1. Kenton Bird recommended that I listen to Chicago: Live at Carnegie Hall after he read my recent comments about Chicago III.
So, as I settled in at the Fitness Center for an hour of aerobic exercise, I dialed up this album on Spotify.
The album ignited a rush of activity in my mind.
First, I'd totally forgotten that Live at Carnegie Hall was Chicago IV.
Then some facts came back to me.
I bought this album immediately upon its release and then rarely listened to it.
Back when I bought it, as a senior in high school, I wanted the live performance to sound just like the studio albums, Chicago Transit Authority, Chicago II, and Chicago III.
Back then, I really didn't have much of a sense at all about how much more control a band and its producer and engineers have over the music created in a studio and I strongly preferred the clean, near perfection of the Chicago's studio sound.
Not so today!
Over the years, my attitude about live performances has transformed -- I think in large part because of the love I developed over thirty years ago (and that continues into the present) for live jam band performances and my experiences listening to live performances of the Grateful Dead, Zero, Nine Days Wonder, Little Women, Big Head Todd and the Monsters, and other adventurous, improvisational bands -- not only rock bands, but jazz bands, too.
Back in 1971-72, when I probably only listened to Chicago IV about one time and rejected it, I was impatient with Chicago opening up their songs, turning songs into jam sessions, turning Terry Kath loose for long guitar solos, and featuring the band's other instrumentalists.
I thought today, as I pumped my legs and arms on the Nu-Step machine, how, at 17/8 years of age, how could I NOT have been ecstatic about Robert Lamm's long free form piano solo at the beginning of "Does Anyone Really Know What Time It Is?" and the other forays into solos, improvisations, and musical fun the band performed on this album?
The answer is simple: because it didn't sound exactly like the studio album.
Am I ever stoked that I took Kenton's advice and listened to the first hour of this album today. I can hardly wait to get back to the gym and continue to listen to it, to experience the vigor, the youth, the daring of Chicago live in concert.
Is the sound quality of this album perfect?
No!
Are there rough spots?
Yes!
Does the band seem more human, less edited, less engineered on Chicago IV?
Absolutely.
Live performances consist of one leap of faith after another. Unexpected things happen. I sure learned this back when I performed in some plays.
Listening to Chicago IV stirred up the thrills I once experienced in the handful of plays I performed in, thrills I don't feel when I listen to studio albums.
Ah! But studio albums give me their own thrills and I love them.
I thought, as I drove home from the gym, about the nearly platonic perfection of Steely Dan's Aja and all the minute detailed work Donald Fagen and Walter Becker invested in that album, in the studio, with a steady stream of musicians and vocalists, working to make a perfect sound that could never be replicated live.
Their work in the studio thrills me.
So, do I love Chicago's first three studio albums? I absolutely do.
Am I discovering a new found love for their live performances at Carnegie Hall, as presented on Chicago IV? I sure am.
Same band. Same songs. But not very much alike!
2. Well, Kenton didn't stop with recommending that I listen Chicago IV!
He also posted, on my Facebook page, reviews of Blood, Sweat & Tear's first album, Child is Father to the Man, pointing out that Blood, Sweat & Tears fused rock and roll with jazz, classical, and other styles in advance of Chicago's first album and opened up possibilities for rock fusion that Chicago built upon and sustained for decades.
Kenton's posting took me back to a summer day on the shores (or on the water) of Rose Lake.
I was in high school and Mom and my sisters and I were visiting, among other people at the Rose Lake compound of cabins, the Waltmans.
I can't remember if Clint and I were on the beach or in a boat, but I do remember that we got to talking about contemporary rock music. I didn't have the wherewithal then to disagree with him, but he spoke derisively about Credence Clearwater Revival. In time, our conversation moved away from what dissatisfied Clint to the music he enjoyed.
Soon, we were discussing who was better: Chicago or Blood, Sweat & Tears.
I don't remember if we answered this question.
Now, in my dotage, it's the kind of question I no longer entertain -- it just doesn't matter to me.
I love both bands.
Some of the review material Kenton sent me was a bit condescending toward Blood, Sweat & Tears' second album, the one that introduced David Clayton-Thomas as the vocalist and featured such awesome songs as "You've Made Me So Very Happy", "Spinning Wheel", "And When I Die", and other great tracks, including "Variations on a Theme by Erik Satie".
Why condescending?
Some reviewers found this second album too commercial.
Thank God that in the summer of 1969 when I bought this album, I wasn't thinking about music being too commercial.
I just knew what moved me and Blood, Sweat & Tears' second album was a source of teenage ecstasy for me. I played that album repeatedly and the instrumentation along with David Clayton-Thomas' vocal stylings sent me into orbit.
Not long after I purchased this album, I heard Chicago's first album for the first time at Chuck DeAndre's house and I was nearly paralyzed with awe.
I bought the album as soon as I could and had in my possession two albums that transported me, that introduced me to musical possibilities I'd never imagined before, to styles of music that woke me up, enlarged my world, and made me hungry for more.
And, now, over fifty years later, I can open the Spotify app on my smart phone, connect my phone, via Bluetooth, to my wireless ear buds, and love Chicago and Blood, Sweat and Tears all over again, with deeper appreciation and an even more open mind, with the added bonus of strengthening my body in the Fitness Center.
3. What more could this stimulating day of music and memories and reflections hold?
Well, I haven't been drinking much beer over the last few months, but Debbie and I met shortly after 4 p.m. at The Lounge. I had been thinking, as I drove to uptown Kellogg from the Fitness Center, that I'd like to have a classic craft beer, a beer that would take me back to the mid-90s when, after ten years of abstinence, I decided to drink alcohol again.
Bob always carries one of the first craft beers of the craft beer movement, Sierra Nevada's sturdy, reliable, perfectly balanced, enduring Pale Ale (first brewed in about 1980).
Maybe, for me, Sierra Nevada's Pale Ale is the Blood, Sweat & Tears, the Chicago of craft beers. It helped introduce me to how beers can be flavor bombs and this Pale Ale does so without overwhelming bitterness and with a superb fusion of the hops and malt.
I drank one bottle.
That was enough.
But that beer helped draw a scintillating afternoon to a close. I went home and rested my mind's buzzing of memories, pleasure, and reflections all brought to the surface by listening to Chicago's live performances and by reading and thinking about Blood, Sweat & Tears.
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