cozmik_cowboy wrote:
Jack Casady, w/mid to late Jefferson Airplane, early Hot Tuna; I'm not sure how late it goes.
Actually virtually none of Jack's recordings feature his Alembic bass - I think a few studio tracks + the 30 Seconds Over Winterland live sessions.
Most of the era you refer to was recorded with the Guild Starfire, which, at different points, included some Alembic mods, but AFAICT, the mods were added to the Hagstrom pickups, which were retained .
Dan Schwartz in an article explains it all thus:
The Jazz bass is still Jack's main instrument on Baxter's, though towards the end of these sessions he started trying out his new Guild.
The tale of Jack's Guild Starfires roughly begins with Augustus Stanley Owsley (otherwise known as Bear) taking the instrument in late 67 or early 68 to do some circuit mods with Ron Wickersham, one of the founders of Alembic. Their circuit was a variable Q resonant filter, with Darlington emitter-followers at the pickup to lower output impedance before the filter. Originally a natural finish spruce/maple instrument, an L.A. luthier named Roy Noble refinished it dark brown, coloring over the binding somewhat. Jorma's wife Margareta created an abstract design that was inlaid into the peghead by Chuck Erikson. As a surprise for Jack, Chuck stuck some model-train lights under the inlay, to be battery-powered through the second and third strings. They didn't get it working, but apparently Owsley did, after being told they were in there a year later. Jack used this bass for the next three Airplane albums. It was stolen shortly after the Woodstock festival, and Jack bought another, a Sunburst '68 or '69, on the road. He shipped it back to Wickersham immediately with orders to rush. There wasn't time for woodworking, so Ron sawed out part of the top around the lower f-hole, installing three magnesium channels for the controls. The circuit was an update of the previous filter, installed in time for the Berkeley performance recorded on the first Hot Tuna album. Jack used this bass until early '72, when he got the Alembic.
Jack's new bass was the first all-Alembic instrument, built by Rick Turner, with pickups of his design, and elaborate electronics by Wickersham, including two channels of state-variable filters (low-, band- and high-pass) with variable Q and direct volume controls to combine the unfiltered sound with the filtered. There were 4 or 5 sets of interchangeable pickups on sliding rails so that Jack could experiment with their position and interchangeable bridge saddles of different materials. At some point over the next three years, the bass got dropped onto concrete, and after going back to Alembic for repair of body cracks, Jack felt it never sounded the same. (The instrument is currently intact with the exception of burned out neck LED's and standard Alembic PF-6 electronics on purpleheart faceplates instead of the original birds-eye maple).
Jack replaced the Alembic with a short-scale Flying V bass with a mahogany body by Glenn Quan attached to an old Guild Thunderbird neck and 60's Guild pickups. He used this bass during Hot Tuna's hard-rocking period.
Frank
