Super Session
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Free Music Notes for Super Session
Free Music Review: jammin'
Hit: 4 Stars
My brother brought home a vinyl copy of 1968's `Super Session' sometime around 1969, and the presence of one performer caught my eye. I was already overindulging myself on the debut Crosby, Stills and Nash album, and had taken special notice of Stephen Stills contributions, especially his exquisite guitar work. After the first play through, I never heard the first 5 tracks of `Super Session' again... I played side two over and over until the needle had worn clean through side one! Well, I'm kidding of course, but the point is that this 15 year-old was much too young for the cutting edge blues-rock being composed and performed by Al Kooper and Mike Bloomfield on side one, but primed and ready for the country and psychedelic rock being offered up by Stills and Kooper on side two.Hearing this album (remastered) for the first time in about thirty years was a real treat. I still prefer side two, but did a jaw drop over Bloomfield's stunning blues guitar solo's on the first five tracks, and on two of the bonus tracks (`Blues For Nothing' and `Fat Grey Cloud', the latter recorded live at the Fillmore West). On the downside, Bloomfield was so strung out on heroin that Kooper couldn't keep him around for more than one night of recording. On the upside, certainly no artist can sing or play the blues better than someone living the blues, and this recording proves the blues was Bloomfield's lot in life. Heroin claimed him for good in 1981.
With only half an album in tow, Kooper turned to Stills, orphaned from the recently disbanded Buffalo Springfield, to complete this most unusual endeavor. Stylistically Stills and Bloomfield have radically different approaches. On the opening cut of side two, Stills layers a country-fied guitar over Bob Dylans `It Takes a Lot To Laugh, It Takes a Train To Cry', and follows this with his trademark wah-pedal guitar on an 11-minute version of Donovan Lietch's `Season of the Witch'. My favorite song on the album follows with Stills and Kooper producing a psychedelic cover of `You Don't Love Me'. Oddly, though Kooper is the only artist featured on all the cuts, the work is clearly owned primarily by Bloomfield, and secondarily by Stills. Kooper's most notable contributions are songwriting (one solo, and three with Bloomfield), and all the vocals (5 cuts). But the vocals are incidental, to say the least.
There are several odd selections on `Super Session'. The third cut, `Man's Temptation' is a soul number penned by Curtis Mayfield. It's a pleasant listen, though quite sexist by our standards today, and out of place among the heavy blues orientation of the other Bloomfield cuts. Track four, `His Holy Modal Majesty' is a dreadful cut, with Kooper playing an electric piano called an ondioline, which comes across as electric bagpipes, and it's every bit as bad as that sounds. At 9 minutes in length, it is a clear waste of vinyl. The other odd number is the lush `Harvey's Tune', penned by Harvey Brooks who played bass on the `Super Session' sessions. Brooks and Barry Goldberg, who plays electric piano on the first two tracks, had been bandmates of Bloomfield's in the band Electric Flag, which also featured drummer Buddy Miles. The tune again sounds out of place, and Still's guitar is nowhere to be found.
The bonus tracks are valuable on this disc, to hear more of Bloomfield's playing, and to hear both Stills and Bloomfield's guitar work without the distraction of the brassy overdubs. These artists have abundant skills that deserve to be displayed, not dressed up, or God forbid, hidden. In the liner notes Kooper talks about his perception that the `naked' tracks were "dynamically impaired", hence the original decision to `enhance' them. Despite his perception, this seems to me to be a clear case of less being more.
So while you may be hitting the `skip' button once or twice while taking in this CD, there is a great deal of unique and wonderful late-1960's music to be had on this, the first and perhaps greatest `jam session'.
Free Music Review: Super Session v/s Butterfield, Project, Buffalo, etc.
Hit: 3 Stars
No fue una mala idea unir a dos integrantes de los mejores grupos de blues americano de mediados de los 60's para grabar Super Session. El problema fue que ni Al Kooper ni Mike Bloomfield pudieron rendir como lo hac?an en sus respectivos conjuntos. Es cierto que la ejecuci?n es de primer nivel como ya es costumbre en estos virtuosos, pero est? claro que eso no es suficiente. Tampoco ayuda la secci?n de viento metal a?adida con posterioridad, que le quita al sonido esa simpleza y crudeza. His Holy Modal Majesty es lo mejor de la primera parte, con sonoridades orientales y ritmo de vals, en la que Kooper y Bloomfield escapan del ortodoxo blues y se aventuran a cosas m?s complejas y perturbadoras.Bloomfield no pudo completar las sesiones y en su lugar entr? Stephen Stills, buen guitarrista pero no en el nivel ni en la misma linea musical de Bloomfield, lo que obviemente resulta en una segunda mitad marcadamente diferente. La distorsionada You Don't Love Me es el mejor experimento, mientras el extenso cover de Season of the Witch no es el primero ni el mejor que se puede encontrar, pese al abundante uso del wah wah.
En Super Session otra vez se cumple aquello de que la suma de figuras no siempre garantiza discos geniales. Mejor ser?a tomar uno de los discos de Blues Project, Butterfield Blues Band o Buffalo Springfield o en su defecto el primero de Blood, Sweat & Tears o Electric Flag...hay demasiadas alternativavas donde elegir y eso juega en contra de este super grupo.
Free Music Review: Best Blues from 70s or Ever! - guitar better than Hendrix!!
Hit: 5 Stars
This is one of the finest blues records of all time with the tastiest blues guitar you'll every hear from masters Al Kooper, Mike Bloomfield and Steve Stills--how could you miss?. It also has 4 real decent bonus tracks with the Albert's Shuffle remix being absolutely PHAT. You will love this disc and be totally inspired by it. Buy it!Free Music Review: What is so Super?
Hit: 2 Stars
The answer is Mike Bloomfield of course(star #1). He does lay down some of the finest blues guitar I've ever heard anyone play--black or white on this (Albert's Shuffele 5 stars). Also, if you are a bassist--you have to check out Harvey Brook's playing on this--unreal, creative stuff(Star #2). So yeh, he and Bloomfield are the musical Ubermench here...but the contributions of Kooper and Stills are just pathetic...suffer through an anemic Season of the Witch and you'll know what I mean..the only interesting thing on this cut is the bass. Kooper is no singer..nore is he that outstanding as a keyboard player. The extra cuts scans horns don't add anythig other than to point out how bad they are without them. This was hardly a Super Session..really..Bloomfield by this time was a sick, strung-out heroin addict..and left Kooper in a learch after recording 5 cuts allbeit 2 career toppers. So Kooper flounders around and comes up with Stills to record a few forgetable tracks and wella the fabled SS album. There isn't a track where the three of them are jamming together. Anyway...if you really dig Bloomfield it's worth it to get Albert's Shuffel..but the rest is dated drivle.Free Music Review: Blues pair-the 60's sessions
Hit: 4 Stars
This new revised CD of the Original Super session really doesn't offer much unreleased material except for two songs without horns that were on the original and an unreleased instrumential-the album Super session is great but if you have the original release, there is not much new to offer here-except for updated notes and pictures--I bought it because I am a collector-but if you have the original and are not that serious of a collector of Bloomfield/Kooper-don't bother-get the Live at the Fillmore East album instead.