`Bands are strange animals,” says Jack Casady. ”Imagine six painters going up to a wall, each with their own set of paints, trying to make a work of art. Well, a band takes a blank space in time and fills it up with music.” Casady should know about creative collaboration. As bassist for Jefferson Airplane, he played with three highly individualistic songwriters-Paul Kantner, Marty Balin and Grace Slick-who managed for five tumultuous years to work together.
”I look back in wonder,” Casady says of the band`s halycon days in the late `60s, when Jefferson Airplane was one of the most provocative groups in pop music. ”I wonder at how I managed to live through it,” he adds.
These days, Casady is touring with Jefferson Starship, led by Paul Kantner, which plays Jamboree Days on Saturday in Carpentersville.
”I have a little bit of mixed feelings about playing in Starship, which is not really the truer form that Airplane was,” says Casady. ”But I told Paul that whatever he wanted to call the group, I`d play with him because I really like his songs.”
When Jefferson Airplane first hit it big with the release of
”Surrealistic Pillow” in 1967, the group was an unusually democratic organization.
”We had no musical director and so many writers and directions that there was a lot more chaos in our music than you normally heard. But we were also able to take chances,” Casady says. ”We were all trying to find our own identity, and this happened in a period when that was going on all over in society, in a lot of different ways.”
After creating a string of hit albums, which included such songs as
”White Rabbit,” ”Wooden Ships” and ”Volunteers,” Jefferson Airplane disbanded in 1972 when Casady, disenchanted with the conficts that had developed among the Airplane songwriters, left to form Hot Tuna with guitarist Jorma Kaukonen.
He has recorded and toured intermittently under the Hot Tuna banner ever since.
Longevity is important to Casady, 48, who says people are amazed that he is still rock `n` rolling.
”In any other music-classical, country, blues-you`re expected to get better as you get older,” he says. ”But in rock, you`re supposed to make a killing while you`re young, then drop off and open a restaurant, like a football player or something.”
But that`s not an option for him. ”I`ve always looked at myself as a musician, a craftsman working on his art,” he says. ”That`s what has kept a grip on reality for me.”
Jefferson Starship, which also features Darby Gould on vocals and Papa John Creach on violin, will play a selection of Airplane songs as well as
”Ride the Tiger” and other Starship hits. The show begins at 9 p.m. on Saturday at Carpenter Park, Maple Avenue and Carpenter Boulevard,
Carpentersville.
Other festival headliners include the Marshall Tucker Band at 8 p.m. Friday and Marie Osmond at 8 p.m. Sunday. Admission is $3 each day. Call 708-426-8565.
