The Blues Project was a short-lived rock and roll band from the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City that was formed in 1965 and split up in 1967. While their songs drew from a wide array of musical styles, they are most remembered as one of the earliest practitioners of psychedelic rock, as well as one of the world's first jam bands, along with the Grateful Dead. Rock and roll (also spelled Rock n Roll, especially in its first decade), also called rock, is a form of popular music, usually featuring vocals (often with vocal harmony), electric guitars and a strong back beat; other instruments, such as the saxophone, are common in some styles. ... The Washington Square Arch Greenwich Village (pronounced Grennich Village; also called simply the Village) is a largely residential area on the west side of downtown (southern) Manhattan in New York City. ... Flag Seal Nickname: Big Apple Location Location in the state of New York Government Counties (Boroughs) Bronx (The Bronx) New York (Manhattan) Queens (Queens) Kings (Brooklyn) Richmond (Staten Island) Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R) Geographical characteristics Area     City 1,214. ... Psychedelic rock is a musical style inspired by or attempting to replicate the mind-altering experience of drugs such as cannabis, psilocybin, mescaline, and especially LSD. Psychedelic music is a misnomer and should properly be called psychedelic rock music, but for the purposes of this article it is not rigorously... The term jam band is commonly used to describe psychedelic rock-influenced bands whose concerts largely consist of bands reinterpreting their songs as springboards into extended improvisational pieces of music. ... The Grateful Dead was an American psychedelia-influenced rock band formed in 1965 in San Francisco. ...

In 1964, Elektra Records produced a compilation album of various artists entitled The Blues Project which featured several white musicians from the Greenwich Village area who played acoustic blues music in the style of black musicians. One of the featured artists on the album was a young guitarist named Danny Kalb, who was paid $75 for his two songs. Not long after the album's release, however, Kalb gave up his acoustic guitar for an electric one. The Beatles' arrival in America earlier in the year signified the end of the folk and acoustic blues movement that had swept young America in the early 1960s. The ensuing British Invasion was the nail in the coffin. Seeing the writing on the wall, Kalb gave up acoustic blues and switched to rock and roll, as did many other aspiring American musicians during this period. Elektra Records is an American record label owned by Warner Music Group, and today operates under Atlantic Records Group. ... The Beatles appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964 as part of their first tour of the United States, promoting their first hit single there, I Want To Hold Your Hand. ... The appearance of The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show, February 9, 1964, marked the dramatic start of the British Invasion. ...

Danny Kalb's first rock and roll band was formed in the spring of 1965, playing under various names at first, until finally settling on the Blues Project moniker as an allusion to Kalb's first foray on record. After a brief hiatus in the summer months of 1965 during which Kalb was visiting Europe, the band reformed in September 1965 and were almost immediately a top draw in Greenwich Village. By this time, the band included Danny Kalb on guitar, Steve Katz (having recently departed the Even Dozen Jug Band) also on guitar, Andy Kulberg on bass and flute, Roy Blumenthal on drums, and Tommy Flanders on vocals. Steve Katz (born May 9, 1945) was an original member of the rock bands The Blues Project, Blood, Sweat and Tears, and American Flyer. ...

The band's first big break came only a few weeks later when they auditioned for Columbia Records, and failed. The audition was a success, nevertheless, as it garnered them an organist in session musician Al Kooper. Kooper had begun his career as a session guitarist, but that summer, he began playing organ when Bob Dylan recruited him to play the instrument on his seminal album Highway 61 Revisited. In order to improve his musicianship on the new instrument, Kooper joined the Blues Project and began gigging with them almost immediately. Mike Bloomfield (left) and Al Kooper (right) album cover Al Kooper (born February 5, 1944, Brooklyn, New York) is an American songwriter,producer, and musician, probably best known for organizing the group Blood, Sweat & Tears. ... Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman on May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter, musician and poet whose enduring contributions to American song are often compared, in fame and influence, to those of Stephen Foster, Irving Berlin, Woody Guthrie, and Hank Williams. ... Highway 61 Revisited, widely regarded as one of the greatest albums ever, was the sixth album released by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. ...

Soon thereafter, the Blues Project gained a record contract from Verve Records, and began recording their first album live at the Cafe Au Go-Go in Greenwich Village over the course of a week in November 1965. While the band was known for their lengthy interpretations of blues and traditional rock and roll songs (making them, along with the Grateful Dead, rock's first "jam band"), their first album saw them reign in these tendencies because of record company weariness as well as the time restricitions of the vinyl record.

Entitled simply Live At the Cafe Au Go-Go, the album was finished with another week of live recordings at the cafe in January 1966. By that time, vocalist Tommy Flanders had left the band and was not replaced. As a result, Flanders appears on only a few of the songs on this album.

The album was a moderate success and the band toured America to promote it. While in San Francisco in April 1966, during the height of the city's Haight-Ashbury culture, the Blues Project played at the Fillmore Auditorium to rave reviews. Seemingly New York's answer to the Grateful Dead, even members of the Grateful Dead who saw them play were impressed with their improvisational abilities. (SOURCE: "Rock Family Trees" TV show.) This page is a candidate for speedy deletion. ... There have been at least three Fillmores: The Fillmore in San Francisco, CA. The Fillmore Denver in Denver, CO. Fillmore East in New York City. ...

Returning to New York, the band recorded their second album and first studio album in the fall of 1966, and it was released in November. Arguably better than their first album, Projections was certainly more ambitious than their first album, boasting an eclectic set of songs that ran the gamut from blues, R&B, jazz, psychedelia, and folk-rock. The centerpiece of the album was an 11-and-a-half minute version of "Two Trains Running", which, along with many other songs on the album, showed off their improvisational tendencies.

Soon after the album was completed, though, the band began to fall apart. Al Kooper quit the band in the spring of 1967, and the band without him completed a third album, Live At Town Hall. Despite the name, only one song was recorded live at Town Hall, while the rest was made up of live recordings from other venues, or of studio outtakes with overdubbed applause to feign a live sound.

The Blues Project's last hurrah was at the Monterey International Pop Festival held in Monterey, California, in June 1967. By this time, however, half the original line-up was gone and most of their early magic was, too. Al Kooper had formed his own band and played at the festival as well, but no sort of reunion was in the offing. Guitarist Steve Katz left soon thereafter, followed by founder Danny Kalb. A fourth album, 1968's Planned Obsolescene, featured only drummer Roy Blumenthal and bassist Andy Kulberg from the original lineup. Upon the album's completion, the Blues Project called it quits. The Monterey International Pop Music Festival took place from June 16 to June 18, 1967. ...

In 1968, Al Kooper and Steve Katz joined forces once again to fulfill a desire of Al Kooper's to form a rock band with a horn section. The resulting band was Blood, Sweat & Tears. While Kooper led the band on its first album, Child Is Father To the Man, he did not stick around for any subsequent releases. Katz, on the other hand, remained with the band into the 1970s. Blood, Sweat & Tears was an American music group, formed in New York City in 1967, which fused jazz and rock or pop music into a hybrid of what came to be known as jazz-rock. They are considered, by and large, to be the first or among the first of...

The Blues Project, with a modified lineup, reformed briefly in the early 1970s, releasing three further albums: 1971's Lazarus, 1972's The Blues Project, and 1973's The Original Blues Project Reunion In Central Park (which featured Al Kooper but not Tommy Flanders). These albums did little to excite the public, however. Since then, the group's activity has been confined to a few sporadic reunion concerts.