Chicago

Clearly virtue-signaling is not quite an invention of this century.

Special Guest: Igor Butman. You couldn’t make up a name like that. Or maybe you could. But another good Chicago cover by Leonid & Friends. Love the guy on the sax. No doubt that was Ivan Saxman.

That group doesn't go after those covers half-hearted.

Wow. I just had a moment listening to this stuff.

Chicago VII was their first studio double album since III and their last studio double album. Apparently there was at least a mild conflict between those who wanted it very jazzy and those who wanted it more popular-oriented. They compromised and included both, thus the double album.

So I’m listening to this from the start. I have to admit that tracks one through 5 (all instrumental) and track 6 (Lamm) fit together snuggly in a sort of jazz-side-of-Chicago way. And I accept it as being good and certainly listenable. This is not some of the (to my pig brain) awful black-sounding stuff Lamm screeches out here and there on some previous albums.


Boom. Cetera enters with “Happy Man.” And I don’t know if the jazz (to its credit) softened me up. But that song stood out like a gem, as if I’d never heard it before. And for some damn reason, it became an emotional moment.

One would want to hear the other side, of course. But I can’t help thinking that the one or two pop songs per album (admittedly contributed more or less by all at some time) kept them in a well-funded drug haze, if that’s what some got lost in.

All that you write (and the Cetera says) jives with the deep-background intuition I have while listening to these albums. On the one hand, you don’t have those amazing production values and instrumentality behind the pop hits without that jazz background and desire to do jazz, even if just sometimes an affectation. (Love the idea of it being a rock band playing some jazz, and not the other way around.)

Peter Cetera, for instance, can count himself lucky (and I’m sure he did/does) that he had such talented people to work with. His songs were fleshed out in a manner he otherwise would not have had access to.

I’ve listened to some good jazz. And some of that now (some of it) includes Chicago. But, yeah, I think you said a mouthful that aspects of jazz are “If you can’t convince them with the facts, then baffle them with bullshit.”

Art, ostensibly, is meant to enrich our lives, to raise us out of the ignoble and humdrum to something pure, elegant, and meaningful. The world is a lie, or at least is filled with liars. Most become so wrapped up in the human drama of ego-projection and ass-covering that the very idea of truth (as we see from the Left, for example) becomes an idea that is laughable, something for the unenlightened rubes to believe in.

Jaded. Corrupt. Ignoble. We’re all tainted by it. And, yeah, so when by whatever means you get zapped between the eyes by that moment when it all comes together, it is reason for celebration — on two counts. One, there is something beautiful in the world. Two, responding to it is evidence that one has not yet been completely buried over by the yuck of the world.

Summing up: Chicago VII, pretty good. Now onto . . .

Chicago VIII.

I disliked every single one of the first nine songs. I either grudgingly listened to the song or, more often than not, fast-forwarded after about a minute after trying to give it a fair try.

At this point I’m listening only out of a historic sense of curiosity. Then out of the blue comes song #10. It was like stepping out of the garbage-strewn ghettos of Detroit and onto the golden pavement of Shangri-La. It was like being lost in the suburbs trying to find your way to the freeway entrance with a GPS. It was like sitting at a stoplight for an hour and then a big-breasted blond walks by in front of you in the crosswalk.

It was all those things and more when “Old Days” crashed this dull party and put a lampshade on the album’s head and brought the good booze. An album that was drowning in mediocrity was (at least probably in regard to sales) rescued.

Funny thing is, I kind of like the bonus tracks on the version I listened to that follow “Old Days”. If you want to try to figure out what kind of Chicago jazz I like, a good representation of that would be “Sixth Sense (Rehearsal).” I do not object to jazziness, per se. Even the soft track that follows it, “Bright Eyes (Rehearsal)” is nice. “Satin Doll (Live)” is a crisp track as well.

Enough said about VIII. Other than pulling a few songs from it if I ever create a “best off” playlist, it will be ignored.

You never know. Maybe his horns weren’t needed in the recording session and he’d actually never heard the song. But, yeah, Cetera’s voice is very distinctive. Still, sour grapes or otherwise, there were apparently some interesting dynamics in the band:



Who knows? But as I had read (and you said), Cetera started to become the face of Chicago, especially when his hits, in particular, started dominating, and particularly as MTV was becoming the face of music in the early 80’s.

Come to think of it, would it be safe to say that the “Adult Contemporary” category was invented for Phil Collins and Peter Cetera?

It as also nice to read that Cetera took good care of his voice by (according to him) avoiding alcohol and tobacco. He retired from performing only a couple years ago apparently.