Al Kooper Live

This is stunning.

A gift from heaven is the only adequate way of describing this superb double-CD set, which comes in a slipcase with a neat little booklet. It is the definitive Al Kooper solo project, and a career reconsideration and retrospective, but it’s also damn close to definitive as a document of the Blues Project and the original Blood, Sweat & Tears as well. At three February 1994 gigs at New York’s Bottom Line, Kooper got together the original members of both bands (with BS&T billed as “Child Is Father to the Man”) and his own Rekooperators, including John Simon and Harvey Brooks, with John Sebastian sitting in on harmonica, to perform new versions of 33 years’ worth of repertory.

I am now on the hunt for this set. It’s titled “Soul of a Man”.