the RCA live album Bless Its Pointed Little Head; three are from RCA studio recordings (notably "White Rabbit"); and four aren't by Jefferson Airplane at all. According to the credits on Preflight, they are by a group called Steel Riders; the present album doesn't bother to mention this. (Note that the track listed as "Watch Her Ride" is actually a song called "Ride" by Steel Riders.) Of course, the counterfeiting of six RCA tracks is blatantly illegal, but to the consumer it's no worse a crime than padding out a Jefferson Airplane release with recordings by someone else. Ironically, the CD sleeve contains a copyright warning to others, which, under the circumstances, shows an amazing amount of gall.

- All Music Guide -
August 8, 2008

All these reviews csoncern an different JA product

Somebody screwed up. The discs to be reviewed are the Gold Collection, another compiliation of JA sixties songs though covering the same ground as 5 or 6 other compilations.

All of the reviews are about the JA studio reunion album from 1989. The reviewers are also all quite wrong about it. The album is good. March 5, 2008

Jefferson Airplane - Reunion Album With Mixed Results

The history of The Jefferson Airplane is fairly well known. Along with the Grateful Dead the band was a mainstay of the San Francisco counter culture movement in the late 60's. They had several huge hits, "Somebody To Love" and "White Rabbit" both of which can still be heard on classic rock radio almost daily to this day. In the mid-70's the band morphed into The Jefferson Starship eventually taking on a much more AOR-ish sound. That band eventually morphed into Starship (without the Jefferson) with Grace Slick the only remaining original member. In 1989 all of the original members of The Jefferson Airplane (sans Spencer Dryden) got back together for this reunion album. Grace Slick, Paul Kantner, Marty Balin, Jack Cassidy, and Jorma Kaukonen all came back to the fold to put this together. The results were a bit of a mixed bag, but overall I think the album came out pretty well for the most part, and I still enjoy it. One of the unique aspects of Jefferson Airplane was that they had several different songwriters in the band, each with their own unique style. This CD is the same with each member contributing different aspects to the album. Paul Kantner contributes "Planes" and "The Wheel" which are both good. People tend to either really like his songwriting or hate it. I have always liked it and enjoy the two tracks here. Grace Slick has some real high and low moments on the disc. The high points "Freedom", "Common Market Madrigal" are both great songs, but the album ends with Slick's "Panda" about Panda Bears that is pure mush. Kaukonen contributes some cool blues with "Upfront Blues", "Ice Age" and "Too Many Years". Marty Balin has always been my least favorite Airplane / Starship songwriter. His two contributions here "Summer Of Love" and "Madeleine Street" are both decent, but nothing spectacular. He also sings a couple of tunes written by outside songwriters "True Love" and "Now Is The Time". I like "Now Is The Time" the better of the two. Overall this album is probably not as good as many may have hoped, but it is still a decent release that should please fans of Jefferson Airplane and early Jefferson Starship. June 4, 2007

JA Takes Off (with a bump or two along the way)

The 1989 year end issue of ROLLING STONE listed the Airplane reunion as "The Most Unwelcome Comeback." Well, that was hardly a surprise, they had already published a pretty negative review back in the summer when the album was released. They HAD, however, given the concert tour performances a very favorable write-up. So maybe it wasn't as unwelcome as all that--at least the live component anyway.

And that tour really WAS something. I caught in Saratoga Springs, and it was just about a perfect night. Yeah, it had a bit more showbiz professionalism and pizzazz than a 60s show might have had, and yes, Jorma should not have required a second guitarist (what was that all about??), but it was overall quite the night to remember.

I had never held out high hopes that the reunion album was going to be a masterpiece. I do recall reading an advance quote from Grace that might have made me a little optimistic that they would once again catch fire. She was talking about the diversity of styles (always an Airplane strong point, IF they could blend them into some kind of synergistic whole) and referred to the song roster as "God's palette."

Well, it wasn't quite that. On the other hand, it was nowhere near as weak an album as some would have it. (You just had to know that critics would be gunning for this one like it was skeet.) And the band gave them a few easy targets. Paul Kantner was still in full anthem mode, and "Planes" would likely strike anyone but a die-hard Airplane fan as something of a clunker. It struts and frets and lumbers along for its three or so minutes on the stage. I for one, hated it at first listen, but for all its awkwardness, "Planes" manages to take off. It just has that Airplane whoosh in the chorus that can provide even Kantner's most plodding verses with enough uplift to make it all work.

And there is something almost endearing about Paul's childhood reminiscences on his school days. The song tries for something as mythic as his earlier "When I Was A Boy I Watched The Wolves," but if it works at all, it works as a sketch of a rather dreamy little kid who "even during tests...kept on drawing."

I recently re-read the RS review of this album (it's the magazine's website) in fact and found that it really was not quite as negative as I remembered it. Jimmy Guterman only awarded the effort two stars, but that's neither here nor there. He did acknowledge that the harmonies still soared (and I for one, think there's a lot to be said for that). But I had to wonder how hard he actually listened to the actual songs, when he writes dismissively of the first TWO tracks (the aformentioned "Planes" and Grace's "Freedom") that they are "one-idea platitudes that never advance beyond cliche." Actually, both songs are personal statements, in their different ways, with Kantner's aforesaid tune reminiscing about his childhood fascination with aeronautics and in the case of latter, Grace musing on interpersonal relationships and the pain of break-up. Neither song is particularly political, although Guterman takes them to task for their "earnest political" stance.

What "Freedom" does do quite well, I think, is capture Grace's fascination for flemenco style rhythm and vocal patterns and combine it some ironic observations on personal freedom and its attendant costs ("freedom now you're on your own/freedom, or does it really mean your just all alone?"). While not as daringly cryptic as some of her earlier songs, "Freedom" is full of ambivalance and uncertainty. The last thing you could call it is a "platitude."

Of course, it wouldn't be the Airplane without SOME politics and Paul, Jorma and Marty contribute to the political stew in their different ways. Jorma's cynical, blues inflected tunes would have been right at home on CROWN OF CREATION. Paul's mini-epic "The Wheel" is pretty much an extension of some of his early 70s solo work, but since its rooted in real life experience (his stay in Nicaragua), it does ring with a new authenticity that some of the earlier speculative, sci-fi/politico stuff lacked. But what really comes as a revelation to me is a song that did not get much attention at all after the album was released, namely Marty's take on Bert Brecht's "Solidarity."

Of course, by the late 80s, "solidarity" as a term had taken on a whole new anti-communist resonance that a Marxist like Brecht would never have foreseen. But the iconoclast Brecht would have understood. Marty sings this old rabblerouser tune with aching conviction, and Grace and Paul join him for the soaring chorus, creating one stirring moment after the other. For an old Airplane fan like me, who was also a German major, it's just a stunning track. The meeting of two generations of rebels (well past either generations prime, of course, but there you are, the wheel goes on...).

Some have leveled the criticism that this version of the Airplane has its moments of sounding like an off-shoot of Starship, rather than the other way around. Well, there is no denying that all the group members were older, wiser (maybe), and several had had a taste of 70s/80s style commercial success. So what "True Love" was written by the guys from Toto: it gives Marty a moment to shine and to show he still had the vocal chops to carry a smooth pop tune off. And when he and Grace duet on her "Now Is the Time," you are reminded that THAT was the kind of pop duetting that Starship was aiming for but never quite pulled off. Where Mickey was always trying to outshine Grace, Marty seems to have figured out how to complement her strengths and weaknesses--and she his. They are an unusual combo (his sweet tenor doing battle with her cutting alto), but they're also a natural fit.

Both Grace and Marty took a few hits for some of their other solo tracks as well. I can understand where the critics are come from when they knock both "The Summer of Love" and "Panda" as being, in their different ways, rather mawkish. I prefer to see them as simple and heartfelt declarations on matters of real importance to the songwriters. Marty's "Summer of Love" is an easy target. It can be viewed as the self-congratulatory musings of someone who was proud to have been there. Well, he WAS there, and he had the time of his life. Why wouldn't he want to tell us all about it? The song has scarcely a shred of irony, which makes if anathema for most critics, but also a perfect reflection of the spirit of the times. It's not too surprising that someone living at the heart of the Haight would write some 20 years later that "'67 was heaven."

As one of the band members noted at the time, the song would have been an ideal single and a likely hit IF ONLY they had gotten back together in '87, instead of '89. Their timing was just a little off, but had it been released for the 20th anniversay of the Summer of Love, it could have been big!

As for "Panda," it may be that her newfound animal activism led Grace to write her most direct, least enigmatic song of her career (with maybe "Seasons" from her DREAMS album a close second). Grace was never one to engage in cornball sentiment, so you had to know that she was passionately involved in the area of animal rights to even risk being perceived as such. But is it really that far a cry from, say, the sentiments of an earlier classic like the stream-of-consciousness lyrics of, the live "Bear Melt"? On that track, she was perhaps a bit more blase in her concern for our furry friends ("But why not keep the little animals alive, why not...?). The latter risked being maudlin, I suppose, but stemming from an artist who heretofore was known for her sarcasm and her 'tude, such sentiment is actually all the more touching. Hearing Grace intone, "Oh, Panda Bear, my gentle friend, I don't want to say goodbye...," is kinda sweet actually.

At least, that's my take on it. You're free to disagree, of course. You die-hard cynic, you.




February 16, 2007

Airplane Reunion

In 1989 the most famous line-up of the Jefferson Airplane reformed to cash in on the 60's revitalization. The result was a solid, but not spectacular effort. "Planes" is a great song and the best on the album. It holds up to most anything else the band has recorded. It is the only song that rises to a truly great level. "Summer Of Love" is a good track that reminisces about the band's glory days and "Madeline Street", "Freedom" and "Solidarity" are solid efforts. "True Love" was written by David Paich & Steve Porcaro from Toto and the song sounds like a Toto reject. January 27, 2006

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