Marty Balin, co-founder, guitarist, vocalist and songwriter for iconic ’60s San Francisco outfit Jefferson Airplane, passed away on Thursday, and today, Balin’s former bandmate and fellow guitarist Jorma Kaukonen shared a heartfelt remembrance of Balin and their time together in Jefferson Airplane.

“I was more than saddened yesterday to hear of Marty Balin’s passing,” Kaukonen writes, after starting the post with lyrics from the song “Thin Thread” by singer-songwriter Connie Kaldor. The guitarist also notes that he and his Hot Tuna bandmate, fellow Jefferson Airplane member Jack Casady, were preparing for a show in Northampton, MA, when they received the news. ” I stood there in the little room in the wings, stage left… struck dumb. What can you say? We always say and hear, ‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ but what does that really mean? We say it. We have to say it and then in the confines of our hearts we try to process the sorrow and search for the words that really convey what we feel. It is an imperfect process.”

Kaukonen goes on to thank Balin and fellow Airplane co-founder Paul Kantner, who passed away in 2016, for bringing him into the band: “Had it not been for him, my life would have taken an alternate path I cannot imagine. He and Paul Kantner came together and like plutonium halves in a reactor started a chain reaction that still affects many of us today. It was a moment of powerful synchronicity. I was part of it to be sure, but I was not a prime mover. Marty always reached for the stars and he took us along with him.”

Kaukonen also recounts more recent times he shared the stage with Balin, praising the late guitarist for his commitment to music and to life: “His commitment to his visions never flagged. He was always relentless in the pursuit of his goals. He wrapped those he loved in sheltering arms. He loved his family. Times come and go but his passion for his music and his art was never diminished. He was the most consummate of artists in a most renaissance way. I always felt that he perceived that each day was a blank canvas waiting to be filled.”

The remembrance ends with Kaukonen musing on the thought of death as a part of life and aging, before recalling the other members of Jefferson Airplane who have passed, echoing the essay’s title: Now We Are Three.

“So many of our brothers and sister from that time are gone. Skip Spence, Spencer Dryden, Joey Covington, Paul Kantner, Signe Anderson and now Marty have all joined the Heavenly Band as Rev. Davis would say. We were young together. I would like to think we made a difference. As for Grace Slick, Jack Casady and myself…Now we are three…”

Read Kaukonen’s words in full here.