It’s hard to believe that horn band Chicago, along with Grand Funk Railroad, were one of the most popular touring acts of the early Seventies. Why, I would go so far as to suggest the above proves that the young people of America had lost their collective fucking mind. Personally, I blame the Ohio National Guard.
I would blame drugs—acid and speed and St. Joseph’s Baby Aspirin and the like—but what respectable dope fiend would have been caught dead at the live shows that make up Chicago’s eight-sided beast, 1971’s Chicago at Carnegie Hall? Chicago was only slightly less square than the likes of fellow horn band Blood, Sweat & Tears and vocal group Three Dog Night, both of whom also raise questions about the intelligence, taste, and indeed sanity of the Children of America in the Age of Nixon.
I can only think that collective societal trauma induced a sort of mass idiocy that led America’s supposedly turned-on kids to buy albums by horn bands, including a quadruple live album that is largely unlistenable. So unlistenable indeed that you can tell it’s unlistenable without actually listening to it, or so concluded Robert Christgau in his contemporaneous review of the LP (“I’m not claiming actually to have listened to this four-record set—you think I’m a nut?”). And he wasn’t even apologetic about it!
Lester Bangs did listen to all eight sides, which makes him a hero in my book, and after sarcastically calling the album “a classic” and commending it for its sheer heft (3.2 pounds according to his calculations) he went on to add, sarcastic still, “Loving Chicago at Carnegie Hall as much as I do, though, I still don’t play it very often. In fact, I’ve only played it once since I got it, and never intend to play any of it again.”
Chicago at Carnegie Hall, or also as it’s also known Chicago IV because not only do Chicago know how to count, they’re so classy they can actually count in Roman numerals, and slap one at the end of every new album so as to let you know exactly where you are in the “Chicago Saga,” right up until their very latest which I think is called Chicago MVII. Early Chicago was a gassy, long-winded proposition; all three of Chicago at Carnegie Hall’s predecessors were double albums.
But they went all out on Chicago at Carnegie Hall, which is as bloated as an eight-day East River floater. And the boys in the band aren’t content to give you just the music—the album literally opens with three minutes or so of the band tuning up before legendary WNEW-FM DJ Scott Muni finally gets around to introducing them in the gushing terms generally employed by Soviet apparatchiks for Joseph Stalin.
I should say at this point that I DID listen to Chicago at Carnegie Hall in its entirety, and it’s a bore. I should also say at this point that band trombonist/percussionist James Pankow is right when he complains that Carnegie Hall was no place to record a live album and that “the brass after being miked came out sounding like kazoos.” I should in addition add that Terry Kath was no slouch as a guitarist, and unlike Peter Cetera (the band’s ignoble future) he doesn’t sing like an soft-brained eunuch, and that he lends the LP what little excitement it has. The problem is he’s surrounded by a trumpet, a trombone, and woodwinds playing “charts,” and that Chicago’s small big band sound is pure Snoresville.
Moments jump out at you. By way of introducing the stultifyingly dull Caribbean opus “Fancy Colours” Cetera says, “Now, if you can imagine a pair of wind chimes at each side of your head…” I have no idea what he means by this, but what I do know is the flute that runs through the song is so shrill it will dissolve kidney stones, and the trombone sticks in your throat. The song is horn rock at its worst, a tsunami of suck.
And the six-plus-minute “free form” piano solo by Bobby (“Mr. Chops” is how he’s introduced) Lamm that precedes “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?” is bad lounge music, although I’m sure the term Mr. Chops would use is “funky.” It is not funky, and when the band finally does go into “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?” you will be overwhelmingly grateful, even if the song is about how hippies don’t need to know what time it is because they live in the eternal present, but if that’s really the case why is Lamm wearing a watch? And what kind of self-respecting hippie wears a watch in the first place?
“South California Purples” is, go figure, a blues, and goes on forever, by which I mean fifteen-and-a-half minutes of forever, which is one very long forever indeed. Of course it gives various members of the band the opportunity to “stretch out” and “strut their stuff,” and while I can listen to Kath on guitar and I “dig” the part where Lamm quotes The Beatles (“I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together”) the horn arrangement is pure high school jazz band and about as much fun as an acid bath. And come to think of it, Kath goes on way too long. I suppose the ending is as close as the band ever got to “freaking out,” and as far as free-form noise goes I’ve heard worse. But if you can make it to the end of “South California Purples” I suspect almost anything would sound good.
But what am I doing? If you expect to write about the thirty-odd songs on Chicago at Carnegie Hall you’ve got the wrong guy! It’s all about the moments, moments I’ll never get back! Like the way Lamm sings “Chick-a-chicka-chika-boom” on “Beginnings,” presumably because there’s no law against it! Although the shameful fact is I’ve always liked the song, although it pales in comparison to the version on 1975’s Chicago IX: Chicago’s Greatest Hits, which yeah okay I used to listen to—a lot! And I don’t even have the Ohio National Guard or drugs to blame!
As for the five-movement “It Better End Soon,” it doesn’t! But boy is it high energy! Like the MC5! That is for the first minute or so, at which point it’s every man for himself. The second Movement is a dreadful flute solo by Walter Parazaider in which he quotes not only “Dixie” and “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” but Greig’s “Peer Gynt” suite, which I don’t remember being a rallying cry for either side in the American Civil War.
The third Movement highlights bass and guitar but also includes everything but a gong solo, but that’s nothing compared to the fourth Movement, where Kath proselytizes to the righteous in the crowd about how (and he’s quite the revolutionary, our man Kath) “We’ve gotta do it right/Within the system” which I take it means he doesn’t want you to run off and join the Weather Underground. Or even burn your draft card for all I know. The thing about horn bands, and this is a documented fact, is they’re never radicals. There’s something about a horn chart that will leach the Baader-Meinhof right out of a person.
“Introduction” (which opens side five) is a jazz fusion atrocity on which Katz sings about how the guys spent years preparing before the band was even born, and how “If you’ve nothing to do/Sit back and let us through/And let us play for you” which is kind of a weird thing to say considering he’s singing to a bunch of people at a Chicago concert and presumably all of them have something to do, namely listen to fucking Chicago.
“Mother” is a gas, an ecological opus that opens with Lamm saying, “It features the horn section doing a thing in 5/8 that’s supposed to, uh, resemble industry, and money making and, a ha, pollution, which is the biggest product of money… oh well, hee hee, cough cough, anyway, etc.” at which point somebody in the audience shouts “Make Me Smile!” and a guy in the band shouts back “Just keep sittin’ there, man,” which unfortunately didn’t lead to a riot. As for the song, I can’t say I listened to it very carefully, but can say that it features the horn section doing a thing in 5/8.
Chicago finally gets around to playing “Make Me Smile” (which is the opening salvo of a very long song suite called “Ballet for a Girl in Buchannon”), and boy, isn’t it exciting! Everybody loves this smiley-face picker-upper, and Kath plays a guitar solo that goes about a million miles per hour. Trouble is, the other six sections “Ballet” are snoozes.
The band briefly turns into Emerson, Lake & Palmer on the titillatingly titled “West Virginia Fantasies” (I see lots of toothless buggery), “To Be Free” is distinguished only by its blessedly short drum solo, “Anxiety’s Moment” is a surreal convergence of easy-listening horn blurt and an absurdist chant that adds up to less than nothing, the slow piano rhapsody in blew that is “Colour My World” was the slow dancer of choice at my high school senior prom, and so on, although “Now More Than Ever” does have a decent catharsis quotient and I’d be lying if I said I don’t like it. Even if it’s only truly likeable for about a minute at the end.
What else? Encore “25 or 6 to 4” is likeable if you’re a “sitting cross-legged on the floor” kind of person and can tolerate the rush hour traffic horn blare, and Cetera gets real animated and soulful on vocals while Kath gets a chance to really stretch things out and isn’t completely tacky about it.
As for the closer, Chicago’s cover of the Spencer Davis Group’s “I’m a Man,” there’s no denying it has pizzazz and vocalists coming in from left and right and falling from the ceiling, and Kath sure does wail. And there’s this funky percussion interlude in the middle that’s more than okay but goes on too long, I keep drawing my finger across my throat while it’s on to let the boys know they’re blowing it, but do they pay me a bit of attention? No! It’s like they don’t even see me! But the best thing about the song, and this is a truly great thing, is there isn’t a horn on it! It’s like they put muzzles on the fuckers!
There are other songs and other special moments galore, and thanks to Chicago at Carnegie Hall you’re there to share them all, including the oh so tender and soulful flute solo in “Colour My World,” during which you’re free to wonder why Chicago saw fit to add that “u” to “Colour” even though they’re not British.
And they do the same in “Fancy Colours,” although you won’t be thinking about it then because you’ll be too busy imagining wind chimes at each side of your head. I’m never going to figure that one out. Oh, and “Motorboat to Mars” is a three-minute drum solo, just sitting there on the album like an improvised explosive device. Avoid it. As for “Flight 602,” Lamm introduces it by whining about how being on the road “lots of times you don’t have an old lady, and it’s a drag.” For reasons known only to them, they go totally CSN&Y on it, and Lamm insults Canada.
The ultimate question, and I’m not sure if it’s question 67 or question 68 in the pop ditty “Questions 67 and 68″ which ain’t half bad and they play early in the show, is what is one to do with this thing, seeing as how actually listening to it is not an option. At a little over three pounds, it’s probably not very useful as a murder weapon (not enough weight), but I bet if you were to hurl it across a room with a wicked backhand spin and hit a guy smack in the Adam’s apple with it, it might just do the job. And it would probably make for a suitable substitute for Kevlar. I don’t think your average bullet could penetrate it. The truly important thing is not to accidentally kill yourself by listening to it. It’s happened.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
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