CHICAGO — Transit Authority (review)

Album · 1969 · Jazz Related Rock

4/5 · 2011-05-18
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.