Chicapah My first exposure to the seven-headed behemoth known as Chicago came in April of 1969, just a few days before the release of this, their debut. I and my buddy Frank Lee had corralled two tickets to see Jimi Hendrix perform at Dallas Memorial Auditorium and these guys were the opening act. They looked like a raggedy bar band that had somehow gotten incredibly lucky and been recruited to tour with a living legend on very short notice because Peter Cetera's aqua blue metal-flake Kustom bass amplifier and matching speaker cabinet stuck out like a swollen toe, Robert Lamm's Hammond B-3 appeared to have picked up quite a few nasty scars, bumps and bruises from being hauled up and down narrow stairwells and the poor horn section was squeezed into the edge of the stage area like an afterthought. But once they started to perform none of that mattered. These boys were not some Blood, Sweat & Tears clone trying to finesse us into awe-struck acceptance of them via their individual virtuosity. They were a rough gang that was going to jackhammer the house down into rubble or die trying. They presented a forceful, honest blend of rock & roll and big band jazz and everyone in the arena was impressed when they finished their set (and that's no easy feat when the antsy crowd is itchin' for their "experience.") Chicago wowed us and earned our respect that night. Within days several cuts from this LP were spinning in heavy rotation on the local FM stations and a career that would last well into the next millennium was underway. It was a very bold move to ask the record-buying public to spring for a two-disc set right out of the gate (they had to accept a smaller royalty percentage to get Columbia to do it) but that risky gamble paid off large. They sold over a million copies in half a year. Of course, having two or three hit singles crossing over into the Top 40 didn't hurt. The bottom line is that this collection of musicians possessed the right attitude at the right time in the right place and they owned the creative talent to back it all up. Add to all that the chutzpah to put a healthy dose of jazz/rock sensibilities and an unorthodox array of sounds into "Chicago Transit Authority" and it's no wonder they made such an immediate impact on the populace. No one else was doing what they were doing the way they were doing it.

Guitarist/vocalist Terry Kath's "Introduction" kicks things off with a bang. While these sorts of how-de-do's can be cringe-inducing corny (as in "Hey, hey, we're the Monkees"), when they work (aka Nazz's exhilarating "Forget All About It") they can disarm even the most skeptical of listener right off the bat and make them more pliable. It's an upbeat yet hard- driving piece of music with jazzy changes and stimulating dynamics to boot. The horns are brash and in-your-face. The mellower section allows James Pankow on trombone and Lee Loughnane on trumpet to step out from the shadows and into the spotlight. They then jump-start it back up into rock mode and the whole ensemble collectively shines. I'm pretty sure you've heard "Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?" but what you may not have heard is Lamm's exquisite solo piano intro that sets it up. The tune's initial salvo is clever and then they wisely present (in terms of commercial viability) some very tight, Laura Nyro- ish pop intended to bathe the AM airwaves. The inclusion of brief snippets of Pink Floyd- like background conversations into the mix keeps it from being overly predictable.

Robert's "Beginnings" is a simple love song that's upgraded to exceptional by the expressive horn arrangement that allows it to develop peaks and valleys. I liked it the first time I heard it in concert and still do. The repeating 3-chord refrain that dominates the second half of the track is kept fresh and robust by energetic trombone and trumpet bursts peppered throughout and the joyous, free-spirited hand-held percussion exposition that carries on into the fadeout is ingenious. Conservative Republicans they were not. Lamm's "Questions 67 and 68" is two steps backward in that it's exactly what the typical big band/rock copycat groups of that era were putting out there. It's not a bad tune but quite middle-of-the-road and unremarkable in contrast to their other material. Also, it didn't age particularly well and is embarrassingly dated. "Listen" follows and the onset built around Kath's single feedback note is still cool today. It's more of a true rocker in that they emphasize the guitar, bass and drums and the horns are only there to embellish.

"Poem 58" is a guitar-driven, power trio jam in which Terry comes off as a capable axe-man but somewhat limited in his technical prowess. The second half of the song is more interesting with ascending background vocals and punchy brass but Kath's incessant riffing is annoying. Letting one of the horns take a turn would've been a better option for this odd little number. Speaking of Terry, his uninhibited work on the next eclectic cut screamed to their audience that ordinary would not be an adjective casually applied to this group. In order to shake up the status quo the band stepped out for lunch and let Kath get psychedelic with his gear and make rude noises at will. I've had bouts of indigestion that were more enjoyable to listen to. If their intent was to shock then mission accomplished but I'll bet I've sat through this exercise in abstraction called "Free Form Guitar" only once on purpose. I got my fill the first time.

The bluesy "South California Purples" is my favorite cut on the album simply because it seriously rocks! Lamm's Hammond lead won't elicit comparisons with Brian Auger but the hot, snappy horns make it a moot point. Terry's gutsy guitar ride is edgier than normal, as well. Some tunes just beg to be elaborated upon and Steve Winwood's classic "I'm a Man" is one of them. Chicago covers it excellently even though they relegate the horn section to whaling away on percussion instruments. That threesome's infectious enthusiasm goes a far distance in keeping Daniel Seraphine's lengthy drum solo from getting stale, though. "Prologue, August 29, 1968" is a one-minute sound bite taped on the streets during the previous year's dramatic Democratic Party Convention held in their hometown and I find it strange that producer James William Guercio claimed a writing credit for it. Is that egotistical or is it just me? Anyway, they follow it with "Someday (August 29, 1968)" in which the splashy horns are prominent and propel this politically-charged ditty from start to finish. It's not a great song but there's a good collaboration of different ideas to be found in the arrangement.

They go to elaborate measures in the liner notes to highlight the fact that James Pankow's "Liberation" was recorded entirely live in the studio "complete and uncut" and to that I exhort a hearty "so what?" It's really little more than a glorified jam session that leaves a lot to be desired. Its frat party anthem leads to another long (and I mean LONG), frantic Kath guitar extravaganza that eventually collapses into another wild melee of cacophony that everyone feels compelled to dog pile onto. A more peaceful movement ensues and then the group evolves steadily into a big band build up to the concert-worthy grand finale.

While I can't help but admire the bullish male orbs it took for an unknown group to take so many chances on their adventurous four-sided debut, I'm convinced they could've achieved similar results with a disc's worth of guitar rides and sundry indulgences edited out. Having said that, this release charted at #17 in the USA and #9 in the UK so what do I know? (Not very adventurous-minded in this instance, am I?) There was a calculated shock value at play in this presentation of excess that disappeared by the time they got down to the business of recording their sophomore album and it's a good thing, too. "Chicago II" is one of their very best efforts mainly because of its conciseness and lack of filler. Yet that fine LP would probably have never been the success it was had it not been for the brazen, fearless statement they made with this one that made the entire planet sit up and take notice. The whole world was watching, indeed.

FunkFreak75 The debut album by the group from the city of its name--a group whose seven founding members would stay the same through ten years and eleven studio albums (one a "greatest hits")--until the tragic death of singer-guitarist Terry Kath (one of Jimi Hendrix's most respected and studied guitarists). A pretty remarkable phenomenon.

LP 1 Side One ("The Jazz-Rock Fusion Side") 1. "Introduction" (6:35) a mostly-instrumental song that does exactly what the title says: introducing the band and its complex, multi-layered Jazz-Rock Fusion orientation. The displays of time signatures, variety of mood motifs, with some very complex layering and stellar individual performances fully demonstrate the virtuosity of the collective which, then, reflects on the talents of all of the individuals as well. For me it's the playing of drummer Daniel Seraphine, bass player Peter Cetera, and trombonist James Pankow that really stand out. The septet is so tight! Absolutely brilliant! What an album opener! (9.75/10)

2. "Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?" (4:35) Robert Lamm's jazzy solo lounge piano in the opening 75 seconds is definitely misleading for what is to come. What a big, anthemic song it becomes! Lee Loughnane's trumpet looms so big over the top! And then there are the timeless lyrics as sung so powerfully by Robert Lamm. (Great b vox, too!) And then, of course, there are the iconic horns. Wow!(9.5/10)

3. "Beginnings" (7:54) one of the best/my favorite J-R Fuse songs of all-time. Terry Kath's acoustic rhythm guitar performance is one of the strongest you'll ever hear. The horns are perfect throughout--even moreso in the closing jam--as is Peter Cetera's rock-solid bass and Daniel Seraphine's drums--but the closing jam's vocal chant and percussion play is so rollicking fun: as infectious as anything Santana ever played on stage! (15/15)

Side Two ("The Blues-Rock Side") 4. "Questions 67 and 68" (5:03) A very cool composition that is, in my opinion, flawed a bit by the incongruity of Terry Kath's dirty-distorted (though dynamic) lead guitar play with the pristine clarity of the piano and vocals of Peter Cetera. The bass and horn blasts are a good match for Terry's lightning guitar runs, and the song, overall, is quite engaging--especially with sections like the "Up, Up and Away" motif in the third minute--but there are inconsistencies. (9/10)

5. "Listen" (3:22) blues rock with Latin percussion arrangement. This song feels as if was written five or six years before and revived for this album as one of the final fillers to make it a double album. One of Robert Lamm's raspy-raunchier vocal performances. The musicians just don't do enough to elevate it to the level established by the first three songs. (8.5/10)

6. "Poem 58" (8:35) interesting that this little-considered song is the band's longest of the first disc of their debut album. Rooted in R&B, Terry Kath, Peter Cetera, and Danny Seraphine set themselves up as a little power trio à la CREAM or the BAND OF GYPSYS so that Terry can show off more of his guitar skills and ideas. I imagine this to be one of the songs to have earned Jimi Hendrix's notice and adulation. At 4:50 the band's palette and orientation changes quite radically as the rhythm section opens up and slows down and the horns join in. Vocals and background vocals take over the foreground for a minute before Terry's searing blues-rock lead moves into the very front of the song while the other instrumentalists maintain their support with a James-Brown-like motif. And to think that, lyrically, this turns out to be a love "poem" just strikes me as odd and incongruous. (There is a little incongruity and unaddressed, even subliminal, conflict within several of the Chicago songs.) (17.5/20)

LP 2 Side One ("Terry Kath's Side") 7. "Free Form Guitar" (6:47) I was always fascinated by this song in my early teens: first of all for its experimental sound(s), but also for the fact that a band and record company would allow a song like this to A) be recorded, B) be considered for representation on an album to be published, and B) finally included on the internationally-published and marketed vinyl product. The cajones! Musically, this is mostly listenable as a curio, a time-capsule representation of the skills and technological experimentation and capacity available in 1968-69. (13/15)

8. "South California Purples" (6:11) I got to know and love this song because I played this side of CTA to death: I LOVED "I'm a Man," was fascinated by "Free Form Guitar" and really enjoyed the DEEP PURPLE-like simple bass, guitar, and drum pattern and the solos that could be played over and within it. (8.875/10)

9. "I'm A Man" (7:43) an absolutely iconic cover of Steve Winwood's famous song originally released by the Spencer Davis Group in January of 1967. Terry Kath's performances--on both electric guitar and vocal--are nothing short of ground-breaking--and the percussion work, organ, and background vocal performances are not far behind. (14/15)

Side Two ("The Political Side") 10. "Prologue (August 29, 1968)" (0:58) Led by the famous "The whole world is watching" crowd chant from the Democratic National Convention hosted by the city of Chicago in 1968, the band then tries to make sense of the events through song and lyric with the following song.

11. Someday (August 29, 1968)" (4:11) The band's processing of the events of the crowd demonstrations at the Democratic National Convention in 1968. (8.75/10)

12. "Liberation" (14:38) the album's longest song, 7:45 of it is a power rock guitar jam, the second part turns more bluesy but that ninth minute seems to revert into a vehicle for more of Terry Kath's free-form guitar --or at least it threatens to do so: this time the rest of the band members are right on board with Terry, presenting their own creative sounds to try to match or support Terry's acid-psych tripping. Then, from 11:30, the music breaks down into very lovely gentle blues-rock jam. (Is this where some of Dutch band FOCUS got their ideas?) I love the genuine emotion of Terry's "Thank you, People" before the frenetic Chuck Berry finale. (26.333333/30)

Total Time: 76:36

This album had/has such a different feel than any/all other Chicago albums (even the half-jazzy VII or the avant/RIO II); it is a true collection of experimental/progressive songs--many of which are on the jazz-rock side of the spectrum. From start to finish each song is testing boundaries, pushing composers' and performer's limits. The fact that radio play was achieved by any of these songs is miraculous cuz they're all long songs (much longer than the proscribed 2-3 minute AM pop standard), yet I heard over half of these songs on the FM radio in my home town of Detroit. (Thank you, WABX!) The double album's first side is it's most thorough and complex whole-band rendering of some very advanced compositions--truly befitting of the new jazz-and-rock fusion movement. Side Two presents three songs that sound much more representational of an older, more foundational "blues-rock" incarnation of the band. Side Three seems to bend/cater to the band's most experimental member, guitarist Terry Kath. (I think they all understood what a genius they had in the form of Terry.) Side Four seems to allow the band to express the angsty zeitgeist of the Vietnam/Civil Rights/Nixon times. This does not make a fully or even partially perfect "jazz-rock fusion" album, but there are definitely lots of musical elements being fused into this album's whole.

B+/4.5 stars; rated up for creativity and sheer guts; a minor masterpiece of early or proto-jazz-rock fusion.

Sean Trane When one thinks of brass rock, he generally thinks of the group Chicago as they were the mainstay of that genre and are still alive today, although doing very different things. Actually the wide public sort of made a rivalry between the cheesy crooning Blood Sweat & Tears and this great energetic virtuosic septet from the windy city. Directed and produced by local producer Guercio, Chicago is your standard prog quartet (with three singers all able to sing lead) with a three man brass section, but most of the writing comes from keyboardist Robert Lamm (mainly), guitarist Terry Kath (a bit less) and (strangely kept on side 4), trombonist James Pankow. Out of this album, some four (or five) singles were issued, with three of them reaching the top 10, mostly coming from the first disc of this double set.

Already showing great signs of self-confidence is starting on a double Lp debut album Opening on the self-explanatory Introduction, the group goes through a bunch of movements that fits exactly what they set out to do in their early career, a progressive blend of jazz rock, but attacking it a bit the opposite way than Miles Davis. Indeed if Miles was walking towards rock from his jazz, CTA was doing the opposite walking towards jazz from the rock realm. It was nothing all that new of course as BS&T had already done this the previous year, but Canadian crooner DC Thomas made most tracks extremely cheesy. Nothing of the sort here, as CTA has a real wild psychedelic side to them and their members are obviously so much better at their respective instruments. A little further down the album, after Intro (and past the uninteresting but chart topping What Time It Is), we have the much better 8-mins Beginnings, again moving all over the place, allowing much interplay between the musicians. The flipside seems obsessed by numbers as Lamm asks us about Questions 67 & 68 about Poem 58 and tells us to Listen, but it is Kath's guitar on the latter that steals the show, although it's clearly the 8-mins+ Poem 58, the centrepiece of the album with some excellent drumming from Seraphine. Excellent stuff, saving an otherwise weaker second side.

The second disc is much more open and experimental than its predecessor, starting on the wild Free Form Guitar, where Kath pulls a Hendrix/Marino/Genrich number that is certainly a tad out of place in a Chicago album. South California Purples (sounds like a LSD tab) is much more in the line, being a straight blues. Saving a weaker third side, the Spencer Davis Group cover of I'm A Man (recorded live by the sound of it) is certainly the album's bravura moment, showing the band in its best light. The flipside opens on recordings from protest march before the group slowly enters via the crowd chants and guitar wails into the Someday song itself before returning crowds shortly.The album closes on the wild Pankow-penned 14-mins+ Liberation where the group really shows off their skill and virtuosity and their free jazz improvs, Terry Kath above everyone, obviously eying Hendrix. Great stuff

What a strange and daring double debut album, and a mighty successful one at that.

AtomicCrimsonRush Chicago's 1969 debut has enough dynamic power to blow the sugar off all their hits of the 80s.

Chicago Transit Authority is a tremendous energetic, daring debut from a group that would soon be known around the world as Chicago. I had been brain washed or ear washed into believing that Chicago were only capable of saccharine sweet love power ballads, as the radio waves were soaked by the inundation of 80s slush such as 'If You Leave Me Now'. Everytime the song comes on women everywhere sing it with affection, oh, the romantic lyrics and schmaltzy vocals, it was enough to cause me to steer well clear of this band. So to hear this album is a wakeup call like no other; it may well be the revelation of the year for me personally.

The jazz fusion and avante approach on this incredible debut is astounding. The jazzy brass and odd time sig on 'Introduction' is a prime example. Kath's bluesy vocals are always a delight, but the brass section with sporadic percussion are truly mesmirising. There are touches of Miles Davis and Mahavishnu Orchestra scattered in the music, and some of the most bizarre guitar playing I have heard. Most of this is sheer creativity embellished by brass, keyboards and fuelled by the power of improvisation; just listen to 'Does Anyone Know What Time it Really Is' as an example, a great melody backed with jazz time swings and bluesy vocals. Of course this was 1969, the birth of prog in a sense, so creativity is the name of the game, people were searching for a new sound. The drums remind me of Santana, there are influences of Canned Heat and Grateful Dead, and Davis among others. I am certain this double album would have had a dramatic impact on other bands and musicians. This is ground breaking masterful playing. 'Liberation' is notable for the jazz fusion style and a blazing guitar solo. There are some experimental moments especially in the guitar solo of 'Free Form Guitar' which explains the free form feel. It is as inaccessible as the band can get, rather disturbing, and would send all those women running who love to sing along to 'I Don't Wanna Live Without Your Love'. Of course this is a different beast, and it wasn't until the 80s that the band would succumb to the money churning pop ballads that would skyrocket them to worldwide acclaim.

In the meantime the prog or jazz fusion addict can revel in this early Chicago, including extended wah wah guitar solos on 'Liberation' or some truly weird rants on 'Someday' and 'Prologue', the protest era is evident in the crowd chants. 'Questions 67 and 68' is a powerful track with a ton of heavy brass and fast guitars, and the vocals sing a fairly catchy melody, a majestic feel is generated, almost anthemic, and the famous Chicago harmonies are here.

The constant time sig switches are key features, but there is a sound structure on each track. 'South California Purples' has great Hammond and very cool bluesy guitar riffs with strong Zeppelin like lyrics, "Since I lost my baby I been losing my mind". This was quite typical of the era, songs about break up and make up, over a bluesy riff with extended solos. When they throw caution to the wind the creativity is astounding; they even throw in a verse from The Beatles 'Come Together' on this track. Kath is a powerhouse on vocals and guitars on this album; Chicago are a force to be reckoned with when they go into full flight.

The riffs are great on this debut, the bluesy guitars and striking Hammond on 'Listen', enhanced by the ever present brass; it is excellent musicianship. 'Poem 58' has a cool riff and Kath's guitars with Peter Cetera's bass are a driving force. There are psych prog nuances in the guitars improvised over a strong riff, and at times there is a break and the time sig takes off in another direction, as was the case in a lot of 1969 music. 'I'm A Man' is one I had heard on some 60s documentary but I was startled that it was a Chicago song. The cool riff and fast percussion are a feature along with Kath's indelible vocals.

The extended solos drag the album out to a wonderful 76 minutes, perfect for a CD, you might say. There is not a dull moment, even though the guitar solos can be cumbersome, there is always a compelling edge to this early incarnation of Chicago. So forget everything you know about this band if you are new to them. Like me, I am certain this music will take you by surprise.