Rolling Stone
Recorded in 1990, just liberated on disc, Guitar Party
is a blazing covers soiree in the '67 spirit of an all-night Fillmore
dance concert. Henry Kaiser is an experimental-guitar star equally
schooled in Derek Bailey and Jerry Garcia. Glenn Phillips played
in mad late-Sixties jammers the Hampton Grease Band and has made
hot instrumental albums since 1975. With a firm rhythm section and
guest singers, the pair swim and sear through Neil Young, Jimi Hendrix
and Fred Neil tunes. A kind bonus: a timing guide, to the second,
of Kaiser's and Phillips' individual - and lethal - solos.
-- David Fricke
AllMusic Guide
In January 1990, Glenn Phillips traveled from his home in Atlanta
to San Francisco to record a duet with Henry Kaiser on "If
6 Was 9" for a Jimi Hendrix tribute album. But during the course
of a week's visit, the two also recorded lots of other material,
delving into the music of the Bay Area and California rock in general
by doing covers of songs by Quicksilver Messenger Service, Jefferson
Airplane, the Byrds, and Neil Young, with members of Kaiser's band
providing the rhythm section and other guests sitting in. It has
taken more than 13 years, but those recordings finally have been
released in the form of Guitar Party, which thus ends up
being not just Kaiser and Phillips' tribute to Hendrix, but also
to such guitarists as Young, John Cipollina, and Jorma Kaukonen,
along with versions of some of Phillips' own guitar showcases. As
albums go, it's a free-form jamming session full of extensive, psychedelic
guitar work. Bob Weir sits in on the Hendrix song, which expands
into an improvisation called "Guitar Party." Bob Dylan
is cited in strong versions of "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues"
(Susan James on vocals) and "Won't You Please Crawl Out Your
Window?" (Kaiser's bassist, Gary Lambert, on vocals). There
is even a second version of "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues"
included as a hidden bonus track that features someone doing an
impersonation of actor Walter Brennan's portrayal of Grandpa on
the television series The Real McCoys. That track is odd, but it
is carried all the way through faithfully, and you can say something
similar about much of the rest of the album. It's an enjoyable busman's
holiday on which a couple of friends run through some of their favorite
songs and re-animate not a few of them in the process.
— William Ruhlmann
