Jefferson Starship - Live At BB King’s Club NY 2000.
JEFFERSON STARSHIP
LIVE AT BB KING’S CLUB NY 2000
(Floating World)
By Paul Davies
8.5/10
There is a treat of tasty morsels of timeless music to chew over and indulge in on this extensive collection of Starship/Airplane live renditions by this latter-day assembly of players. Led by Paul Kanter and Marty Balin, this iteration cooks up a flavoursome feast of sound on these well-travelled and much-loved tracks. Compiled from band manager Michael Gaiman’s ‘Micks Picks’ recordings from the two shows at BB King’s Blues Club NYC in 2000, this was the first released ‘Mick’s Picks’ official bootleg recording. It’s presented here over three highly satisfying discs.
Drawn largely from the Jefferson Airplane songbook, there’s also a smattering of songs from the Kantner led 70s Starship plus a few interesting rarities such as Marty Balin’s ‘81 solo hit ‘Atlanta Lady’ which, with Balin’s multi-million selling ballad ‘Miracles’, finely showcases this much-missed musician's tremendous talent. Much the same is true of Kantner who is the big beating heart driving this this band onwards. Kantner’s songs are masterpieces of mystic music such as ‘Have You Seen The Saucers’ and ‘Your Mind Has Left Your Body ‘the latter taken from Kantner and Grace Slick’s ‘Baron Von Tollbooth And The Chrome Nun’ ‘73 album; it’s also the last track that Kantner, Grace Slick, Jorma Kaukonen, and Jack Casady played on together until 1989’s Jefferson Airplane reunion album. Another Kantner classic song ‘Planes’ is lifted from this otherwise lacklustre reunion album. The song’s narrative of a boy romantically obsessed with aeronautics is delivered beautifully in this semi-acoustic setting and showcases Kantner’s gift for storytelling in song. No easy feat, Singer Diana Mangano holds her own interpreting Grace Slick’s song parts such as on ‘Lather’ and ‘Greasy Heart’ and on a rousing ‘Volunteers’. Elsewhere, ‘Slick’ Aguilar delivers some stunning six-string action and current Starship keyboardist Chris Smith adds extra layers of texture. A most welcome musical adventure back down the rabbit hole on this comprehensively compiled release