Jefferson Airplane - Early Flight (1974) [Vinyl]

Review by Bruce Eder

A beguiling collection of bluesy, druggy, idealistic leftovers from the Airplane's 1965-1970 history, this nine-song album was one of the first instances of a major American rock band plundering its vaults for rarities -- it's also as good a record as any of their official original albums. Musically, it's full of superb material, including the six-and-a-half minute Jorma Kaukonen-authored blues workout "In the Morning"-- an after-hours jam from the Surrealistic Pillow sessions (with Jerry Garcia on one of the guitars and John Hammond blowing the harp) that's as fine a piece of music as anything that made it onto the album -- the Signe Anderson vocal blow-out "High Flyin' Bird," and the Grace Slick-Paul Kantner sung version of "Go to Her" off of Surrealistic Pillow.