The song "Embryonic Journey" could almost be lost on Jefferson Airplane’s landmark album "Surrealistic Pillow." Amid lead singer Grace Slick’s powerhouse psychedelic anthems there it is, a one-minute, 51-second instrumental piece that came to Jorma in a dream. He plays alone, but his fingers make the sounds of three guitars. The bass-line remains steady, almost disappearing at times. It’s a heartbeat. The melody flutters around it up and down, sometimes accentuated by hard strumming but never really venturing too far from the bass. When it tries to stray, the bass follows, drawing the guitar back. The bass is always there, coming into prominence only when needed, only when it makes sense. The two are a natural fit.

And maybe that’s the perfect metaphor for Kaukonen’s journey to his Jewish roots. They were always there, and they found him when he needed them.

Jorma says that if his grandfather, Ben Levine, hadn’t married his grandmother, Vera, an anarchist, he probably would have spent his whole life as an Orthodox Jew. Vera would not let her husband practice or study his faith, Vanessa explains. But when Vera died, Ben went back to practicing Judaism.

"Jorma had all of this history, and it was just lurking behind this veil," says Vanessa. "Though people might say that I am the one who unraveled this, I think it was Jorma who brought me to Judaism. I was surrounded by Jews, and I married one."

Two years ago, he wanted to rediscover some of his roots with a visit to Ellington, Conn. It was there, near the turn of the 20th century, that his maternal grandparents and their family established a tobacco farm, which the family ran until the 1980s, says Jorma’s cousin Audrey Brett. Jorma’s grandfather and her grandmother, Eda Levine, were brother and sister. And it was there that the Levines, fresh off the boat from the Ukraine, established a Jewish community and helped found an Orthodox Jewish synagogue, for which Kaukonen’s great-grandfather Shmuel, a scribe, wrote a Torah, said Brett.

"It was just a handful of Jews that all came at the same time," Brett told the Standard in an interview. "They had Sabbath services in their homes. And my great-grandfather, Jorma’s great-grandfather, was a biblical scholar. He wrote all of the rules and regulations for the shul. I only remember a picture of him as an old man with a big white beard. But the shul, it was very Orthodox. And that’s what I grew up with."

The community started by establishing a Jewish cemetery in a section of the town’s Christian cemetery, said Brett, who is 79. On top of a hill, overlooking a panoramic scene of pastures and countryside, it is where most of the Levine family that made it to Connecticut until her generation is buried.

But while Brett stayed in Connecticut until very recently, when she moved to Rhode Island, Jorma’s family — with his grandfather, a Brown University-educated doctor — left the farm for Washington, D.C.

The two never had much contact until two years ago, when Jorma, on tour and at a venue in Fall River, Mass., called Brett and asked her to take him to the cemetery.

Jorma says that he grew up hearing stories about the cemetery; his mother described it as a picturesque and hallowed burial ground and called it the oldest cemetery in the country (which Jorma doubts is true).

He describes it as an old cemetery, a small cemetery, almost in a cornfield.

"I just needed to sort of pull the strings of my family together, just so I knew them better," Jorma said. "My grandfather and I never discussed Jewishness. I just wanted to say hello to him, and I did. It was emotional in a positive way. I’ve never felt disconnected from my family. I just didn’t pay any attention to them. All of a sudden when I started this journey, I wanted to establish these connections. When I got there, it just felt natural. It was like saying, ‘Hey, here I am.’ I had all of these pictures and knew the faces in the pictures, but now they mean something because I’m learning about where they are from."