In 1969, the well-respected music critic Ralph J. Gleason interviewed 25-year-old Jack Casady for his book The Jefferson Airplane and the San Francisco Sound. In his introduction to the Q&A, Gleason wrote: “For one who gets such a huge, driving sound from the bass, he is a smallish man, habitually concealed behind huge suede coats, dark glasses, and ponchos. But there is nothing shy about the way he plays or talks. He considers what he says carefully, his mind works uniquely and provocatively, and he knows what he is about.” Fifty years later, as he celebrates his 75th birthday, Jack Casady still knows what he is about — which is playing great bass, often with his longtime musical partner, guitarist Jorma Kaukonen, in Hot Tuna, the band they formed as a sideline to the Airplane in 1969. The lengthy collaboration between the two goes back even further than that, to their boyhood days in Washington, D.C. They began to play together when Casady was still in junior high and Kauk