At the Family Dog Ballroom [PA] [Digipak]

Performer: Jefferson Airplane
Artist: Jerry Garcia
Distributor: Phantom Import Distributi

Notes: This 1969 live recording finds the Airplane on their home turf at their creative zenith, promoting their last great album (VOLUNTEERS) before the classic lineup began to splinter. What more do you need to know? From the warm folk-rock of "Good Shepherd" to the no-prisoners political barnstormer "Volunteers," this is West Coast psychedelia in its last blaze of glory, the flames fanned by Jorma Kaukonen's magic guitar and the twin-vocals attack of Grace Slick and Marty Balin. The Airplane would make two more albums before turning into Jefferson Starship, but the VOLUNTEERS era's achievements remained unmatched. Although the European market has been flooded with unauthorized Jefferson Airplane live recordings that are bootlegs in all but name, there has also been a series of apparently legitimate releases with excellent sound and packaging issued by Charly in the U.K. and previously including At Golden Gate Park and Last Flight. This third release in the series comes chronologically in between its predecessors, having been recorded in September 1969. At that time, Jefferson Airplane was in the midst of preparations for its studio album Volunteers, which would be released in November, and five of the songs to be featured on that LP are previewed at this show ("Good Shepherd," "We Can Be Together," "The Farm," "Wooden Ships," and "Volunteers"). In addition, the band was looking forward to the more fragmented state in which it would exist in coming years, with spin-off entities working simultaneously with the main band. Toward the end of the 15-minute opening version of "The Ballad of You and Me and Pooneil," singer/guitarist Paul Kantner begins introducing material that would turn up later on his 1970 solo album Blows Against the Empire, and "Come Back Baby," a showcase for lead guitarist/singer Jorma Kaukonen, heralds his and bassist Jack Casady's nascent duo Hot Tuna (which recorded its debut album the same month as this show). Jefferson Airplane cannot claim as much justification as the Grateful Dead for putting out a series of live albums; the band had a more limited repertoire than the Dead and was not given to lengthy improvisations to the same extent as its San Francisco contemporary. But in addition to the foreshadowing inclusions already mentioned, this release proves an exception via the inclusion of an energetic 26-minute "Jam" that takes on Dead-like characteristics by including the Dead's lead guitarist, Jerry Garcia, as a guest. That will make this album valuable not only to Airplane fanatics, but to Dead fans as well. ~ William Ruhlmann

One of the quintessential San Francisco psychedelic bands, the Jefferson Airplane brought together interests in acoustic blues, folk, and rock music. Add political topicality and modal improvisations, and you have an inspired, mind-bending sound that could have only sprung forth from the late '60s. In their initial, most beloved phase, they were powered by the powerful dual lead vocals of Grace Slick and Marty Balin and the serpentine guitar of Jorma Kaukonen. They went through a traumatic series of personnel and name changes over the decades (they ventured into commercial AOR in the late '70s and early '80s) but their early work retains its seminal power.

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