THE COMPLETE GO SESSIONS

"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*)

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