The Blues Project: Reunion In Central Park

THE BLUES PROJECT: REUNION IN CENTRAL PARK (1973)

1) Louisiana Blues; 2) Steve's Song; 3) I Can't Keep From Cryin'; 4) You Can't Catch Me; 5) Fly Away; 6) Caress Me Baby; 7) Catch The Wind; 8) Wake Me, Shake Me; 9) Two Trains Running.

Believe it or not, but the original Blues Project did come back together in 1973 — if even the Byrds could have a reunion, why not the noble act that tried to carry on the relay? (It wasn't their fault, after all, that time was speeding up way too fast for them). Everybody except for Tommy Flanders is here, yet somehow, the inspiration just wasn't there to try for some creativity — instead, The Original Blues Project, as they call themselves on the sleeve, embarked on a brief American tour, culminating in a free show in New York's Central Park, almost a whole decade before Simon & Garfunkel popularized the idea on a wider scale.

Actually, according to Al's own memories, the LP continues the band's tradition of strange «semi-fakes»: only the audience reaction comes from Central Park, while most, if not all, of the per­for­mances come from earlier shows (in Washington), where the atmosphere, Al says, was more «spontaneous». Not that it would probably matter much — I'd bet anything that The Blues Pro­ject at their worst differed little from The Blues Project at their best: mediocre bands do have that slight benefit of consistency, you know.

The setlist is largely predictable: Projections done in almost all of their entirety, plus a couple additional live favorites from the early days — no attempts whatsoever at sinking their teeth into anything written in the post-Kooper epoch. The surprising glaring omission is ʽFlute Thingʼ, which made me double-check if Kulberg was present at the show at all, yet apparently, he was, and they did perform the song, but, for some reason, left it off the final album, even if, the album being a double one, there was most certainly enough space remaining for it. Maybe Andy forgot to oil the flute or something, or perhaps they consciously decided that it would be a cool gesture to leave their best-known and most-respected composition off the reunion album — you know, so it wouldn't go multi-platinum and turn them into commercial sluts.

Seriously, though, this is a decent performance, delivered with such confidence as if it were 1966 all over again — the band plunges into old-school dance-blues of Muddy's, rockabilly of Chuck's, and starry-eyed folk idealism of Donovan's with such vehemence you'd think the world still lived and breathed these tunes in 1973. However, once we get past this element of energetic surprise there is little else to say — except that the slow blues numbers (ʽCaress Me Babyʼ and particular­ly the excruciatingly tedious journey through the twelve minutes of ʽTwo Trains Runningʼ) are predictably uninteresting, and that, with their exclusion, the album could have been a far more elegant and economic single LP.

Since Kooper had already established himself as a solo artist by that point, it was obvious that the reunion would not last long — this was, in fact, the last time that The Blues Project blipped on the radar, although, rumor has it, in recent years Katz and Blumenfeld have brought the name back from the grave once again, touring as «The Blues Project» with a bunch of sidemen (hope­fully, we will be spared any new studio recordings). As a last goodbye, Reunion In Central Park plays its part with sufficient conviction — more credibly, at least, than the Kalb-dominated bland platters from 1971-72. But if you want a good live album by The Blues Project... then again, I am not even sure why you should want a live album by The Blues Project in the first place. Just get Al Kooper's Soul Of A Man instead.

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The Blues Project: Blues Project

THE BLUES PROJECT: BLUES PROJECT (1972)

1) Back Door Man; 2) Danville Dame; 3) Railroad Boy; 4) Rainbow; 5) Easy Lady; 6) Plain And Fancy; 7) Little Rain; 8) Crazy Girl; 9) I'm Ready.

Little of what applied to Lazarus would not equally well apply to Blues Project, the reunited band's foolishly arrogant attempt at «re-booting» with a self-titled album. The major change is that the original vocalist Tommy Flanders is back for this particular show — not a big deal at all, since we now know that Danny Kalb's vocal powers do not lag far behind Tommy's. In fact, Flanders makes an immediate false start — this version of ʽBack Door Manʼ is one of the worst I have ever heard, in terms of lead singing: most of the time, Tommy alternates between «sloppy drunk» and «whiny schoolboy». No self-respecting lady would ever let this guy through her back door, if you know what I mean.

The sad thing is that Kretmar and Kalb have now managed to keep up a heavy groove, at least on the level of, say, soon-to-come Bad Company — the guitar / bass dialog on ʽI'm Readyʼ is grim and snappy enough to attract some interest. Then in come these ridiculous schoolboy vocals, once again, and the groove goes to hell: the Blues Project were incapable of properly covering Muddy and Wolf in the early days, and there is no reason why they should have gained that capacity in their twilight years. And then, when they do a regular, less criminal-minded, ultra-slow 12-bar blues (Jimmy Reed's ʽLittle Rainʼ), with «nice» vocals and «clean» sound, you start thinking that, perhaps, Jimi Hendrix did sacrifice himself for nought after all. Entertaining people at a late-night diner with this kind of stuff is boring enough, but actually book studio time for that? Waste the world's vinyl resources? Forget it.

There is one good original song on this album: Danny Kalb's ʽCrazy Girlʼ, a darkly romantic «jazz-folk» concoction that has much in its favour — a quirky «trilly» rhythm pattern for starters, catchy psycho-jazz guitar leads, and a slightly paranoid atmosphere that matches the title so well. Had they focused on exploring this jazzy route with its melodic twist further, instead of stubborn­ly sticking to limited formulae of the past that they could never properly sink their teeth in to be­gin with, there might be a real reason for this reunion.

On the other hand, original material contributed by Flanders is hardly much stronger than their blues cover material — he is now favouring anthemic soul balladry, to which his voice is indeed suited much better than to Chicago blues, but ʽPlain And Fancyʼ is rather plain than fancy, and ʽRainbowʼ, despite adding some lively sunny funk notes to the picture, does not have enough energy to turn its optimism into something infectious. So it makes no sense, either, to try and overrate the band's songwriting abilities.

The final verdict is pretty much the same as for Lazarus — a few real awful performances, a few minor highlights, but most of the time, simply run-of-the-mill early-1970s blues rock with no «hall-of-fame» ambitions whatsoever; unless you are a certified enthusiast of the style, just join me in my thumbs down and let us get a move on.

The Blues Project: Lazarus

THE BLUES PROJECT: LAZARUS (1971)

1) It's Alright; 2) Personal Mercy; 3) Black Night; 4) Vision Of Flowers; 5) Yellow Cab; 6) Lazarus; 7) Brown Eyed Handsome Man; 8) Reachings; 9) Midnight Rain; 10) So Far So Near.

After Planned Obsolescence, we thought it was over, but apparently, something about the «Blues Project» moniker had a mesmerizing effect to it — and so, three years later, an out-of-work Danny Kalb resuscitated it once again. Reunited with Blumenfeld — so that, as in the case of Fleetwood Mac, the drummer turned out to be the sole link between all of the band's incarna­tions — and also scooping up Don Kretmar from the previous lineup (now on saxophone and bass), Kalb plunges back into battle.

Given that, of all the original members, Danny was usually considered to be the most «bluesy» in thought, the new record, so it seemed, could finally feel adequate to the name of the band — and in a way, it does, even if the band still feels an obligation to include at least one softie folk ballad (ʽVision Of Flowersʼ), and also dips its toes in the newly-nascent funk style. Unfortunately, where earlier they had to compete with the likes of Cream and Hendrix, now their heavy blues thing has to pander to the same market as Led Zeppelin, and we can all guess the consequences.

The highlight of the album — that one number which, as may be guessed, Danny really gave his everything — is the nine-minute brontosauric title track: a lumbering dark blues rumination on the fate of Lazarus, with Muddy, Wolf, and a little bit of Wheels Of Fire-era Cream as the easy-to-surmise chief sources of inspiration. What can I say? The groove is definitely heavier and growlier than anything previously generated by The Blues Project. But — once again, too little, too late: feelings wrought and tempered by ʽDazed And Confusedʼ may simply not find enough power here to get wound-up again. Danny even tries to break out of the formula by making the second solo less melodic and more «metallic», but he does not seem to have the proper experi­ence or foresight to make it really rumble.

With this major battle fought and ultimately lost, the rest of the songs are just local skirmishes, some of them more successful than others, some utterly embarrassing. For instance, the idea to slow down Chuck Berry's ʽBrown Eyed Handsome Manʼ and turn it into a stuttery pub rocker, honky tonk piano and drunken sax included, was equal to downright killing the song. (One might just as well play the Stones' ʽRip This Jointʼ to the tempo of an ʽI've Been Loving Youʼ and see what happens). Recording Bobby Bland's ʽBlack Nightʼ as a dark blues number made more sense, since the original version never really had the «blackness» promised in the title, but in reality the song also fails, due to predictable lead guitar and awful vocals (vocals on the album, by the way, seem to be mostly handled by Danny himself, and this alone makes it clear why he was so rarely awarded with lead spots on «proper» Blues Project albums).

In the end, once all the noses have finished twitching and all the mouths have ended cringing, what we are left with is ʽIt's Alrightʼ, a fun three-minute piece of sax-led boogie; the cute rhythm section dialog on the funky opening to ʽPersonal Mercyʼ to which the song never really lives up; and a surprisingly effective combination of guitar riff and groovy bassline on the final song, ʽSo Far So Nearʼ, unfortunately, almost killed off by vocals so wobbly and shaky you'd think the sin­ger was doing a tightrope balance trick at the same time. Clearly, this tiny pile of goodies is not enough to recommend the album — a thumbs down judgement is inevitable, albeit without any particular hatred, disgust, or condescension: everything is arranged professionally enough, there is some diversity, some sincerity, some fun. There just ain't too much sense of purpose, other than getting some sort of heroic pleasure from reviving the old moniker.

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The Blues Project: Planned Obsolescence

THE BLUES PROJECT: PLANNED OBSOLESCENCE (1968)

1) If You Gotta Make A Fool Of Somebody; 2) Calypso; 3) Frank'n'Curt Incensed; 4) Turtledove; 5) Mojo Hannah; 6) Niartaes Hornpipe; 7) Endless Sleep; 8) She Raised Her Hand; 9) Dakota Recollection; 10*) Gentle Dreams.

Bravely ironic title: not even the Beatles, assembled at Abbey Road Studios for what they all felt was to be their last collective recording session, dared to slap an ill-omened title like that on the final product. Of course, The Blues Project had a very good reason: by 1968, with Kooper, Katz, and Kalb out of the picture, the original lineup was reduced to Kulberg and Blumenfeld. Addition of such new members as Donald Kretmar on sax, John Gregory on guitar, and Richard Greene on violin, meant that the tables had turned completely — yet, on the other hand, the music that this entirely new configuration came up with seems strangely compatible, to a large degree, with The Blues Project of old.

Except that there is nothing seriously bluesy about this music now. The two main directions ac­tively pursued are now country/bluegrass (fueled by the violin of newcomer Greene) and serene folk balladry, with or without a pinch of psychedelia. As the roots-rock revolution was in full swing, so did the revamped Blues Project, too, decide that embracing the good old soil and its vegetative contents was the correct thing to do. As a team of musicians, they had all the proper skills and resources to do it — as composers and artists, they had predictable problems.

The major highlight of the album is probably its opening track, a cover of Rudy Clarke's ʽIf You Gotta Make A Fool Of Somebodyʼ. It is not shorn of inventiveness — opening with a little bit of flamenco before settling into an R&B-with-fiddle groove, later to be complemented with chaotic flute solos and finally building up towards an explosive climax. The problem is that, as a «gro­ove», the track does not have enough power or sharpness, and as a «song», it does not have a memorable musical theme to go along with. And the multiple segments of which it is composed do not quite agree with each other. Why the bold Spanish introduction, if it gives way to a feeble violin lead line? Why the flute soup, if this is fiddle territory? Why the noisy climax and crash-boom-bang at the end if the song was never all that tense to begin with?

Which is all pretty illustrative of the album in general: a bunch of dudes with a bunch of incohe­rent ideas at a crossroads. A lot of stuff is tried out — almost none of it works. Worst of the lot is ʽDakota Recollectionʼ, a twelve-minute attempt to recapture the success of ʽFlute Thingʼ that immediately degenerates into a jazzy jam with competent, but boring flute, violin, fuzz guitar, and drum solos, the likes of which were generated in droves by dozens of artists at the time. Dif­ference from ʽFlute Thingʼ? Lack of a properly resonant main theme, of course: the theme as such is almost indistinguishable from the solos that follow, and everything is played with such a limp attitude that it's a wonder everybody managed to keep awake for all of the twelve minutes it took to draw the track to a complete stop. Then again, if the title makes any sense, what else could one expect from one's recollections of the merry states of Dakota?

Not all of the album is just fiddle-and-flute games. ʽFrank'n'Curt Incensedʼ, ʽMojo Hannahʼ, and ʽEndless Sleepʼ do try to rock out, fuzzy distorted guitars, screechy vocals (mostly courtesy of John Gregory) and all; but there are no cool riffs, and the energy level remains chained to the average pub-rock level expected from your local bar band. In this context, I rather prefer their softest, gentlest numbers, like ʽCalypsoʼ or ʽTurtledoveʼ, where Kulberg's pastoral flute exercises at least find full justification (the ridiculous backward-vocals bit at the end of ʽCalypsoʼ, however, does not, falling victim to the psychedelic atavisms of the time).

True to the title, Planned Obsolescence was the only album recorded by this lineup; out of its ashes, a year later, rose and briefly flourished the short-lived band of Seatrain, more focused and goal-oriented during its peak periods but, in general, also suffering from poor songwriting skills. That said, serious fans and scholars of late-Sixties roots-rock should not ignore the album — lack or presence of «genius» is, after all, a subjective concept, and in objective terms, there are enough unusual tricks and combinations displayed here to attract the attention of somebody who, for in­stance, is deeply curious about the different ways in which it is possible to combine pastoral flute, honky tonk fiddle, and psycho-fuzz guitar on one album. (Even if each and every one of these ways is ultimately boring and pointless — but this is no scholarly talk).

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The Blues Project: Live At Town Hall

THE BLUES PROJECT: LIVE AT TOWN HALL (1967)

1) Flute Thing; 2) I Can't Keep From Cryin'; 3) Mean Old Southern; 4) No Time Like The Right Time; 5) Love Will Endure; 6) Where There's Smoke, There's Fire; 7) Wake Me, Shake Me.

A fake live album — the last thing that was needed to complete the fall from grace, just as Al Kooper finally decided that the others were tying him down and streamed out into space, in search of the next band that he could quit in less than a couple of years. Actually, it is not totally fake, but only about half of the tracks (admittedly, the longest half) are live, and, according to Kooper's own words, only one of them was truly recorded at Town Hall (NYC's, I presume). The rest are just masked with overdubbed applause, and it is not difficult to spot the masking.

The live tracks are all rather faithful, sometimes extended, versions of songs from Projections — most notably, ʽFlute Thingʼ in all its glory and then some, with extra seances of psychedelic painting, noise bits and dreamy static passages incorporated in the improvised section. Andy Kulberg actually plays an electric flute here, which allows for some extra sonic hooliganry every now and then. Even so, the result never strays in either form or spirit away from the original. Neither does ʽWake Me, Shake Meʼ, whose frenetic R&B crescendos were already a part of the studio design, or ʽI Can't Keep From Cryinʼ, which sounds almost like a note-for-note, punch-for-punch recreation.

At least Live At The Cafe Au Go Go was smart enough not to let itself be preceded by a studio album — that way, the public could not see that the band's stage presence did not seriously boost its chutz­pah; one could turn it the other way, of course, and insist that The Blues Project simply kicked as much ass in the studio as they did on stage, but that wasn't really the way it worked in 1966 — it just means that The Blues Project did not kick much ass, even despite Danny's sharp leads and Steve's ability to pump up the fuzz if the situation called for it.

Nevertheless, there is no reason to complain about the general level of the performances — the band does rock as hard as it is capable of, and the audience must have gotten what it came for, enough to spill over some «fake applause» for the studio additions. Of these, the most recommen­dable is Kooper's garage-art-pop single ʽNo Time Like The Right Timeʼ (which even made it onto the Nuggets collection, and for a good reason) — with a rather silly, but attention-grab­bing tonality change that transforms the romantic ecstasy of the verse into straightforward teenage lust of the chorus. ʽMean Old Southernʼ is a Butterfield Blues Band-style bass-'n'-harmonica-driven blues dance with what is probably Danny Kalb's best moment on the album — a fast, flashy, maddeningly precise country-blues solo. The other two tracks are rather syrupy folk-pop ballads that are rather quickly forgotten, I warrant.

In short, the album has all the signs of a contractual obligation — live tracks mixed in with what must have probably been studio outtakes from the previous sessions — and should be judged as such, rather than a gruesome artistic failure. Strangely, though, it did not close the book on The Blues Project, but merely turned over the most well-read pages of its history.

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The Blues Project: Projections

THE BLUES PROJECT: PROJECTIONS (1966)

1) I Can't Keep From Crying; 2) Steve's Song; 3) You Can't Catch Me; 4) Two Trains Running; 5) Wake Me, Shake Me; 6) Cheryl's Going Home; 7) Flute Thing; 8) Caress Me Baby; 9) Fly Away.

The band's first «proper» album, recorded without Flanders (everybody except for the rhythm section has his share of lead vocals), is the first proper LP-size imprint that Al Kooper made upon the world, and for that fact alone, is worth owning, admiring, and cherishing. However, like all Blues Project albums, it is inconsistent, and only occasionally starts scaling visionary heights — with Al as the band's resident visionary, and Katz and Kalb as a pair of disloyal henchmen, who, instead of supporting their clearly more gifted buddy, try in vain to steal the spotlight on every occasion. It is not that either of them is a poor musician: it is simply that, without Kooper, they seem unable to transcend the paradigm in which they had started out.

Take the cover of Muddy Waters' ʽTwo Trains Runningʼ, for instance. Even in late 1966, 11-minute tracks with long jam sections were still a relative novelty, and it took some guts to dedicate so much precious LP space to even one of them. But for the most part, it looks like the band itself is not quite sure about what to do with all that amount of time — mostly, they just waste it on a very slow tempo and a bunch of guitar and harmonica solos that sound a little... obsolete, perhaps, for an age where the Yardbirds and Cream were already setting new standards (and Jimi was just coming around the corner). They were probably thinking that, by expanding the composition, they could ensure some proper build-ups, climaxes, and finales for Muddy's «apocalyptic pin­nacle» of a song. But they do not.

Amusingly, it is actually the midsection of the much shorter ʽWake Me, Shake Meʼ that stands sonically close to the other well-known 11-minute monster from 1966 — the Stones' ʽGoin' Homeʼ, with freely ad-libbed vocals over a repetitive R&B groove. But although the song itself is among the most fun and rousing romps in Blues Project history, the groove section limps — too clean, too restrained, too laid-back to compete with the bite-and-snarl of classic Stones.

No surprise, then, that the most famous piece of the Blues Project's legacy, captured on the album, is neither a lengthy improvised blues-rock jam, nor a stark-ravin' rock'n'roll number: rather, it is Kooper's instrumental ʽFlute Thingʼ, a slightly dreamy number that rolls folk, jazz, and psyche­delia all into one, with Andy Kulberg's simple, but elegant and memorable flute part standing out as probably the first «serious» example of the flute as a lead instrument in a «pop-rock» context, a couple years before Ian Anderson made the situation casual. This is what the Blues Project should have done more often — an open-door synthesis of beauty and innovation. It isn't much of a «blues project», of course, but then again, ʽFlute Thingʼ does convey a blue feeling all the same, and whoever said that by «blues» we only mean the Chicago 12-bar stuff anyway?

This does not mean that the band is somehow pathologically unable to «rip it up». When Al is given the ideological lead, he knows how to make it work — his arrangement of the old blues tune ʽI Can't Keep From Cryingʼ as a hard-rocking stomper, with screechy distorted organ solos and accordingly screechy guitar counterparts from Danny, is first-rate, as it scales epic / anthemic heights, rather than attempting to delve into the devilish depths à la Muddy / Howlin' Wolf or to rapturously kick ass like the Stones. There isn't much credibility to the lyrics this way — the whole performance should rather be associated with punching fists through walls than with shed­ding an occasional tear over lost love, so something like "I can't keep from cursing" would have been a better idea for a title change — but this is not essential. What is essential is how the organ and the guitar meld together in ecstasy.

Other than those two obvious highlights, Projections is rather evenly divided between blues-rock escapades (including a fun, but superfluous cover of Chuck Berry's ʽYou Can't Catch Meʼ — again, the Stones did that one in a sparser arranged, but tighter and sharper fashion a couple years earlier), and friendly rootsy compositions like Kooper's ʽFly Awayʼ (fast country-pop with a light­ly psychedelic flavor) or a cover of Bob Lind's ʽCheryl's Going Homeʼ which sounds like... uhm, sounds a bit like the Monkees, I guess. Yes, I'm sure the Monkees would have loved to have that one on their debut album. Steve Katz also steps into the spotlight with ʽSteve's Songʼ, an in­teresting attempt at fusing a baroque-style menuet with gallant singer-songwriter folk-pop à la Donovan, although its consciously experimental and glaringly derivative nature still make it feel a bit artificial.

In conclusion, I think that anyone who would bother to seriously sit down with this record back in 1966 and listen to it several times in a row could have prognosticated the obvious — namely, that the conflicting forces within The Blues Project would not allow the band to last for long; that the only way it could have carried on would be by turning into Al Kooper's backing band (with Danny Kalb playing loyal second fiddle, as he does on ʽI Can't Keep From Cryingʼ), which was impossible; and that, most likely, The Blues Project would have remained in history as an im­portant, but brief page in the personal biography of Mr. Al. Nevertheless, Projections, even with all of its imminent flaws, does remain as Al's finest moment with the band, and fully deserves its thumbs up — ʽFlute Thingʼ alone is a steady guarantee, and individual flaws, after all, only ac­centuate the rich diversity of approach: other than modern classical and Eastern stuff, there is hardly a musical genre that does not get a nod on the record.

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The Blues Project: Live At The Cafe Au Go Go

THE BLUES PROJECT: LIVE AT THE CAFE AU GO GO (1966)

1) Goin' Down Louisiana; 2) You Go, I'll Go With You; 3) Catch The Wind; 4) I Want To Be Your Driver; 5) Al­berta; 6) The Way My Baby Walks; 7) Violets Of Dawn; 8) Back Door Man; 9) Jelly Jelly Blues; 10) Spoonful; 11) Who Do You Love.

Along with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, the Blues Project were one of the first American acts that consisted of young middle-to-low class white guys playing the black man's devil music, won­dering how the hell it could ever have happened that they had let British young middle-to-low class white guys take this sort of initiative a couple of years earlier. They were less successful than Paul Butterfield about landing a record contract, only managing to have their first album out in early '66. On the other hand, unlike Butterfield's, their debut was a live one, recorded in No­vember '65 at the Cafe Au Go Go in the Village — introducing the band at its rawest and wildest, and drawing inevitable analogies with the Yardbirds, who were also introduced to the world in full through a red-hot live session back in '64.

The original Blues Project line-up included Danny Kalb on lead guitar and vocals; Steve Katz on rhythm guitar; Andy Kulberg on bass; Roy Blumenfeld on drums; and latecomer Al Kooper on organ (Kooper originally played guitar, but ever since he first tried out the organ on the sessions for Dylan's ʽLike A Rolling Stoneʼ, the instrument was promoted to his personal good luck charm — not that he had any particular knack for that particular instrument). Last, but not least, was vocalist Tommy Flanders, whose cultural and social background put him somewhat apart from the rest of the guys (well, the names speak for themselves) and may have been responsible for the tension that eventually drove them apart even before the album was released.

The record is not fully representative of the Blues Project onstage — like most of the other bands that tried out the live album schtick at the time, due to format demands, they had to cut down on the jamming and improvisation and concentrate on relatively short, compact song-based numbers. Nor did they yet have much audacity in trying out their own material: other than Andy Kulberg's instrumental ʽThe Way My Baby Walksʼ, all of the tunes are covers. And for the most part, the Blues Project predictably covers... the blues: Chicago stuff from Muddy and Howlin' Wolf, with a bit of Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry thrown in for the extra energetics, and a Bobby Bland tune for a little extra bit of soulfulness.

On the other hand, seeing as how this is the Village, after all, it is only natural that the band's territory also extends in the direction of folk — with a somewhat surprisingly modernistic slant, as, instead of doing ʽIf I Had A Hammerʼ or at least ʽTurn Turn Turnʼ, they prefer to popularize imported fellow Donovan (ʽCatch The Windʼ) and the Village's own Eric Andersen (ʽViolets Of Dawnʼ), as well as redo the traditional folk-blues tune ʽAlbertaʼ ("...let your hair hang low..." and all that) in sentimental folk ballad mode (with a whiff of lounge jazz, perhaps). This certainly gives them their own twist, since even Paul Butterfield, not to mention the Yardbirds, preferred to stay away from the sissy vibes of folk balladry — but the Blues Project, from the very beginning, showed that it was not going to insist on taking its name too literally.

All fine and dandy, but how good are these guys, really? Well — they certainly have enough energy to rock the Café (although, judging by the rather limp applause, the house wasn't exactly jam-packed on those evenings), and they are smart enough to introduce their own tempo, time, and to­nality changes into the songs, so as to limit the comparison angle between the covers and the originals. The singing, more or less equally divided between Kalb and Flanders (Al also gets to sing on the Chuck Berry cover), is competent, and the playing is engaging as long as it is pos­sible to think of it in terms of «honor duels» between Al, trying to prove to Danny that his is the rocking-est organ in town, and Danny, trying to prove to Al that his is the flashiest and speediest style of playing on the other side of Eric Clapton.

The latter, in fact, is not that far removed from the truth: Kalb's parts are expressive, fun, and technically stunning for late '65, showing a clear interest in the jazz school of playing as well as the expectable Chicago blues lessons. The weak side is the thin, limp guitar tone, unfortunately, quite characteristic of all the pre-Hendrix era (and quite a few of the post-Hendrix era) American R&B-ers — of course, you had to be fairly careful with your feedback and distortion when play­ing in the folk-oriented Village, but in retrospect, there may simply be too little «power» here to properly capture the interest of the modern listener. Downplay that aspect, though, and Kalb's parts on such blues snarls as ʽJelly Jelly Bluesʼ and ʽSpoonfulʼ will indeed be second only to Mike Bloomfield (inasmuch as aggression-channeling young American six-stringers from 1965-66 are concerned).

And yet, this rarely feels like an album where everybody is doing whatever is the most suitable thing for them. The Rolling Stones (not always, but often) and, say, The Doors (remember their ʽBack Door Manʼ?) were able to capture and preserve the creepy-devilish atmosphere of these Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf tunes. These nice, bright kids from New York are not able to do that — they can host a friendly rock'n'roll party, and they can let off some steam, but there is no sense of allegoric «danger» coming from their renditions. In fact, the jazz-folk recreation of ʽAl­bertaʼ, in terms of soul and feeling, easily trumps almost everything else that they do here — pointing out the general route which Al Kooper would soon start to take.

So, if it weren't for the notoriously exciting bits of Kalb / Kooper interplay, and an overall good chance of assessing young Danny's talents from several different angles, Live At The Cafe Au Go Go would not be much more than a valuable historical document. In fact, even with Danny, it isn't much more than one — mainly a teaser, and certainly no match for Five Live Yardbirds, the album whose model it loosely follows. Fortunately, the Blues Project still had some time left to ripen and come into its own, before the whole mutual-tension and lack-of-perspective thing would start tearing it apart.

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