KOOPER'S TRILOGY

 

A school friend sold me his copy of Super Session sometime late in 1970….for one dollar. I’m almost certain that this wasn’t my first encounter with Al Kooper but it became my first Kooper-related acquisition. I also have a vague memory of The Live Adventures of Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper blaring, somewhat earlier in that year, from the students’ common room amidst cigarette smoke and satanic recess activities….but let’s not loiter. My explanation is that it was a catholic boys’ high school and Vatican 2 was well and truly dusted. Enough said.

Up until the end of the swinging sixties, my only awareness of Al Kooper was his association with Blood, Sweat and Tears and that he had scampered into Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited sessions some years earlier. That was about it apart from occasionally eyeing off Norman Rockwell’s fabulous cover image on the live double in Nicholson’s city store.

However, Kooper had been much busier than my meagre knowledge suggested. Musician, composer, manager, A&R unit and arranger were just a few of his tags and, in 1968, Kooper was looking at a project that would highlight Mike Bloomfield’s talents in a ‘live’ setting. And Kooper had a strategy already assembled in his mind.

At the time, most jazz albums were made using this modus operandi: pick a leader or two co-leaders, hire appropriate sidemen, pick some tunes, make some up and record an entire album on the fly in one or two days. Why not try and legitimise rock by adhering to these standards? In addition, as a fan, I was dissatisfied with Bloomfield's recorded studio output up until then. It seemed that his studio work was inhibited and reined in, compared to his incendiary live performances. Could I put him in a studio setting where he could feel free to just burn like he did in live performances? (Al Kooper, 1998)

The story of what happened in the Hollywood studio over the two days of recording is well known and not worth retelling. But the final product, with Bloomfield featured on Side 1 and a hastily wrangled Steve Stills occupying Side 2, was magnificent.

Mike Bloomfield rarely sounded better on record. ‘Albert’s shuffle’, ‘Stop’ and ‘Really’ are top shelf but it’s the longer ‘His holy modal majesty’ that demonstrates the guitarist’s skills at another level.

The most amazing thing about Bloomfield’s playing on ‘Super Session’ is its absolute joy. …..there is a wide-open cheer and confidence in his tone. (David Fricke, 2001)

Certainly there appears to be considerably more ‘editing’ on Side 2, especially within ‘Season of the witch’, but that’s hardly Stills’ fault. His guitar work on the Donovan classic is worth the price of admission. It’s a pity that Kooper baulked at using him as a vocalist. Competing record label politics must have been a consideration.

However, it’s the influence of Al Kooper himself that is the most notable dot point of Super Session. Not only was he in control of a potential wreck with Bloomfield’s half-time departure but he also had to quickly construct a workable list of bench titles that could be performed by Stills…..and Stills was very different to Bloomfield. Perhaps even more importantly, Kooper’s keyboards define much of what happens on both sides of the album and, whether intentional or not, make the whole thing an entity. You can only shake your head at his wizardry on ‘Stop’ but there are plenty of examples on both sides.

Super Session ‘on the road’ is the theme for The Live Adventures of Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper which was recorded later in 1968. Kooper’s 1997 appraisal that Some of it’s out of tune, the beat gets turned around here and there, but something else is going on that inherently cancels the others out pinpoints the album’s significance.

Live Adventures is a monumental work which directly highlights Bloomfield’s full capacities and maybe more so than on Super Session…. if that’s possible. Even a cursory listening to ‘I wonder who’, ‘Mary Ann’ and ‘Don’t throw your love on me so strong’ demonstrates how good he was. Interesting side excursions via ‘Her holy modal highness’, ‘Green onions’ and ‘Dear Mr Fantasy’ just reinforce that call.

Again, Kooper’s keyboards complement everything over this four-sided epic. His ivories transcend any type of engine room or ‘horn substitution’ roles that one might expect and the renditions of ‘The weight’ and ‘Together ’til the end of time’ are show stoppers.

Take a look at that Norman Rockwell on the cover. I think the great painter of Americana got it right. There’s Al Kooper in his hippy finery, chin up, at peace with the world, looking just past your face out into the future. Whatever enterprise he might concoct, he looks like a guy who could hold it together. Calm and confident, serene even. (Tom Wheeler, 1996)

I only bought Kooper Session about five years ago and it was the result of seeing Shuggie Otis’ performance at the Enmore (Sydney) in March 2013. Following the Robert Cray/ Taj Mahal/ Shuggie Otis triple header, I immediately hit the sound lounges searching for all things ‘Otis’ and the third session album came into my possession among others. I already knew that Otis had played on Hot Rats and that he was something of a legendary figure in early seventies American rock and blues music. Twenty-first century back mapping soon added to that.

Al Kooper recognised Shuggie Otis far earlier. Kooper Session was largely an exposition of the then 15 year old’s talents and this, too, is an enormous album. Kooper used the same strategy of booking a studio for a couple of days with the first side of the album featuring ‘songs’ (with an emphasis on rhythm and blues numbers) while Side 2 was devoted to straight blues jamming. ‘Double or nothing’ and ‘Shuggie’s shuffle’ are standouts but the whole LP is on fire.

Al Kooper was- and is- many things but in the late sixties he helped introduce and consolidate two artists’ careers with these three defining albums. All are worth revisiting.