Customer Reviews

Grape Jam

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Of the original Columbia albums the Grape released, this is the slightest of the five. Yet, it does have some merits, even though as a jam session it doesn't equal the quality of, say, Super Session or Spare Chayne on Jefferson Airplane's After Bathing At Baxters. The saving grace of this album is the opening track, Never, notoriously "rewritten" by Led Zeppelin as Since I've Been Loving You on Led Zeppelin III.
The remainder of the album is pleasant, though hardly essential. One wonders what a true guitar jam between Jerry Miller and Mike Bloomfield might have been like, rather than wasting Bloomfield on keyboards at this session.
The Lake is psychedelic silliness, although the Grape can't be entirely blamed for it; this was a contest dreamed up by their then manager for the band to write a tune to a fan's lyric, much like Buffalo Springfield's In The Hour Of Not Quite Rain.
All in all, not the Grape's finest hour, but not a complete waste of time, either.

Before top rock names played arenas, they played clubs. So it was common for, just say, Hendrix to jam with Jack Bruce, Jack Cassidy with Charles Lloyd. Big money was not involved yet. Things were looser.

Grape Jam brings this crossbreeding to the studio: Al Kooper and Mike Bloomfield and members of Moby Grape. This is a blues record, but an acidy, funky blues.

A different side of Moby Grape is shown. For a San Fransico band, circa 1968, they were song oriented. Here they are loose and loud and ragged. But they are great players, and have ample chops to carry the improvosation.

Al Kopper and Mike Bloomfield. If both were in front of me, who's feet would I kiss first? Thier feel for blues--from the grittiest to the most cosmopolitan-was 100% instinctive. Yet they give it a 1968 rock grit. Listen to Bloomfield's "Buysonberry Jam" Les Paul growl.


This is not the pristine studio Grape, but for top musicans ripping and crunching, you can't do better. Little known fact: Plant and Page wrote "Since I've Been Loving You" after hearing the first song on Grape Jam, "Never"


What is good for the goose is probably good enough for you.

I have always preferred Grape Jam' to `Wow.' This is due in great part to my predilection for that "this marriage will never work out (but it did)" combination of Chicago-style blues played psychedelically. I've had this love since I first heard Mike Bloomfield's heroin-driven (hmmm...heroin-driven...an oxymoron??) introduction on `The Live Adventures of Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper. This album - included with `Wow" as a two-fer is contemporaneous with that work, and included the aforementioned Bloomfield and Kooper (though how long Mike was there and how much he did is subject to conjecture).

Advertised and marketed as a jam, but far too well played and produced to be such, most of these pieces are linearly related to Miller's Blues on `Wow,' though played at a more leisurely pace. Boysenberry Jam and Black Currant Jam are intricate little trips within this genre that demand the listener get into a mellow state of mind (I won't say how, that's up to you!) and just drift with the groove.

Other works left me thinking how close some of the music from the original LP was to `Live Adventures.' I make this differentiation because the added cuts are a departure from the original LP and Moby Grape's style. These works have a horn section that moves the music away from the notional hippy-dippy psychedelic blues towards a more jazz-oriented genre. Given the partial pedigrees of Messers Bloomfield and Kooper - namely Blood, Sweat and Tear and the Electric Flag - this should be no surprise. I think it also provides a bit of confirmation that there were an element of planning in the composition and production.

The weak spot in this album is - and this should be no surprise whatsoever - The Lake. This misbegotten piece of tripe was the issue of corporate greed and marketing, whereby Matthew Katz, the band's manager who continues to obfuscate and litigate in a mean-spirited effort to hurt the band members - Columbia staged a lyric writing contest through an SF radio station in which the winner got to hear his words over the Grape's music. Presented with this, the band elected to make trash and were highly siuccessful in their endeavour. The track is an aural pastiche of words and notes - I avoid using the word 'music' deliberately - that sounds as if it was recorded from another room. The result is best programmed out.

The rest of the material is - for those who relish the happy marriage (or at least, the shacking up together) of blues and horns and jazz (oh my!) will listen to this recovered gem repeatedly...maybe even habitually.

When this came out on Record it was a free disc that came with the WOW Record It was more just goofing around that the band did with Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper. It was fun to listen to but a bit lacking of being real music becouse it was as it said a Jam.
But On the Sundazed reliese it just comes to life with Awsome remastered sound and Great Bonus Tracks. If your a Jam band Fan or a fan of Moby Grape This is a Must Have CD !! Buy the Sundazed Version I paid 40 Bucks used and I just sat and smiled while Jamming to it Worth Every Penny. This CD like WOW and Moby Grape were pulled right after Being Reliesed.
Find It and Buy It while you can.

As I wrote in my review of WOW, I can't be totally objective about this album,which came as a "two-fer" with WOW.

For some reason, I never saw or was not interested in the group's debut. Of course, I've learned better.! Maybe my small town record shop never carried their first album. Or just maybe it was the more psychedlic cover, GUARANTEED to get a teen boy's attention in 1968.

Anyway, GRAPE JAM was my first exposure to rock "jams" and while others with greater musical knowledge than I at the time may have found them tedious, I was fascinated. It was a new world to me and I couldn't have been happier.

Someone else noted how Led Zeppelin ripped these guys off. Well, they stole from the masters, so I guess Moby Grape can be included in some mighty fine company.

This album may only appeal those of us who heard it first in 1968, but I can still say it's great fun.

The third in the current Sundazed reissue series, "Grape Jam" was originally packaged with "Wow," presumably an additional enticement as a two for one package deal. In fact, this was Moby Grape's bestseller on Columbia, making the top 30 in the album charts following its original release in 1968. It's also interesting historically in that it precedes "Supersessions" and "Apple Jam," giving it a claim as one of the first such sessions.

The music varies widely in quality, but is always listenable, particularly as an artifact of the group in a "live" setting. Only the first cut contains vocals, which is actually a good thing, as these cuts run long, and don't require vocals in the majority of cases. My major complaint has to do with the laid-back tempo of some of the cuts, bordering on somnolence, but when they kick in the energy level is high. This last remark refers to especially to prominent piano in several of the cuts. Even "The Lake," reportedly recorded to set a young contest-winner's poem to music is worth a listen, if only for its period effects and equally bizarre lyrics (and does anyone happen to know what ever happened to Hairy Mary?).

The unreleseased cuts, available here for the first time, border on jazz, giving the whole set of sessions (Wow / Grape Jam) an ecelectic character. Along with Wow, this remains a worthy listen, although one wished David Rubison had used his editing powers in 1968, and brought these sessions in a stripped-down version closer to the first album. Ultimately, the attempt to caputre a live sound works to a moderate degree, but these guys are more interested in jamming, and lack the tightness of a Quicksilver (see "Gold & Silver, the live version from "Maiden of the Cancer Moon.")

For completists mainly, and those looking for genuine live grape should seek out the "Fall on Amsterdam" or "Dark Magic" boots thaat are still out there somewhere--especially in comparison to the group's Monterey set (available on "Dark Magic") these jams appear to lack discipline.

Loved this album from years ago was surprised to find it on Amazon and than
to get it on a CD was awesome.

Whether in rock or in jazz, a jam is a session where a group of musicians get together to play for their own amusement, rather than for the audience. Normally, it's "okay, this is the progression we're going to improvise on" or "let's do a major blues in C" or "how about a minor blues in a". Then, everyone takes solos as they agree to, and everyone else supports the soloist. With that in mind, this is not a bad album at all. Yeah, it lacks discipline, but that's what a jam is. The most successful of the original jams were the ones with Al Kooper. For some reason, Kooper always works well in an improvised context. The jam with Bloomfield has moments, but it goes on for way too long, and becomes rather repetitive. Still, this was the very first recorded examples of a group of rock musicians just jamming, and for that reason, it's important. The music is decent, though, and well worth listening to. Not worth 5 stars, but at least worth 4.