rejoyce

[Mr. Orange]

Does anyone know who played the instruments on this song.
ex.
piano
harpsichord
clairinet/ oboe?
horns
if anybody knows, it'd be great to here.

[Box Of Rain]

Now, I could DEFINITELY be wrong on some of these. But...

I don't think there is a Harpsichord. Maybe I just missed it if it's low in the mix.

I'm absolutely certain the piano is Grace. I think all Piano on airplane records is Grace. Except for on Volunteers, that's Nicky Hopkins (although she does return to the instrument for Eskimo Blue Day). I think the piano is the instrument she used to compose her songs, except for Lather, probably.

The wind instruments, I'm a little hazy. BUT I don't see anyone else credited for them in the liners, and Grace does play TONS of recorder on Pillow and Baxter's. Anyone else notice she just kinda dropped the thing around Crown of Creation? Such a shame... I thought it sounded really neat. So I wouldn't be surprised if she plays all those horns and such. She does mention patterning them after Gil Evans, somewhere.

[nickwishkah]

I would have thought all the instruments were played by the Airplane or nobody knows because they were so strung out on acid. I think this because nobody is credited on the recent re-release or an earlier CD release which i used to own. That's my "two-cents" as we say on the sonic youth message board.

Nick

[Box Of Rain]

By the way, I was just listening to the Great Society's Collector's Item today, and on the closing jam, Grace is playing some kind of horn that sounds just like the ones on Rejoyce. So now I'm even more certain that it is, in fact, multiple Gracie overdubs.

[Guest]

Box of Rain writes:
<< By the way, I was just listening to the Great Society's Collector's Item today, and on the closing jam, Grace is playing some kind of horn that sounds just like the ones on Rejoyce. >>

That's a recorder, which Grace plays on a few recordings... Listen to "How Do You Feel" or "Martha," for instance.

troebuck

[Box Of Rain]

Really? That's very interesting... do you know how she gets it to sound that way on "Father"? It sounds so different from the one on Comin' Back to me, and How Do You Feel....

[Guest]

Box of Rain writes:
That's a recorder, which Grace plays on a few recordings... Listen to "How Do You Feel" or "Martha," for instance.

troebuck

What is a "recorder"

[Pooneil]

The recorder is a flute-like woodwind musical instrument.

[nickwishkah]

that's odd really, i always figured that all the stuff you claim is recorder was flute. On surrealistic pillow i always thought it was flute. particularly on Comin' Back To Me. I don't think it would be very easy if at all possible to get that vibrato on recorder. The one thing i don't like about Rejoyce is that clumsy clarinet (it is clarinet right Mr. Orange?!?) solo at the end but it finishes on a nice bizarre note so i guess it's ok.

Nick

[Box Of Rain]

I love that clarinet at the end, but that might just be my thing for orchestration coming in. It reminds me a lot of wind part on this tune called "Winter Song" off a Nico album. I would have thought the stuff on "Comin' Back to Me" was flute too, but alto recorder (not the kind you get in school) can get plenty of vibrato when you cover most of the holes and stick in it's lower register. It also says in the liner notes to pillow they dumped TONS of reverb into that track. So that may be it.

Anybody have an idea where the hell she learned to play all these wind/brass instruments?

[nickwishkah]

I think it's well written though not particularly well-played. It is recorder in all the songs i mentioned. Alto-recorder apparently though i don't know anything about recorder.

Nick

[Mr. Orange]

It's either a clairinet or an oboe, that's the one thing I couldn't pin down. I'll have to pull out my headphones and listen closely.

[Pooneil]

Overall what different instruments did Grace end up playing for Jefferson Airplane?

[Box Of Rain]

Overall, I think she ended up on piano and wind instruments. She's also credited for organ on Surrealistic Pillow (which she DOES play on Volunteers - Meadowlands), but I don't hear any organ on that entire album. Anybody know what that refers to?

[Guest]

You wrote:
<< i always figured that all the stuff you claim is recorder was flute. On surrealistic pillow i always thought it was flute. particularly on Comin' Back To Me. I don't think it would be very easy if at all possible to get that vibrato on recorder. >>

I am quite possibly incorrect. But I have never been aware of a flute player on an Airplane album, and Grace DID play the recorder... As well as the piano. In Great Society she played a mean tambourine, which I think she retired the moment she left the group.

Maybe it's worth noting that Jorma is the one playing a recorder in the "Martha" film that surfaced on the DVD. I'm tempted to think that was just for show, but one never knows...

Someone else asked about Grace's credit for playing the "organ" on Surrealistic Pillow. Unlike a lot of their contemporaries, it seems that Airplane didn't feature the organ much in their music. Off the top of my head, at least, the only time I recall Grace playing something remotely like an "organ" is in the Monterey clip of "Today." She may well be the one leaning on the minor keys in "The House at Pooneil Corners," but I believe the keyboards in a good chunk of the Volunteers album were handled by Nicky Hopkins. (Though that is unmistakably Grace banging out the block chords in her "Eskimo Blue Day" and "Hey Frederick")

(It may answer a question I have, by the way, about a JA concert recording I heard recently, circa 1967... There's a jam at the end of the show that features -- out of nowhere -- someone playing an organ. It isn't anywhere in the rest of the show and I assumed it was just someone from another band on the bill that night. )

troebuck