Customer Reviews

Super Session

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

 

 

This will indeed sound corny, but in 1968, this 12" vinyl LP changed my life.

"Super Session" is a one-of-a-kind recording. This fantastic LP features Mike Bloomfield {guitar on tracks 1 - 5} and Stephen Stills {guitar on tracks 6 - 9} Al Kooper, is present on the whole thing on keyboards & vocals.

Listen to Michael Bloomfield, from the opening notes of: "Albert's Shuffle" right through to the fade out of track 5: "Really" You don't get guitar played this good very often. With blues, jazz, space & soul all mixed up in one package, and there is not ONE wasted note played anywhere on this record.

The tracks featuring Steve Stills are a WAH WAH pedal gore fest. Stephen, was learning lead guitar from Jimi Hendrix, around this time and it does show. It's good, but not as good as Bloomfield, and Stephen's tracks tend to show their age much more as a: "period piece" because of all that wah wah effect.

As for Mr. Kooper, he's very good on this one, his keyboards add great color to: "Super Session." Al, plays something like a synthesiser before synthesisers were in the hands of rock musicians ("His Holy Modal Highness.")

There is a bit of conflict over the horns being added on to many of the tunes, so as a Bonus the tracks: "Albert's Shuffle" & "Season of the Witch" are both presented here in versions without the brass so you can be the judge of what sounds better.

Two more bonus tracks: "Blues for Nothing" & "Fat Grey Cloud" are yanked from the vaults. They are O.K. jams, but nothing to phone your ma about.

The sound on this edition is excellent, this release has never sounded better and that says a lot, because this classic has been re-done and re-issued many times over.

Few people reach the "peak" but Bloomfield, Kooper & Stills did get up there and it's mighty nice up at the top!
FIVE STARS !!!

This album is quite an ecclectic mix, with a distinct style difference with each artist which helps break up the album nicely. The Bob Dylan cover 'It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry' gets a tempo change and the Donovan classic 'Season Of The Witch' also gets a great treatment! This album opened my eyes, and made me appreciate music a whole lot more...

This CD is a remastered and expanded reissue of a special and quite successful album released in 1968 by what was effectively a "super group", which might explain the album's title. The sound quality is greatly improved compared to the early, standard CD issue. It is a particular delight to hear Harvey Brooks powerful bass notes sounding more upfront and with such clarity. On the other end, Eddie Hoh's drumming remains mostly under mixed to my taste. He plays tastefully though.

The original project, masterminded by multi-instrumentalist and singer Al Kooper, was small-scale even by the standards of the times (two days of recording and three hours of horns overdubs). Kooper's purpose was to jam in the studio with Michael Bloomfield and some talented sidekicks including session musicians Harvey Brooks (electric bass), Eddie Hoh (drums) and Barry Goldberg (who plays electric piano on tracks 1, 2 and 11, although his contribution is under mixed). Kooper would patch everything together afterwards.

The original album was a critical and commercial success. It entered the Top 100 pop LP charts on August 31, 1968 and stayed there for a 37-week period, peaking at # 12 and going gold in the process.

Bloomfield, Brooks and Kooper had famously backed Bob Dylan on his seminal "Highway 61 Revisited" LP (1965). Barry Goldberg played piano in Dylan's band at the latter's famous Newport appearance on July 25, 1965. He had also previously played on earlier recording sessions with Bloomfield.

Bloomfield was originally a blues player through and through. However, the guitarist also liked rock and had already shown much more adventurous leanings with the fresh and formidable mix of blues, jazz, eastern music and psychedelic rock he displayed on tracks such as "East/West" from the second Paul Butterfield Blues Band LP.
This trend continued during his stint with the Electric Flag, which he had just left. The latter band used horns and displayed soul influences.

Kooper and Brooks had a more eclectic background but were well acquainted with the blues idiom as well. Kooper had, among other things, experienced successfully with horns and string arrangements on the first, superb "Blood Sweat and Tears" album. He had just quit that band. Brooks had also recently played in the Electric Flag alongside Bloomfield.

However, Bloomfield's drugs use prevented him to play on the second recording date. Kooper then contacted Stephen Stills - fresh out of the Buffalo Springfield - to play guitar on the second side of the LP.

Stills, on the other hand, whilst also adept at blues playing, was originally a folkie who had moved on to folk-rock, hard rock and psychedelic music with the freshly disintegrated Buffalo Springfield.

Tracks 1-2 and 4-5 highlight the interplay between Kooper and Bloomfield as it appeared on the first side of the original LP.

Bloomfield plays in a flowing, elegant, lyrical style that also shows some jazz leanings. The playing is totally removed from the raw, frenzied contributions he made to the first Paul Butterfield Blues Band LP. No slide guitar here, no sir!
The prevailing influence is definitely the smoother style of B. B. King and T-Bone Walker but with a thinner, drier guitar tone. I think that, to get this tone, Bloomfield must have made more use of his neck pickup than from his bridge pickup.

On "Albert's Shuffle", Bloomfield plays like a slightly speeded-up B. B. King and Kooper plays the organ masterfully. Track 10 is a remixed version sans the overdubbed horns. I actually prefer the original version.

Bloomfield comes more into his own on the instrumental cover of the Jerry Ragavoy-Mort Shuman composition "Stop" (a minor hit single for Howard Tate in February 1968), whilst Kooper runs all around him with groovy, soulful organ vamps and this is my favourite track.

Curtis Mayfield's "Men's Temptation comes next and features a full horn arrangement and smooth, overdubbed Al Kooper vocals. It is a departure from the first two tracks, being more akin to a "Blood, Sweat and Tears" track in style and sound. The guitar part is mixed way down low and it is my guess that Kooper may have recorded it by himself. I am very fond of this track.

I have always felt that the nine-minute plus "His Holy Modal Majesty" was marred by Kooper's use of the - IMO - awful sounding ondioline. I guess Kooper wanted to experiment with some modal, eastern-sounding tonalities but ended up meandering instead. Bloomfield plays superb cool and liquid lines that are best appreciated when Kooper thankfully switches back to organ.

On "Really", the organ has a more jazzy sound while the guitar has a more cutting edge to it.
Another nice track.

Tracks 6 to 9, which feature Stills with Kooper, appeared originally on the second side of the original LP. These tracks are made of a very different musical clothe than the four previous Bloomfield-Kooper collaborations.

Dylan's "It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry" is taken at breakneck speed and is not very convincing. There is some overdubbed ondioline at the very end of the track, but I fail to hear any keyboard playing. Kooper plays, I think, at least one acoustic guitar part. Although overdubbed, his vocals here are definitely strained while trying to follow the pace. Still's guitar style and tone are unmistakably there but they sound distant, like he had been recorded through a wall of gaze. This is quite surprising for someone conversant with his playing with the Buffalo Springfield (or the soon to be born "Crosby, Stills and Nash"). Overall, I consider this track very weak.

The eleven-minutes plus cover of Donovan's "Season of the Witch" sounds much more interesting. The original's tempo is retained and Kooper's vocals are much more up to the task here. He also returns to playing the organ and scats along during the instrumental passages. Stills' guitar is the real focus of attention here, proving quite inventive, especially with its tasteful use of the wah-wah pedal. The drumming is much more to the fore here, as it should. However, I always felt that the overdubbed horns detracted - rather than complemented - the music. I feel vindicated when listening to the remixed "bonus" version without the horns. Very good, at long last!

Next comes a cover of blues harp player Willie Cobbs' oft-covered "You Don't Love Me Baby".
A blues this version is not, however. The track serves as a template for lots of psychedelic phasing. I note, in passing, that the Small Faces' influential (and heavily phased) "Itchycoo Park" had been a US Top 16 single in January 1968. It seems like Kooper heard it! This is a real period piece. I find it faintly pleasant if repetitive (or hypnotic, according to your taste).

The last of the original LP tracks is "Harvey's Tune" credited to bassist Harvey Brooks. Completely at odds, once again, with the rest of the album, it is an instrumental mood piece wherein horn arranger Joe Scott's role was certainly preponderant. Originally, I did not think much of it but now I find it more than pleasing indeed.

The third bonus track has already been issued on the "Gold" remastered CD released in 1995. It is a simple, enjoyable early take of "Albert's shuffle". No horns around here.

The fourth bonus track, which closes this CD, is titled "Fat Grey Cloud". It was recorded live at the Fillmore West. It probably comes from the same recording sessions that gave birth to the "Live Adventures of Al Kooper and Mike Bloomfield". It is typical of this album anyway: a bluesy romp with Bloomfield playing with a lot more bite and distortion than on the studio tracks. Not bad, but not essential either. I find that the rhythm section sounds a bit leaden, especially the bassist (possibly John Kahn on an off night).

In conclusion, and contrary to a commonly expressed view, I think it is not quite accurate to categorize the original album as a blues-rock one, although there is a lot of bluesy playing involved. The musicians use many influences to explore various styles of music that they were into at the time. As such, I feel it remains a good album, without being a real milestone. My major criticism is that, due to the circumstances, this album lacks cohesion.
I rate this album three and a half star on an objective level, but I also credit it with one half star more for the memories it still brings (I bought the original LP not long after its UK release.)

Last year while bouncing through Amazon's collection of Bloomfield's stuff, I noticed that Sony Legacy, had remastered "SUPER SESSION" in 24bit. It is still one of the seminal albums of the late-sixties, and if one likes very polished blues, Bloomfield, Kooper and Stills has some on hand. The surprise of this "after-hours" session of course is the 11min version of Donavon's "Season of the Witch" in where Stephen Stills proves that he was a master with a "wah wah" pedal.

When I unwrapped my copy, I first put on my old cd of it, then played the new 24bit remaster. The new one just absolutely jumped out at me, what a gorgeous difference!
[note]
It's an Import, and they wanted $27 bucks for it. I opted to buy it from one of their Sellers for 1/2 that. I would suggest you jump on it!