Harvey Mandel – Get Off In Chicago

This is a brand new addition to my collection, just within the past few weeks – a gift from my record-store owning friend for some minor favors I did him. While I don’t have any Canned Heat in my collection, I have a lot of Chicago blues, so of course this would be of interest.

While Harvey Mandel may be best known for his time with Canned Heat, he also played with Charlie Musselwhite, John Mayall, and even The Rolling Stones. Apparently, in 1971, between tours, he decided to pull together a huge array of Chicago musicians and jammed over the course of three days, rooted in blues but definitely straying into jazz here and there. The result is a super-eclectic mix that makes for an interesting listen, and that I’ll be reaching for when I want something that veers away from, say, “Blues Jam in Chicago.”

I really knew nothing of Harvey Mandel before receiving this – he had short but notable tenures with Canned Heat (including Woodstock) and then John Mayall (but none of the Mayall records I own), a series of solo albums in the ’70s and then a long respite, becoming very active again in the 1990s. As far as I can tell, he’s not on a single thing in my collection before this, so he was very much off my radar.

This beautifully packaged new reissue from Ovation hasn’t been recorded in Discogs as of this writing. While I love Discogs as a resource, I find the process of updating new editions to be tedious, and tend to wait for others to do it.