Disco de Jefferson Airplane: “Live at the Fillmore Auditorium 10/16/66: Early & Late Shows - Grace's Debut”

This is live CD shows the one fine moment in the San Francisco music scene history.

Grace Slick known as the great, talented, charming and also controversial rock persona left the Great Society band for being the Airplane vocalist in October 1966. It was good for the San Francisco band ruled by Paul Kantner and Marty Balin and made this band very popular later as soon as she recorded two all American hits: "Somebody To Love" and "White Rabbit". But I don`t know it was good for Grace`s talent. In Airplane she sings mainly backgrounds, only few times she takes solo parts. This CD is the show peace of the Airplane art as a band ,not for the Grace singing. She just trying to background, sometimes with shyness - just like a debut singer! Only on "High Flying Bird" from the second set You`ll find the Grace Slick which every San Francisco music fan knows. If You want to hear great female singing check the Great Society live recordings ("Collector`s Item") where she rocks, hypnotizes and stands against the old 60`s tradition of woman singing.The Great Society was a better scene for show piece of Grace`s talents as a writer,singer and multi-instrumentalist.

But still this one is a nice dope of Jefferson Airplane interesting art. They rocks well on "It`s No Secret","3/5 Of a Mile In 10 Seconds" and "High Flying Bird" echoing their folk-rock fastinations. Real rarities here are extended live version of rare early Airplane works: "Don`t Let Me Down" and excellent blues cover of "Kansas City".The most fascinating track here is "Thing" in it`s early, dynamic, instrumental, east-oriented long-rolling version.To hear this one is a must!!!!!

In this way You can find how this band sounds on stage in those early days. When the Beatles and The Byrds started their own new trend all of this was already present in San Francisco. I`m not an over-optimist saying that listing to the tracks like "Thing", "Kansas City", "The Other Side Of This Live" or "Let Me In" from some point of view (like Jorma`s guitar run or Jack`s deep bass pulsating here and there) one can get even better journey than can be found on famous "Surrealistic Pillow" relesed next year. Live Airplane always used to spread their wings!

There is one important thing for all San Fransisco rock collectors here. The bootleg live tape known as the Grace first show, circulating in fan`s collections is different than this one included on oficial CD. On the way of researching tapes of Bill Graham archives this fresh realesed live sets were found and authorised as original Grace debut with the Airplane. Craig Fenton (great Airplane documentalist --> see his book "Take Me To The Circus Tent") told me that this CD is incuding the complete 2 sets of the first Grace`s performance with the new band. The previous tape comes actually from one of the Matrix show in the fall of 1966. So here on this CD You can`t find "Plastic Fantastic Lover" or "Fat Angel" as they dive on the previous tape.

Sound is acceptable and You can enjoy that special night in times when everything could happend.

Please be lucky to hear this.

A very peaceful and tight album from the period. The Jefferson Airplane were pioneers of the pschycadelic music movement of the period, and they did it so well. Without becoming weird.

On the final evening of a three-night stand at the original Fillmore, Jefferson Airplane welcomed their new co-lead singer, Grace Slick. The night before they'd bid farewell to singer Signe Anderson (the late set of which has been released on

), and in closing out the weekend they put the band's most famous lineup in place. The Sunday night set list shared several songs with previous night's, including a cover of "Tobacco Road" that sounds neither like John Loudermilk's original nor the Nashville Teen's 1964 hit single, and the Marty Balin originals "And I Like It" and "3/5 of a Mile in 10 Seconds." The set added songs from the band's debut and a few more covers, including a pre-Youngbloods take on "Let's Get Together" and a roaring guitar-fueled vision of Leiber & Stoller's "Kansas city."

Slick provided a striking visual addition to the band, as evidenced by a pair of photographs included on this set's digipack, but her vocal and writing presence in the band was yet to fully flower. She sounds tentative in harmonizing with Balin, and the signature songs she'd brought with her from the Great Society, "White Rabbit" and "Somebody to Love," either weren't played or aren't included in this condensation of the night's two sets. Slick's place in the band would solidify quickly as they gigged, recorded

and returned to the Fillmore the following month, as documented on

. This first set feels tentative in contrast to Anderson's last, though you can feel them getting more comfortable with each song, and particularly when they hit the finale, "It's No Secret."

The second set opens slowly, crawling into the slow blues of "Tobacco Road." Slick sounds almost transformed from the first set, wailing alongside Balin and cutting through with powerful, original vocal lines on "High Flyin' Bird." Kaukonen takes to the spotlight on "Kansas City," singing lead and playing atmospheric blues guitar. His brief solo on "And I Like It" is even more powerful, and a perfect compliment to a searing vocal by Balin. The band stretches out experimentally on the ten-minute "Thing," including a Jack Casady bass solo, and closes the set with a strong version of the soon-to-be-recorded "3/5 of a Mile in 10 Seconds." Slick was still singing the band's set in the shadow of Anderson's original performances, but the strength of her vocals and the moments of originality on night number one point to the new combination's rich future.

Airplane fans haven't ever really been wanting for live material, with

and

released during the years of the group's ascension, and archival recordings

,

,

released over the past few years, and numerous bootlegs circulating among collectors. But this official issue of Grace Slick's first performances with the band is a most welcome addition, showing off the immediate bond she formed with both her co-vocalists and the instrumental backings. The band's first great album, Surrealistic Pillow, was just around the corner, and within a matter of weeks they'd return to the Fillmore with Slick firmly established as an equal. 3-1/2 stars, if allowed fractional ratings. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Grace Slick is fantastic especially her early body of work. I recently acquired this disc and the potential was there almost immediately. One of my best bands ever.

Grace Slick was not the original female singer of the Airplane, Signe Toly Anderson was!

If you have not purchased "Jefferson Airplane Takes Off" you have a treat ahead of you, it is the second best of all Airplane albums, second only to "Surrealistic Pillow". Signe was an accomplished blues belter, and did a better job of blending her voice with lead singer Marty Balin than Gracie Slick. Signe had a great voice - no less "large" than Gracie who was off playing with Darby Slick and The Great Society. In one of the worst career moves in history, the pregnant Signe got away from the Airplane (and related drugs) for a few month to give birth, the Airplane raided the Great Society for Gracie and you know the rest.

Paul Kantner was an early disciple of Bleeker Street folk legend Fred Neil. What made the late sixties rock arguably some of the best rock of all time, was that Kantner, and Kaukonen were folkies, (as were Papa John Phillips, David Crosby, John Sebastian, etc) they learned their craft in coffee houses for years, playing guitars, singing harmony, writing meaningful lyrics. When Dylan started the psychedelic revolution with "Bringing it all Back Home" and the folkies went electric, with years of training. On these early albums, the Airplane's folk rock/blues roots are more evident.

Two "new" live albums have come in DEC 2010 after 45 some years in the can, "Signe's Farewell" and "Grace's Debut" (recorded the next day, with little or no Gracie practice). The best of these two is "Signe's Farewell", but both have good cuts. The Airplane is much tighter here in these early '66 sets than they are in later live albums.

Outstanding cuts are Fred Neil's anthem "The Other Side of this Life", Billy Wheeler's "High Flyin Bird" (a hit for another SanFran group HP Lovecraft), and "Lets' Get Together" by Chet Powers (aka, Quicksilver Messenger Service's Dino Valenti). Two voices don't blend that well. Grace is feeling her way, occasionally she comes in strong, showing the power that would headline her later, but sometimes she seems unsure and tentative. Jorma Kaukonen plays muscular leads on "It's no Secret". JA do a bluesy version of the Nashville Teen's hit song "Tobacco Road". On some other songs, the tempos drag...

I have not heard JA do "Kansas City" elsewhere.

Technically the mix is not perfect, the bass and drums are murky and boomy but the musicianship and tight play overcomes that. For what it's worth, this CD and it's sister are significantly better recorded than the popular "Live at the Fillmore We have Ignition" cut a month later. There is some Ping-pong stereo, singers on left and guitars on right. I feel the musicianship here is tighter than on many later JA live albums - perhaps less drugs on stage.

Probably worth having for those who love the Airplane, but get the "Signe's Farewell" album first !