Jefferson Airplane
May 9, 1969
Memorial Auditorium, Kansas City, Kansas

Source: Audience Master on 7Ã“ Reel @3.75ips TT: 01:01:03

Lineage: Baked Master Reel (playback on TEAC A-4010 SL) -> DAT-> Multiple Sony DTC-700 transfers -> wavs 16bit/48k -> Logic (repair patching, tracking and dither- no EQ or signal processing!) -> wav 16/44.1 - > xAct (SBE correction) -> FLAC

Personnel:
Grace Slick - vocals
Marty Balin - vocals
Paul Kantner - vocals, guitar
Jorma Kaukonen - vocals, guitar
Jack Cassidy - bass
Spencer Dryden - drums


1	Its No Secret				03:03
2	Good Shepherd				05:25
3	Watch Her Ride				03:02
4	Other Side Of This Life 		07:02
5	Martha					04:56
6	Crown Of Creation			03:02
7	The Farm				02:35
8	Won't You Try Saturday Afternoon	04:56
9	Star Track 				04:34
10	Wooden Ships->				05:15
11	J.P.P. McStep B. Blues 			01:47
12	JAM					10:39
	   ---encore(incomplÂte)---
13	Ballad Of You Me & Pooneil 		04:43
Notes:
Direct transfer of the master reel. This source has never previously circulated (as of December 25, 2015). This is the final installment in the batch of vintage master reel transfers (from Kansas) that included Jefferson Airplane in Kansas City on October 24, 1970 early & late shows, Jefferson Airplane in Wichita on October 25, 1970 and David Crosby & Graham Nash in Kansas City on September 14, 1971.

All the other transfers in this batch played back without issues, but this one was highly problematic and became a restoration challenge.  After attempting to play the DAT back on several Tascam decks unsuccessfully, I remembered having similar problems years ago that were not deterioration related.  Often DATs recorded on early consumer level Sony decks would only play back error free on similar Sony decks. Unfortunately, both of the Sony decks I once had running were long out of commission. So I brought the DAT over to my friend Rob Berger's house, so we could give it a spin on his Sony PCM-R500. Unfortunately, that too, was experiencing unacceptable quantities of dropouts and digital errors.

I was about to throw in the towel and declare the tape toast, when Rob mentioned he had an old Sony DTC 700 stored away that he only used for rewinding tapes.  We gave that a try and what do ya know, it was playing back far better, but still suffering from some intermittent digital errors and periodic dropouts.  We unpacked the tape by giving it a few fast forwards and rewinds and it began playing back even better, but intermittent issues were still present, however not in the same locations as they were before! This was the key to fixing it.  Rob graciously offered to make multiple transfers of my DAT, three of which gave me the ability to seamlessly cobble it back together nearly 99% error free.

The remaining problematic areas consisted of a dozen or so split second zips of digital error noise and two significant dropouts - one with a duration of 10 seconds in "Good Shepherd" and another with a duration of 22 seconds in "Watch Her Ride." These plagued all 3 transfers, so I turned to the Dave Tamarkin cassette source (of unknown lineage) that has been tormented extensively. I sparingly utilized that as a patch source to repair those remaining issues.  I'm fairly certain all circulating copies, prior to this one, are also sourced from torrents and trades of Dave's cassette.  Although several generations down the line and suffering from a persistent whining noise throughout, it did allow me to seamlessly patch the dropouts and eliminate the remaining digital error noise, restoring the complete recording.

We're dealing with a mono audience recording made nearly half a decade ago, so even the master transfer leaves a lot to be desired, but its a marked improvement over anything previously circulating. I've also included an extra comparison track of "Martha," so its easy to hear the master reel transfer and Dave's cassette source back to back.  It switches back and forth between the two sources every 20 seconds, beginning with Dave's source for the first 20 seconds.  It also serves to confirm both sources originate from the same recording.

Highlights include a rare performance of "The Farm," a "Wooden Ships" that segues into Skip Spence's "J.P.P. McStep B. Blues" and the set-closing jam is an extended improvisation unique to this performance. According to Craig Fenton's Flight Log book, this is only the second Jefferson Airplane performance of "Good Shepherd" and the first with Jorma taking lead vocal.

Once again, a big thank you to my friend Rob Berger for helping me share these recordings so long after the fact.  -Alan Bershaw


