Stomu Yamashta's Go – Go Live From Paris

who´s interested in a VG+++ copy, just drop me a line

No 8 page Booklet on my 1980's spanish edition of this double album, but I still preserve (miraculously) the original plastic wrapping with two promotional stickers, one with the artist's names (Stomu Yamashta / Steve Winwood / Michael Shrieve / Klaus Schulze / Al Di Meola), and the other with the title "Live from Paris", stylized as a cute hand writing, just on the same way as on the back of the gatefold sleeve.

**** Buen disco. Una portada que la verdad no merece. La intervención de músicos como Di Meola y Schulze le dan un nuevo nivel a los discos de jazz rock progesivo

Mine matches the runout from this version but has the black label from the other version.

Go is just great live. Have the studio, but Paris recording is a breath of fresh air.

I had no idea what to expect from this album, Stomu Yamashta’s Go – Live From Paris. I purchased it based on the incredible talent involved in its production:

Stomu Yamashta – Percussion / Piano
Steve Winwood – Vocals / Keyboard
Michael Shrieve – Drum Kit
Klaus Schulze – Synthesizers
Al Di Meola – Solo Guitar
Jerome Rimson – Bass
Pat Thrall – Guitar
Brother James – Congos
Karen Friedman – Vocals

Sometimes “supergroups” are great—other times not…

I was very familiar with the work of Steve Winwood, Michael Shrieve, Klaus Schulze and Al Di Meola. The other performers I had never heard of. The general genre was progressive rock so I was keen to give it a listen. I came to learn about this record’s existence through my research into Michael Shrieve’s works. He is one of my all-time favorite drummers—right up there with Carl Palmer, Stewart Copeland, Bill Bruford and Neil Peart. If you are not familiar with Michael Shrieve, he is the drummer for Santana. He has done a number of excellent collaborations with several other artists. I’m also a huge fan of Klaus Schulze and have several of his albums. I had to do some research on Stomu Yamashta: He is a Japanese percussionist, keyboardist and composer (born 15 March 1947). He is best known for pioneering and popularizing a fusion of traditional Japanese percussive music with Western progressive rock music in the 1960s and 1970s.

I would classify the album as experimental prog rock. It has some excellent percussion, guitar work and Steve Winwood’s beautiful vocals. It definitely has a 70’s feel to it. It is a live album but I wish it had a little more audience noise. As far as supergroups go, Go is okay. They aren’t quite as good as the sum of their parts would suggest, but still a very enjoyable listen. I liked this album enough to get their 2nd album, Go Too. I just ordered a sealed mint copy of it for cheap.

The album is a double LP that came in a nice gatefold jacket. My copy isn’t in the best of shape, although it was rated Very Good+. There is a fair amount of surface noise, pops and clicks but in general the sound quality was excellent. There also was an annoying scratch on the beginning of the first track. Fortunately I can clean most of this up in software. The LPs were also quite thin, which is common for records produced in this era. During this time period they seemed to think that vinyl was gold. Luckily my copies were flat and free from warping. The record had a very strong signal (0 dB on my scale). The average record only has a signal of -6 dB. A careful inspection of the digitally recorded waveform revealed that the recording had very little or no dynamic range compression.

I gave this album 4 out of 5 stars.

//Paul Rolan Perkes