Super Session

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Tracks: 01 - Albert's Shuffle (Bloomfield, Kooper) 6:54 02 - Stop (Ragovoy, Shuman) 4:23 03 - Man's Temptation (Mayfield) 3:24 04 - His Holy Modal Majesty (Bloomfield, Kooper) 9:16 05 - Really (Bloomfield, Kooper) 5:30 06 - It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry (Dylan) 3:30 07 - Season of the Witch (Donovan) 11:07 08 - You Don't Love Me (Cobbs) 4:11 09 - Harvey's Tune (Brooks) 2:07 Recorded at Los Angele, CA, May 28, 1968; Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco, CA, September 26-28, 1968. Personnel: Al Kooper's (vocal, 12-string & electric guitar, piano, organ, ondioline) Mike Bloomfield (electric guitar) Stephen Stills (electric guitar) Barry Goldberg (electric piano) Harvey Brooks (bass) Eddie Hoh (drums) Reviews: Rolling Stone (10/12/68, p.28) - "...The Bloomfield side is particularly excellent....There is a firmne, a real steady handedne, a determinedly sure feeling to what he puts out here..." Uncut (6/03, p.133) - 3 stars out of 5 - "...These Dylan sidekicks cut the mustard..." A surprise best-seller when it was first released, this mostly improvised pairing of singer/keyboardist/producer Al Kooper with two major guitar heroes of the day sounds fascinating all these years later precisely because of the distance of time--nobody makes records like this any more. The material runs the gamut from folk pop (covers of Donovan and Dylan), to blues ("Albert's Shuffle," "You Don't Love Me"), to heady jams ("His Holy Modal Majesty"), to big-band jazz ("Harvey's Tune"). All the tunes make effective templates for the kind off-the-cuff music-making that in less capable hands might have resulted in simple noodling. In fact, although Bloomfield and Stills don't play together on any of the cuts (Bloomfield played on one side of the original LP, Stills on the other), all three principals get off lots of good licks and producer Kooper has some interesting tricks up his sleeve, as in the over-the-top phasing he lavishes on "You Don't Love Me." The only real disappointment here is that Still, a far better singer than Kooper, never opens his mouth. Amazon.com Nothing on this 1968 album approaches the best work of any of the three principals involved. What's more, the record sounds hopelessly mired in 1968. On the other hand, it's one of the original, groovy jam-rock statement, a spontaneous session filled with enjoyable but dispensable noodling. .

via Last.fm

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