THE COMPLETE GO SESSIONS

Holy crap that was a pain in the ass to add. I had to manually type in all the musician information and manually add the time info. I'd been bitching about getting this artist added for a while, so what the heck. The Go sessions are a wonderful mixture of musicians from the various genres of progressive music. Whoever added this artist must of had a really hard time picking a sub-genre to put Yamashta in. I'd say he's more progressive electronic. The CD booklet says "There ae echoes of soul, jazz-rock, and bozza nova here." "The theme of Go is change and polarity - fantasy and reality, death and re-birth, things changing to opposites".

This was a prog supergroup. Steve Winwood, Al DiMeola, Klause Schultze Michael Shrieve, all united by a Japanese artist, say no more. Also of note, Pat Thrall on guitar. He was in a band called Automatic Man with Shrieve around the same time as Go, that should be listed on this for the first album. I haven't heard the second one in a long time, but as I recall it was a dud.

The first two LPs (it was actually three vinyls altogether) far outshine the last one called Go Too. As I was entering the information, I was really impressed by the synthesizer credits. Really state of the art gear for the mid '70's.

Each for the first two, each LP side consisted of a several songs played as a continuous piece.

Go is a studio album and has more musicians some classical musicians.

Go - Live From Paris has a more streamlined group of musicians, but all the big names are there. There's some new parts and some of the parts from Go weren't included.

Go Too, still has all the big names, but suffers from a case of popitis, not unlike what was afflicting many a good progressive artist in the late '70's/early '80's.

Whoever added this artist must of had a really hard time picking a sub-genre

Go Too drags down the rating a little but not too much since the first two are essential.

If you're a fan of any of the big names and you haven't heard Go and particularly if you're a keyboard/synthesizer nut like myself, you'll probably like this one a lot. If you already know Go and were wondering when they'd get around to releasing the dang thing on CD, "the time is here".

When I caught wind of the Go Live.. In Paris, 1976, I was enamored with the quality of sound being represented at this concert. I only became aware of the re-issue on CD not too long ago, so I cannot attest to the validity concerning sound quality, but I will say that Stomu Yamashta assembled a fantastic line-up of talented musicians for these studio/live projects that have to be considered a must for fans of progressive, jazz-rock fusion. The musicians that are presented here get my nomination as a "supergroup". I do not have Go Too, so a review of this I will leave to other folks who can give a better perception. I have heard the sound quality on the CD releases was compromised a bit, here I'm again not able to comment. When you assemble such luminaries as Stomu Yamashta, Steve Winwood, Al Dimeola, Klaus Schulze, Michael Shrieve, and Pat Thrall you are certainly going to get a smorgasboard of sound and the track "Crossing the Line" gives you Al DiMeola's best guitar solo ever...... So you be the judge on this one. I have played this many times on radio and my listeners were completely caught off guard, they recognized it , but they didn't. I rank this as one of the best assembled jam sessions of the 70's. I won't give it 5 stars only because of Go Too.....

Personnel: Stomu Yamashta Steve Winwood Al DiMeola Michael Shrieve Jerome Rimson Klaus Schulze Brother James Karen Friedman Pat Thrall (Pat Travers Band)

Recorded live at the Palais Des Sports, Paris, June 12th, 1976

This compilation is where you should look for your dose of 'Go.'

Including both studio albums ('Go,' 'Go Too') and the 'Live from Paris' release, it's comprehensive and comes at a great price, generally imported from Raven Records in Australia, or second hand online. The best thing about the combination of the three albums is that you get the two most important releases from 'Go,' (being the self-titled release and the live one) along with the third as what could be considered a bonus.

'Go' itself is a good album, ranging from space-rock, jazz fusion and soundscapes, and featuring a bit of a super-group line-up that included Yamashta, Di Meola, Schultze, Shrieve and Winwood. Now, if the studio tracks didn't quite live up to the expectations set by the line-up, the performances revealed on 'Live from Paris' exceed or at east match them. Expanded versions of the pieces, with better solos and a looser feel to many of the songs, it's great stuff. Di Meola in particular is on fire.

This set also includes the 'Go Too' album, which is not at the same standard as either of its predecessors, but has some interesting moments, and should be of interest to the listener who enjoyed the first release. Having said that, I suspect that the 'Live from Paris' versions will probably get the most airtime of any on this set.

Four stars for the compilation.

Review Nº 71

"The Complete Go Sessions" is a very special compilation, released in 2005, which includes the three albums from the Go sessions, both two studio albums "Go" and "Go Too", and the live album "Go Live From Paris". The Go sessions belong to a very ambitious musical project fusing diverse musical styles, that range from rock, jazz, classical and electronic, which was formed by Stomu Yamash'ta, in 1976, and which had a wonderful mixture of musicians from several genres of progressive music. So, we have Steve Winwood, Michael Shrieve, Klaus Schulze and Al Di Meola. This is only to mention the names of the most known of all the musicians who participated in this project.

Previously, I've already reviewed, individually, all these three albums on Progarchives, and so, because of that, I will not do it again. So, if you are interested to knowing more things about this fantastic musical project, and believe me it well worth, I invite you to read all my detailed reviews about them. So, I'm not going to analyze all the albums exhaustively and detailed, as I did before, but only to do a global synthesis of those my reviews.

"Go": "Go" is the first album of the Yamash'ta's project. It's a magnificent album where all the tracks flow together as a continuous piece of music, with the exception of the fourteenth track, "Winner/Loser", the only song written by Winwood, which probably justify why it sounds more as a Steve's album. It's a nice, calm and a beautiful piece of music, very experimental, with a spatial atmosphere, which makes of it a quite unique musical working. We can find on it diverse musical influences from rock, jazz, electronic and funk, good performances from all musicians, beautiful voice choirs and backing vocals, competent orchestrations and a very professional release. Finally, deserves special mention the presence of Winwood, due his voice on the tracks where he sings, which gives a very special feeling to the album. We are in presence of an original and very interesting album, which is, in my humble opinion, very underrated on this site. Unfortunately, the progressive reviewers here, have given very little attention to it. I sincerely think that this album is an excellent addition and deserves to be part of any progressive rock musical collection.

"Go Live From Paris": "Go Live From Paris" is the second album of the Yamash'ta's project and was recorded live on 12th June 1976 at the Palais Des Sports in Paris, France. As with their studio version "Go", on this live version all the tracks flow together as a continuous piece of music. However, "Go Live From Paris" is a more balanced album, and I don't know if it's due to the new alignment of the songs. On the live version, they're totally changed and the final result is a much better album. So, "Go Live From Paris" is a fantastic and a beautiful live album, one of the greatest live albums of the progressive rock music, and it's also probably, one of their most unknown masterpieces. Here we have a great performance from all this band, which brought together some extraordinary musicians on the same stage. Really, we are in presence of a lost gem that urgently needs to be discovered and appreciated as it really deserves.

"Go Too": "Go Too" is the third and last album of the Yamash'ta's project. After all, I must say that this isn't the continuation of "Go". All the main musicians of the project are here, but it lacks to it Winwood and his unmistakable voice. The absence of his presence is very noted, and whatever the reason, this album is much weaker than the both two previous albums. However, that doesn't mean that we are in presence of a weak album. "Go Too" is a good album, very eclectic and influenced by many musical genres like rock, jazz, funk, electronic, pop, disco and new age. "Go Too" remains a fine addition to the previous two albums and despite be not as interesting, progressively, as the first studio album, it still remains a release that offers a lot of enjoyment with great performances, and for the romantics amongst you, two excellent ballads. In relation to "Go", the style of the music became profoundly modified but I still think that it remains a good work, overall. This is an interesting work that closed this surprising musical project.

Conclusion: I know this project since it was released and I must say that I always became very well impressed with it. Unfortunately, we are in presence of an underrated project, on this site, and where the progressive reviewers gave very little attention. I really don't know if it's by lack of knowledge of it. If I can interest you about this project, I'll be perfectly happy. The main objective was reached. Perhaps the right thing to do is buying this compilation because you will get the entire complete project. However, if you aren't interested in spend so much money to have the entire project, I recommend you to start buying their live album "Go Live From Paris" their hidden masterpiece. It's especially indicated for those who prefer live recordings over the studio ones. Anyway, as a project, it must be known as a whole.

Prog is my Ferrari. Jem Godfrey (Frost*)