About jack casady

So it is with bassist Jack Casady. Casady has both a sharp and a subtle presence. He came on stage in November for an electric Hot Tuna show, and stood solo at the center, dressed in black, awash in purple light. It was a straight-up, unpretentious I-am-here moment, his fingers reaching down to his strings and juicing the audience up with a few I-am-ready tones.

His bandmate, guitarist Jorma Kaukonen, walked on quietly, seemingly aware Casady had already stolen the moment. The interplay between the two is born of a long history and a unique trust; the pair grew up near each other as kids and both are eager to play together as often as they can. After that show, I met Casady for the first time. I found him entirely more interested in the here-and-now, with how the music sounded, with what my experience was like.

John William Casady (born April

Surprisingly, Casady is rarely interviewed, despite being a significant character in the immense narrative that is counterculture music and having developed a playing style few can even mimic, much less copy. I caught up with him on the phone in April the night before his 75 th birthday, a few days after I saw an acoustic Hot Tuna show in Brooklyn.

He hears it with dimension and music creates detailed landscapes for him. The funny thing is——for someone not known for saying a lot——he describes those non-verbal realms nearly as well as he can play his way into them. Jack Casady: [Laughs. My father was a dentist——I come from a family of doctors and lawyers. But there was always music in the house.

And my father was also an audiophile.