The Jefferson Airplane, for all their commercial success and artistic importance, have had a peculiarly checkered recording career; after hearing each album in toto one gets the impression that it somehow could have been better—even if what we are given is quite admirable in many aspects. Thus The Jefferson Airplane Takes Off has several rock masterpieces amid mediocrities and up against the liability of a recording that is in general poorly engineered. After Bathing at Baxters can at times sound over-indulgent, particularly "Spare Chaynge," and coupled with some tight, innovative rock tracks are several highly stylized songs that fail to hold up to repeated listenings.
in fact is both the curse and the achievement of the Jefferson Airplane. Certainly there is a constancy to the Airplane's output (as there is to that of the Byrds) that immediately marks an Airplane Album or track by style alone. Yet the problem with style (which is not only essential but a prerequisite for any work of art) is the danger of degeneration into stylization which can become a crutch and a refuge from artistic development. The new Jefferson Airplane album,
Crown of Creation, shows the group caught in the midst of a struggle between style and stylization, and the results are sometimes ambiguous.
Obviously one of the strong points of the Airplane, as well as the source of the group's problem, is the fact that the Jefferson Airplane has among its personnel a number of distinct and forcible stylists: Grace Slick, Jorma Kaukonen, and Marty Balin are only the most obvious figures in the group in this respect. Take the case of Grace Slick: here is an obviously talented vocalist who can transform a song into something unique—but at the same time, Grace is not beneath the distorted mannerism offered up in place of thoughtful style. Her "Greasy Heart" is, by and large, a satisfactory performance, but the phrasing is, to say the least, eccentric. At times peculiar words and phrases are accented in such a way as to jump out at the listener; in "he wants to sell his paintings but the market is slow," "slow" is dragged out and given such prominence to be jarring beyond ostensible purpose. On the other hand the phrase "woman with a greasy heart, automatic man" is rendered beautifully, a nice clip being applied to "automatic." The point is that Grace is not immune to the dangers of her own style which can, through exaggeration, verge on self-parody and mannerism.
Jorma Kaukonen also has developed a distinctive style; his guitar playing owes more to Kaukonen than anyone else, which is a rarity in these days of mini-Claptons, Bloomfields and B. B. Kings. However, in contrast to Grace, Kaukonen is less likely to fall into mannered playing, although often his style contributes to a stylized texture.
Which brings us to Marty Balin, whose "Share a Little Joke" is a prime example of uninteresting Airplane. "Share a Little J
