Child Is Father to the Man
is keyboard player/singer/arranger
Al Kooper
's finest work, an album on which he moves the
folk
-
blues
rock
amalgamation of
the Blues Project
into even wider pastures, taking in
classical
and
jazz
elements (including strings and horns), all without losing the
pop
essence that makes the hybrid work. This is one of the great albums of the eclectic post-
Sgt. Pepper
era of the late '60s, a time when you could borrow styles from Greenwich Village
contemporary folk
to San Francisco acid
and mix them into what seemed to have the potential to become a new American musical form. It's
Kooper
's bluesy songs, such as
"I Love You More Than You'll Ever Know"
"I Can't Quit Her,"
and his singing that are the primary focus, but the album is an aural delight; listen to the way the bass guitar interacts with the horns on
"My Days Are Numbered"
or the charming arrangement and
Steve Katz
's vocal on
Tim Buckley
's
"Morning Glory."
Then
sings
Harry Nilsson
"Without Her"
over a delicate, jazzy backing with fluegelhorn/alto saxophone interplay by
Randy Brecker
Fred Lipsius
. This is the sound of a group of virtuosos enjoying itself in the newly open possibilities of
music. Maybe it couldn't have lasted; anyway, it didn't. ~ William Ruhlmann