Post by Admin on May 17, 2023 8:07:31 GMT -5
ROCK & FOLK JAN 1970
"Chicago Transit Authority, CTA, now Chicago for short, seven Americans whom the people of Lyon, Paris and Bordeaux have just applauded, seven accomplished musicians, seven messengers of pop music on the move, seven deeply sympathetic men.
CTA not only made a brilliant display of his talent, but also gave a great lesson in modesty. During these four days in France, Philippe Paringaux and Jean-Pierre Leloir were the first witnesses of this. Simply philosophers, in their own way. In Looyon, frozen, numb, whipped by an ugly wind that rushes between the concrete blocks, the city cowers chillily. A thin muffled crowd reluctantly extricates itself from the warmth of a train and suddenly disappears, evaporated in the ambient grayness like the small clouds of mist in front of the blushed faces. No more living soul in front of the station, and especially not that of a taxi driver. Claude Nougaro, in one of his songs, imagined a city like this, suddenly emptied of its inhabitants, vaguely disturbing because one no longer perceives there this dull and continuous rumbling which shakes all the great metropolises of the world and indicates that they live, one way or another. Nothing here but the snapping of the wind in the sky.
Oh, actually, by looking more closely, one can distinguish, huddled in the precarious shelter of a porch, as if encrusted in the stone, a small chilled group which beats its soles and rounds its back, seeming to wait for something which does not come . As if something other than the cruel gusts could happen on this winter Sunday in front of the Lyon-Perrache train station. Surely not a taxi, in any case... From the group, a member detaches himself, approaches a large abandoned wagon not far from there, seems to be looking for something and leaves back, trotting away, apparently disappointed. The confabulation resumes under the porch.
Me, I look at this cart: heaps of suitcases, black boxes, some with a round shape... As I move more closely, I can distinguish white letters that say “Danny Seraphine - Chicago”. I approach the group. A gentleman rushes at me, a mad hope in his eyes, and asks me if I speak English. He has a funny little hat, a pointed nose and whiskers, looks like he's angry with the whole world. When I tell him why I'm in Lyon, he instantly takes a bottle of cognac out of his pocket and pours me a shot in a silver goblet. He knows what I need for having needed it himself for an hour, in his corner of the door.
He's English, his name is Johnny, these gentlemen with him are the band's road managers, the bus that was supposed to pick them up isn't there, the boys left for the hotel in a taxi, no one speaks a word of French, he will strangle the organizer. A phone call and a quarter of an hour later, the bus is there and we head for the hotel through the deserted streets, reinvigorating ourselves with big swigs of alcohol. The organizer apologizes, a regrettable misunderstanding. A hotel like in America, glass, steel, concrete, all the modern comforts and even more. In the lobby, a haven of warmth, the boys wait, smoking cigarettes and chewing gum. Johnny, his eyes still misty with recognition and cognac, introduces the "gentleman who saved everyone's life". And There you go ! They thank me from all sides, they offer me cigarettes, chewing gum, tickets to the concert. But I came for that, for the concert. What? To see us? From Paris? It seems quite unbelievable to them.
Ah! by the way, Danny's cymbals are lost, forgotten somewhere near Montreux. Danny, a curly little guy with a laughing look, doesn't seem to think it's worth worrying about. His problem, for the moment, and that of all the others, is to know what kind of hall the "Palais d'Hiver” is, and whether the public in Lyon is a good public. To tell the truth, I don't know more than them. I only know that the Lyonnais have the reputation of being rather reserved.
Their noses glued to the windows of the coach, they watch the lights pass by which further accentuate the sinister aspect of a city on which night is already falling. How was Montreux? All right, great success. And London? They look at each other, still amazed. Fantastic! The whole Albert Hall standing, three encores, the stage invaded. Everyone is surprised, seeming to have some difficulty in realizing what they are, absolutely intact despite their youthful glory. Forty-eight hours in their company will only confirm and even reinforce this initial impression. At no time, even in the most trying moments, did I notice on their faces the slightest trace of that weary arrogance that characterizes many stars. They don't even know they're stars, or better, they don't want to know, knowing how much a man can lose playing this game.
And their modesty isn't wrong, either. And their kindness towards all those who come to them, as solicitors or admirers (most often both at the same time), has never been denied throughout these two days. “But it's normal, you know. Why would we feel superior? We were nothing a year ago, we may be nothing in a year. What is true is that we owe people something, not the other way around. And if there's one thing we all want, it's never to change, no matter what. These same sentences, we have often heard them, in the mouths of people who have changed a great deal since the time when they pronounced them, sincerely moreover.
One can believe that the members of the CTA will not change, because, despite their youth, they are grown men. I mean that they have already had this terrible experience of being rejected by the people of their own town, at the age of twenty, and that they have retained no bitterness, no resentment; that they do not consider their success today as revenge but as a reward for their work. The nuance is important. A striking proof of this was given to me when Jimmy Pankow, after explaining to me how the group had been refused the right to play in Chicago (we will come back to this), told of their return to this same city, two years later, a when fame comes.
Naturally, the public gave a triumph to these young people of whom they suddenly felt so proud and who were born in Chicago. Well, Jimmy didn't say "That bunch of rednecks, they had short memories", he said, "We were sorry, we didn't even have time to shake hands with all our old buddies from there". Here, they are not fooled, beware, they are simply philosophers, in their own way. And what is valid for Jimmy is valid for the other seven, without exception.
The Marines
A strange venue, where people are not seated but massed at the foot of the stage, their faces raised towards the musicians who enter the stage, supremely relaxed. People more curious than enthusiastic, very attentive to the music but not letting show through, in their timid approvals, that they much prefer CTA to the local band which opened before.
The machine, as a consequence, purrs without getting carried away, deprived of this formidable stimulus that ovations can be. Here, after each piece, the applause rises to fall immediately, as if broken. Again, we go up the iron steps that lead to the dressing rooms, and the musicians, a vague disappointment in their hearts, ask me if the French public is always so reserved.
I think I can guarantee them that it will be quite different in Paris, but I don't really know anymore, I'm as surprised as they are and I'm afraid of making a mistake. "Of course it's important, says Bobby Lamm with his soft, barely audible voice. A hot audience excites us, pushes us to give our all. This one audience was attentive, interested in the music, but hardly let us know. But maybe it's our fault, quite simply."
We go back to the hotel to eat a bit, then everyone goes to sleep a little before the second concert, except Pete Cetera and I who stay chatting in front of a bottle of red wine (entirely devoted to Coca-Cola when they arrived in France, they will take up the national drink in record time, devoting every free second of their schedule to improving their knowledge of the subject).
Pete, blond, chubby, sweet, considerate, asks me if I ever get in trouble in France with my long hair. He had trouble in the USA, like the day two Marines broke his jaw in a bar in Los Angeles. "Everywhere in the States, we risk our life by wearing long hair (yes, "Easy Rider", exactly), except perhaps in San Francisco, in Los Angeles (as long as one does not meet Marines on a spree), in Boston, in New York”.
Pete takes another shot of wine. “Intolerance is everywhere there, both in the big press and in the so-called free, or underground. Everyone exaggerates things, and understanding quickly becomes impossible, replaced by pure and simple hatred.
Does he know that the two major specialized American magazines, "Billboard" and "Cash Box" put CTA down in flame, after their last American concerts?
“Yes, we read that. It's still a problem of intolerance: in the same magazines, we had had rave reviews a short time before, playing exactly the same way. But American critics, not all but many of them, are narrow- minded and really only like one particular style of music. So that day we were sharing the stage with Johnny Winter and the two critics were die-hard blues fans. Of course, they didn't like our music, since it's not blues. Another time it will be the opposite, and Johnny Winter will be skinned while we will be extolled. I wonder why people don't make the effort to try to understand before judging. Us, we like all types of music, as long as it is well played.
The audience of the second show is seated, older than that of the first and even more calm, which is quite unbelievable. However, CTA plays "Liberation", which they hadn't done at the first concert. From the stage, I look at the people in the audience. They are absolutely not hostile to the music they hear; on the contrary, they are very attentive and apparently satisfied. Simply, they are hardly externalizing. Obviously, this is a big change from the Albert Hall audience reaction...
Back to the hotel again, and a few bottles of red wine. Bobby Lamm, the loner of the group, jeans and matching jacket, remembers England and his great passion, Julie Driscoll. “She is the best white singer, much better than Janis Joplin, in my opinion. My dream is that she will record a record with us one day”. I tell him that my dream is for Janis to record with them one day. “I think she's going to drop her current band and sing with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. But it will be impossible for them to record together, since Janis is at CBS and Butterfield at Elektra”.
About Janis, Lee Loughnane will later say that in his opinion, if she continues to ask for so much money (15,000 dollars per gala), it will soon be over for her. "Already, she doesn't work much anymore..."
A few bottles later, everyone staggers towards the elevators. The next stop is Paris. Lille, for some obscure reason, was cancelled.
In the navel
The next day, on the plane, Jimmy Pankow tells me, between two jokes, the history of the group. All of its members are natives of Chicago, except Robert Lamm, a New Yorker who moved to the Midwest at the age of ten.
Jimmy wanted to play drums, “But the competition was too tough, everyone was playing it, so I chose an instrument that nobody wanted: the trombone. “He began very young to make” gigs “in the boxes of Chicago, playing in particular with Clark Terry and Henri Mancini.
Meanwhile, Walter Parazaider had earned a classical music degree at the Conservatory and was playing with Terry Kath and Danny Seraphine in Chicago's most famous band, the Missing Links. Our influence? The Beatles, the Mothers and Don Ellis. “But the soloist (Terry played bass) was using too much drug, and the band disappeared. The three survivors then met Jimmy and Lee Loughnane who played trumpet in local dance bands. They decided to team up, recruited Bobby Lamm who was passing by, and started playing together.
“There were only six of us then. Bobby, with his organ, played the bass lines. We were rehearsing forty hours a week in a basement, and found a few engagements here and there in clubs. And then, eight months later, Pete joined us. He was then playing in a group that worked a lot and earned a lot of money. We didn't offer him much, but the experience interested him and he came.
And then it started to work really well in Chicago: we were playing clubs six nights a week, doing six sets a night! Our repertoire was only hits of the moment, that's what people wanted, and it was a good experience. That's how we played “I'm a man”. And then we wanted to start playing our own compositions and we were fired from everywhere. No one in Chicago wanted to hire a band that played such difficult music. All that people wanted was bubblegum music. Luckily, James Guercio, the producer of Blood, Sweat & Tears heard about us and came to listen to us. Six months later, he asked us to move to California, which we did all the more willingly since all the doors were closed to us in Chicago.
It was hard, our beginnings in California. More clubs, and very little money. But the important thing is that the people there are much more open-minded and let us play our music. It was June 1968. Gradually our reputation grew and James Guercio took us to New York to record our first record.
There were some issues, as CBS felt that a double album was a lot for an almost unknown band. But we felt that our music was so diverse that we needed at least that to make it known to people.
Eventually things worked out because Guercio and ourselves accepted that this double album would be sold practically for the price of a single album. But we must recognize that CBS left us completely free to play what we wanted to play.
We made the record in two weeks. To tell the truth, we were quite contracted during the sessions, because we had never set foot in a studio. We are more relaxed now. In short, the disc was released and Al Kooper, without anyone asking him anything, terribly “pushed” it to the press and the radio. We owe him a lot, we will not forget him”.
Since he knows Al Kooper well, I ask Jimmy why Al didn't stay with Blood, Sweat & Tears after their wonderful debut album. “But Al wanted to stay with them. Only everyone else wanted to do very jazzy stuff, not him. They didn't really fire him, but almost.
Terry, seated in front of us, leafs through Rock & Folk. He suddenly stands up and points to something in the magazine. Everyone bursts out laughing, the plane pitches. “Where did you get this photo? This is the one that illustrates the article “Yes to CTA”. “Look, said Terry, I have a cigarette stuck in my navel!
With a terrible accent, Jimmy repeats to the hostess the phrase I have just taught him: "Do you have any wine?" She says no and offers him Le Figaro {a French newspaper} instead. It's much less exhilarating and much less funny than the reviews read in the morning in the Lyon newspapers and immediately translated into the microphone of the bus: "soul group"..."eight musicians"... "prophets of pop", etc. . But the reviews are good, if a little sketchy, and they are delighted.
And their first album? “Yes, we are very proud of it. It is nevertheless a hundred times worse than the second, another double album entitled "Chicago".
(that's their name now. Chicago Transit Authority is the name of a bus line in Chicago; they had it chosen because they, instead of transporting people, transport music to people.
But a curious story happened: everyone in America believed that CTA and Chicago Transit Authority were two different groups, and, depending on what was written on the posters, many people went or did not go to see the group when it passed in their city!).
“Chicago”, therefore, new album. “The sessions ran over five months. We were much more relaxed. Half was recorded in Los Angeles, the other half in New York. No live this time, and only originals. We used a sixteen-track tape recorder, and the record recorded much better. It is both more free and more commercial than the first. I mean the complex songs are more complex than on the other album, and the commercial songs are more commercial.
About the form, the opus is barely different, same instruments and always Terry principal soloist. He is the only truly experienced soloist in the band. The others are not yet mature enough individually.
There are however some solos by Lee, Walt, Danny and myself (Jimmy), but quite short. Also a ballet in seven movements (hard rock, classical, jazz, etc.) and a piece with a large orchestra. But anyway we don't want to do jazz, with an introduction and solos by everyone. We prefer the brass to play together. There will also be a bit of country, because Pete loves that genre.
The Band? Yes, fantastic. Blood, Sweat & Tears? We only met them once. But their music is excellent. In my opinion, it cannot be compared to ours: they do much more jazz, they are more sophisticated, much more experienced than us, too. We have great respect for them.
To finish with our next disc, it must be said that the arrangements are the work of Bobby Lamm and myself, and that the songs were written by Bobby, Terry, Pete and myself. We believe, we are sure that this disc, which will be released in January in the USA (we will send it to you immediately, and you will be able to tell your readers about it before anyone else), is much more exciting than the first one. The music we want to make can be called pop or rock, or pop-rock, definitions don't matter. Our biggest influences were the Beatles, especially the Mothers, Don Ellis' orchestra.
The future? Oh, what we would like to do is all go live in a lost corner and work there quietly. We have something in sight, in the mountains of Montana. As soon as we have enough money, we will buy the land and build our own recording studio. It will cost about half a million dollars, you have to earn them first. Later, if it works, we will produce other groups. There are dozens of unknown bands in the USA that are really fantastic.
Through the porthole, one can see the snow covering Paris. “It's important for us, Paris. Hope it will work. They are worried and do not hide it.
Car (bus). Hotel. Interview for the radio, who will speak? Regardless, there is no leader in this group, this “creative community”, rather. Japanese journalists are there, specially from Tokyo. The local Rock & Folk must print three million copies over there...
Rehearsal at the Olympia, checking the sound system, more precisely. A nostalgic paratrooper wants to “give us a big face”, Walt and me, because we smoke on the stage. It was his American brothers that Pete met in this L.A. bar...
Before the first concert (December 8 at the Olympia, Musicorama Europe 1), everyone locks themselves in the dressing room to concentrate in peace. The time and the faces are serious. Quickly, before going on stage, Jimmy asks me how to say “beautiful people” in French. Of course, there is no equivalent, and I give it an approximate translation.
Simplicity In light. Lee Loughnane, left, looking a bit lost, trumpet; Walter Parazaider, the Bohemian, olive face and long hair, saxophones; Jimmy Pankow, dandy, laughing, restless, trombone; Robert Lamm, impassive, handsome, organ, electric piano on the organ, grand piano; Terry Kath, massive, bearded, focused, guitar; Danny Seraphine, lively, nervous, ecstatic; Pete Cetera, far right, solid, powerful, bass.
The two shows, the one at 7:00 p.m. and the one at 10:30 p.m., will be identical and of the same quality, enthusiastically welcomed by an audience as dense as it is warm, worthy of the music they had come to hear. CTA played, both times, almost all of the songs from its first album (except "Free form guitar"), plus three themes from the second, "Poem for the people", "It Better End Soon" and "25 or 6 to 4”.
Immediately, from the introduction of "Introduction", one could notice that the group plays, on stage, its themes much more quickly than on the disc. “Yes, it came on its own. Sometimes we almost double the tempo.” Well tight together, the three brass bite, enter at the same time, leave at the same time, sound nicely.
Steamhammer, show opener in Paris.
Terry Kath sings. Very well. But it appeared throughout these concerts that his greatest quality is to be an exceptional guitarist, as gifted for rhythmic work as for improvisation, a perfect link between the rhythm section and the brass. If we absolutely want to find a leader for this group which refuses to have one, it is he who must be mentioned.
Terry Kath demonstrated in many songs, and particularly during the formidable "Liberation", that he is one of the very few current guitarists (brand new) to have fully assimilated the two opposing languages of Clapton and Hendrix. From the first he borrowed the clarity of the ideas, the neatness of the discourse, its vigorous rigor. From the second he has the flame, the taste for "freak out", this ability to surpass himself and to renew himself (never in four concerts, his solos were not quite identical) which makes the great Jimi fascinating. “Hendrix is tall. It is even “too much. Clapton is great too, in a different way. I also really like George Benson, too little known in my opinion.
You ave to see with what enthusiasm Kath enters into his solos, on a long held note, with what skill he knows how to use the amplification of his instrument, and how he never sinks into confusion. Nothing is free in his playing, not even (especially not) the long free passage of "Liberation" during which he literally struggles against his amp, braced against it, possessed but not to the point of letting the sound escape him.
A sound that seems to owe quite a bit to West Coast guitarists, and more particularly to a man like Jorma Kaukonnen: exceptionally thick, dirty, stretched to the extreme ("Listen", "Poem 58"), often obtained by trituration of the bass strings. And then there is this enormous “pump” that Terry Kath does behind his companions and which is an indispensable, vital support for them. " Thanks. Maybe it's because I was a bass player for a long time”.
Also a talented singer, undoubtedly the most gifted of the three, Robert Lamm is, by his own admission, much better pianist than organist. “I still have to work a lot on the organ. When I listen to a Jimmy Smith...But for the piano it's fine, I studied the instrument a lot. Lamm's out-of-tempo introduction to "Does Anyone Know" and his work on "Someday," the beauty of his touch and the precision of his accompaniment make these words sound modest. Lamm's contribution to CTA's music doesn't stop there, as he is the band's main vocalist, blessed with exceptionally clear diction and a truly "black" feel at times, as he is the composer of most themes.
Danny Seraphine is, one could say, the perfect illustration of the difference that exists between CTA and B, S & T: as much Bobby Colomby is clean, precise, fine, discreet, almost a stylist, as much Danny Seraphine is exuberant, fiery, prodigal of his accessories and his sweat.
We can prefer one style or the other, but Seraphine is exactly what the CTA and its unsophisticated and ultimately very simple music need. “That's what we want: simplicity. We prefer, all in all, that our music is exciting rather than refined.
Danny of course had his moment of glory with “I'm a man”. Everyone, except Terry and Pete, hammers on the cowbells or metal tubes a frantic samba rhythm, Terry then Pete, then Bobby sings, and Danny leaves alone, slowly at first then louder and louder, so strong that he burst, during the first concert, the skin of his bass drum.
Pete Cetera, also a singer (“Questions 67 and 68”), a high-pitched voice, is a solid bass player who is content to provide the orchestra with a solid foundation, without ever straying from the tempo. “I first played the accordion! And then I turned to bass and rock, and played for six years with various bands in Chicago. I had a good job when the others asked me to join them, but what they wanted to do seemed exciting to me. Needless to say I don't regret anything.
We hardly hear the horns soloing when CTA plays, for the reason explained above by Jimmy Pankow. "Introduction" and especially "Beginnings" still allow you to realize that they know how to blow into their instruments something other than ensemble parts.
“We are a pop music group, not jazz. I don't think long trombone, sax or trumpet solos can fit into the pieces we play. Anyway, as I already told you, even if we wanted to do it, we don't have our instruments well enough to embark on this kind of adventure.
What the Electric Flag had tried, what B, S & T has already done, Chicago succeeds perfectly: making the brass one of the essential voices of the group, no longer intended to underline the speeches made by others but to discourse in the same way as them.
This is obviously not so easy to achieve, a problem of space distribution arising, a problem which, if not solved, can flank a group on the ground. This sharing of space, Chicago accomplishes it very skillfully by using the brass in turn as a background and as a dominant voice, without them ever getting in the way or being bothered.
Simple but not simplistic riffs, rejection of bugle blasts, slow increases in tension, subtle counterpoints, perfect integration into the exposition of the themes, long passages in unison and, even within the brass section, a few small contrapuntal subtleties, all this makes Walter Parazaider, Lee Loughnane and Jimmy Pankow much more than needy blowers, as are the musicians of Janis Joplin, for example.
One certainly had to see the big Chicago machine spinning on the Olympia stage to realize that something is really happening in pop music, like a violent jolt, a new impulse that suddenly makes it go from stage of approximations to that of a sort of formal perfection of a musical architecture with clean lines (but that was already the signature of the Beatles) in which long organized delusions come to be integrated. Until now, one made the distinction in pop music between structuring and improvisation. The use of the two within the same groups is indeed a novelty, even if some short-lived experiments had already been attempted by precursors of the Blues Project genre (it would be absolutely fascinating to talk to Al Kooper for a long time) .
The merit of Chicago is to have been able to popularize this style of music without watering it down. If the group is not revolutionary in the absolute (the Mothers or the Soft Machine, to stay in the pop domain, go further), it will all the same have advanced pop music by a good step, although it now happens to him, and will have seriously contributed to opening the minds of listeners to more "distant" things.
Evidenced by the public's total acceptance of the long free passage of "Liberation" or "Free form guitar", even though Chicago knows that it is still too early to play this last piece on a stage. With bands like this, we're dealing with the music and nothing else. Nothing is attempted by the musicians to seduce the public, I mean nothing outside the music; no amazing stage outfits, no psychedelic lights, nothing. Only the pleasure of the ear matters.
And it was great for everyone, so much this music which “falls” marvelously into place has so much vitality in it. And finally, isn't it a kind of revolution to see a pop audience applauding a well-executed brass unison with the same vigor as they applaud a frenetic guitar or drum solo? Really, these Chicago concerts were great moments that ended with a little misunderstanding that no one realized: at the end of "Liberation", the brass began to sing "La Marseillaise" and received in return a nice ovation from the public. Curious, I asked the musicians why they had done that, and they replied that it was to thank the French public.
That is to say that their "Marseillaise" was totally devoid of irony and interpreted with as much respect as by the CRS brass band! I don't know if everyone did, but a lot of people I know and I cheered because we thought Chicago was showing complete disrespect, smearing red the Arc de Triomphe, in the process of destroying with ferocious humor this anthem that we heard above all on the battlefields.
But no, it was quite the opposite: “We thought we were making people happy. We're sorry people took it the wrong way and thought we were making fun of their anthem. We had to explain to them that they were the ones who had taken it the wrong way...
Anyway, "La Marseillaise", when they arrived in Europe, they thought it was the English anthem and were very disappointed by the complete lack of reaction from the Albert Hall audience when they performed it there!" — PHILIPPE PARINGAUX.
"Chicago Transit Authority, CTA, now Chicago for short, seven Americans whom the people of Lyon, Paris and Bordeaux have just applauded, seven accomplished musicians, seven messengers of pop music on the move, seven deeply sympathetic men.
CTA not only made a brilliant display of his talent, but also gave a great lesson in modesty. During these four days in France, Philippe Paringaux and Jean-Pierre Leloir were the first witnesses of this. Simply philosophers, in their own way. In Looyon, frozen, numb, whipped by an ugly wind that rushes between the concrete blocks, the city cowers chillily. A thin muffled crowd reluctantly extricates itself from the warmth of a train and suddenly disappears, evaporated in the ambient grayness like the small clouds of mist in front of the blushed faces. No more living soul in front of the station, and especially not that of a taxi driver. Claude Nougaro, in one of his songs, imagined a city like this, suddenly emptied of its inhabitants, vaguely disturbing because one no longer perceives there this dull and continuous rumbling which shakes all the great metropolises of the world and indicates that they live, one way or another. Nothing here but the snapping of the wind in the sky.
Oh, actually, by looking more closely, one can distinguish, huddled in the precarious shelter of a porch, as if encrusted in the stone, a small chilled group which beats its soles and rounds its back, seeming to wait for something which does not come . As if something other than the cruel gusts could happen on this winter Sunday in front of the Lyon-Perrache train station. Surely not a taxi, in any case... From the group, a member detaches himself, approaches a large abandoned wagon not far from there, seems to be looking for something and leaves back, trotting away, apparently disappointed. The confabulation resumes under the porch.
Me, I look at this cart: heaps of suitcases, black boxes, some with a round shape... As I move more closely, I can distinguish white letters that say “Danny Seraphine - Chicago”. I approach the group. A gentleman rushes at me, a mad hope in his eyes, and asks me if I speak English. He has a funny little hat, a pointed nose and whiskers, looks like he's angry with the whole world. When I tell him why I'm in Lyon, he instantly takes a bottle of cognac out of his pocket and pours me a shot in a silver goblet. He knows what I need for having needed it himself for an hour, in his corner of the door.
He's English, his name is Johnny, these gentlemen with him are the band's road managers, the bus that was supposed to pick them up isn't there, the boys left for the hotel in a taxi, no one speaks a word of French, he will strangle the organizer. A phone call and a quarter of an hour later, the bus is there and we head for the hotel through the deserted streets, reinvigorating ourselves with big swigs of alcohol. The organizer apologizes, a regrettable misunderstanding. A hotel like in America, glass, steel, concrete, all the modern comforts and even more. In the lobby, a haven of warmth, the boys wait, smoking cigarettes and chewing gum. Johnny, his eyes still misty with recognition and cognac, introduces the "gentleman who saved everyone's life". And There you go ! They thank me from all sides, they offer me cigarettes, chewing gum, tickets to the concert. But I came for that, for the concert. What? To see us? From Paris? It seems quite unbelievable to them.
Ah! by the way, Danny's cymbals are lost, forgotten somewhere near Montreux. Danny, a curly little guy with a laughing look, doesn't seem to think it's worth worrying about. His problem, for the moment, and that of all the others, is to know what kind of hall the "Palais d'Hiver” is, and whether the public in Lyon is a good public. To tell the truth, I don't know more than them. I only know that the Lyonnais have the reputation of being rather reserved.
Their noses glued to the windows of the coach, they watch the lights pass by which further accentuate the sinister aspect of a city on which night is already falling. How was Montreux? All right, great success. And London? They look at each other, still amazed. Fantastic! The whole Albert Hall standing, three encores, the stage invaded. Everyone is surprised, seeming to have some difficulty in realizing what they are, absolutely intact despite their youthful glory. Forty-eight hours in their company will only confirm and even reinforce this initial impression. At no time, even in the most trying moments, did I notice on their faces the slightest trace of that weary arrogance that characterizes many stars. They don't even know they're stars, or better, they don't want to know, knowing how much a man can lose playing this game.
And their modesty isn't wrong, either. And their kindness towards all those who come to them, as solicitors or admirers (most often both at the same time), has never been denied throughout these two days. “But it's normal, you know. Why would we feel superior? We were nothing a year ago, we may be nothing in a year. What is true is that we owe people something, not the other way around. And if there's one thing we all want, it's never to change, no matter what. These same sentences, we have often heard them, in the mouths of people who have changed a great deal since the time when they pronounced them, sincerely moreover.
One can believe that the members of the CTA will not change, because, despite their youth, they are grown men. I mean that they have already had this terrible experience of being rejected by the people of their own town, at the age of twenty, and that they have retained no bitterness, no resentment; that they do not consider their success today as revenge but as a reward for their work. The nuance is important. A striking proof of this was given to me when Jimmy Pankow, after explaining to me how the group had been refused the right to play in Chicago (we will come back to this), told of their return to this same city, two years later, a when fame comes.
Naturally, the public gave a triumph to these young people of whom they suddenly felt so proud and who were born in Chicago. Well, Jimmy didn't say "That bunch of rednecks, they had short memories", he said, "We were sorry, we didn't even have time to shake hands with all our old buddies from there". Here, they are not fooled, beware, they are simply philosophers, in their own way. And what is valid for Jimmy is valid for the other seven, without exception.
The Marines
A strange venue, where people are not seated but massed at the foot of the stage, their faces raised towards the musicians who enter the stage, supremely relaxed. People more curious than enthusiastic, very attentive to the music but not letting show through, in their timid approvals, that they much prefer CTA to the local band which opened before.
The machine, as a consequence, purrs without getting carried away, deprived of this formidable stimulus that ovations can be. Here, after each piece, the applause rises to fall immediately, as if broken. Again, we go up the iron steps that lead to the dressing rooms, and the musicians, a vague disappointment in their hearts, ask me if the French public is always so reserved.
I think I can guarantee them that it will be quite different in Paris, but I don't really know anymore, I'm as surprised as they are and I'm afraid of making a mistake. "Of course it's important, says Bobby Lamm with his soft, barely audible voice. A hot audience excites us, pushes us to give our all. This one audience was attentive, interested in the music, but hardly let us know. But maybe it's our fault, quite simply."
We go back to the hotel to eat a bit, then everyone goes to sleep a little before the second concert, except Pete Cetera and I who stay chatting in front of a bottle of red wine (entirely devoted to Coca-Cola when they arrived in France, they will take up the national drink in record time, devoting every free second of their schedule to improving their knowledge of the subject).
Pete, blond, chubby, sweet, considerate, asks me if I ever get in trouble in France with my long hair. He had trouble in the USA, like the day two Marines broke his jaw in a bar in Los Angeles. "Everywhere in the States, we risk our life by wearing long hair (yes, "Easy Rider", exactly), except perhaps in San Francisco, in Los Angeles (as long as one does not meet Marines on a spree), in Boston, in New York”.
Pete takes another shot of wine. “Intolerance is everywhere there, both in the big press and in the so-called free, or underground. Everyone exaggerates things, and understanding quickly becomes impossible, replaced by pure and simple hatred.
Does he know that the two major specialized American magazines, "Billboard" and "Cash Box" put CTA down in flame, after their last American concerts?
“Yes, we read that. It's still a problem of intolerance: in the same magazines, we had had rave reviews a short time before, playing exactly the same way. But American critics, not all but many of them, are narrow- minded and really only like one particular style of music. So that day we were sharing the stage with Johnny Winter and the two critics were die-hard blues fans. Of course, they didn't like our music, since it's not blues. Another time it will be the opposite, and Johnny Winter will be skinned while we will be extolled. I wonder why people don't make the effort to try to understand before judging. Us, we like all types of music, as long as it is well played.
The audience of the second show is seated, older than that of the first and even more calm, which is quite unbelievable. However, CTA plays "Liberation", which they hadn't done at the first concert. From the stage, I look at the people in the audience. They are absolutely not hostile to the music they hear; on the contrary, they are very attentive and apparently satisfied. Simply, they are hardly externalizing. Obviously, this is a big change from the Albert Hall audience reaction...
Back to the hotel again, and a few bottles of red wine. Bobby Lamm, the loner of the group, jeans and matching jacket, remembers England and his great passion, Julie Driscoll. “She is the best white singer, much better than Janis Joplin, in my opinion. My dream is that she will record a record with us one day”. I tell him that my dream is for Janis to record with them one day. “I think she's going to drop her current band and sing with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. But it will be impossible for them to record together, since Janis is at CBS and Butterfield at Elektra”.
About Janis, Lee Loughnane will later say that in his opinion, if she continues to ask for so much money (15,000 dollars per gala), it will soon be over for her. "Already, she doesn't work much anymore..."
A few bottles later, everyone staggers towards the elevators. The next stop is Paris. Lille, for some obscure reason, was cancelled.
In the navel
The next day, on the plane, Jimmy Pankow tells me, between two jokes, the history of the group. All of its members are natives of Chicago, except Robert Lamm, a New Yorker who moved to the Midwest at the age of ten.
Jimmy wanted to play drums, “But the competition was too tough, everyone was playing it, so I chose an instrument that nobody wanted: the trombone. “He began very young to make” gigs “in the boxes of Chicago, playing in particular with Clark Terry and Henri Mancini.
Meanwhile, Walter Parazaider had earned a classical music degree at the Conservatory and was playing with Terry Kath and Danny Seraphine in Chicago's most famous band, the Missing Links. Our influence? The Beatles, the Mothers and Don Ellis. “But the soloist (Terry played bass) was using too much drug, and the band disappeared. The three survivors then met Jimmy and Lee Loughnane who played trumpet in local dance bands. They decided to team up, recruited Bobby Lamm who was passing by, and started playing together.
“There were only six of us then. Bobby, with his organ, played the bass lines. We were rehearsing forty hours a week in a basement, and found a few engagements here and there in clubs. And then, eight months later, Pete joined us. He was then playing in a group that worked a lot and earned a lot of money. We didn't offer him much, but the experience interested him and he came.
And then it started to work really well in Chicago: we were playing clubs six nights a week, doing six sets a night! Our repertoire was only hits of the moment, that's what people wanted, and it was a good experience. That's how we played “I'm a man”. And then we wanted to start playing our own compositions and we were fired from everywhere. No one in Chicago wanted to hire a band that played such difficult music. All that people wanted was bubblegum music. Luckily, James Guercio, the producer of Blood, Sweat & Tears heard about us and came to listen to us. Six months later, he asked us to move to California, which we did all the more willingly since all the doors were closed to us in Chicago.
It was hard, our beginnings in California. More clubs, and very little money. But the important thing is that the people there are much more open-minded and let us play our music. It was June 1968. Gradually our reputation grew and James Guercio took us to New York to record our first record.
There were some issues, as CBS felt that a double album was a lot for an almost unknown band. But we felt that our music was so diverse that we needed at least that to make it known to people.
Eventually things worked out because Guercio and ourselves accepted that this double album would be sold practically for the price of a single album. But we must recognize that CBS left us completely free to play what we wanted to play.
We made the record in two weeks. To tell the truth, we were quite contracted during the sessions, because we had never set foot in a studio. We are more relaxed now. In short, the disc was released and Al Kooper, without anyone asking him anything, terribly “pushed” it to the press and the radio. We owe him a lot, we will not forget him”.
Since he knows Al Kooper well, I ask Jimmy why Al didn't stay with Blood, Sweat & Tears after their wonderful debut album. “But Al wanted to stay with them. Only everyone else wanted to do very jazzy stuff, not him. They didn't really fire him, but almost.
Terry, seated in front of us, leafs through Rock & Folk. He suddenly stands up and points to something in the magazine. Everyone bursts out laughing, the plane pitches. “Where did you get this photo? This is the one that illustrates the article “Yes to CTA”. “Look, said Terry, I have a cigarette stuck in my navel!
With a terrible accent, Jimmy repeats to the hostess the phrase I have just taught him: "Do you have any wine?" She says no and offers him Le Figaro {a French newspaper} instead. It's much less exhilarating and much less funny than the reviews read in the morning in the Lyon newspapers and immediately translated into the microphone of the bus: "soul group"..."eight musicians"... "prophets of pop", etc. . But the reviews are good, if a little sketchy, and they are delighted.
And their first album? “Yes, we are very proud of it. It is nevertheless a hundred times worse than the second, another double album entitled "Chicago".
(that's their name now. Chicago Transit Authority is the name of a bus line in Chicago; they had it chosen because they, instead of transporting people, transport music to people.
But a curious story happened: everyone in America believed that CTA and Chicago Transit Authority were two different groups, and, depending on what was written on the posters, many people went or did not go to see the group when it passed in their city!).
“Chicago”, therefore, new album. “The sessions ran over five months. We were much more relaxed. Half was recorded in Los Angeles, the other half in New York. No live this time, and only originals. We used a sixteen-track tape recorder, and the record recorded much better. It is both more free and more commercial than the first. I mean the complex songs are more complex than on the other album, and the commercial songs are more commercial.
About the form, the opus is barely different, same instruments and always Terry principal soloist. He is the only truly experienced soloist in the band. The others are not yet mature enough individually.
There are however some solos by Lee, Walt, Danny and myself (Jimmy), but quite short. Also a ballet in seven movements (hard rock, classical, jazz, etc.) and a piece with a large orchestra. But anyway we don't want to do jazz, with an introduction and solos by everyone. We prefer the brass to play together. There will also be a bit of country, because Pete loves that genre.
The Band? Yes, fantastic. Blood, Sweat & Tears? We only met them once. But their music is excellent. In my opinion, it cannot be compared to ours: they do much more jazz, they are more sophisticated, much more experienced than us, too. We have great respect for them.
To finish with our next disc, it must be said that the arrangements are the work of Bobby Lamm and myself, and that the songs were written by Bobby, Terry, Pete and myself. We believe, we are sure that this disc, which will be released in January in the USA (we will send it to you immediately, and you will be able to tell your readers about it before anyone else), is much more exciting than the first one. The music we want to make can be called pop or rock, or pop-rock, definitions don't matter. Our biggest influences were the Beatles, especially the Mothers, Don Ellis' orchestra.
The future? Oh, what we would like to do is all go live in a lost corner and work there quietly. We have something in sight, in the mountains of Montana. As soon as we have enough money, we will buy the land and build our own recording studio. It will cost about half a million dollars, you have to earn them first. Later, if it works, we will produce other groups. There are dozens of unknown bands in the USA that are really fantastic.
Through the porthole, one can see the snow covering Paris. “It's important for us, Paris. Hope it will work. They are worried and do not hide it.
Car (bus). Hotel. Interview for the radio, who will speak? Regardless, there is no leader in this group, this “creative community”, rather. Japanese journalists are there, specially from Tokyo. The local Rock & Folk must print three million copies over there...
Rehearsal at the Olympia, checking the sound system, more precisely. A nostalgic paratrooper wants to “give us a big face”, Walt and me, because we smoke on the stage. It was his American brothers that Pete met in this L.A. bar...
Before the first concert (December 8 at the Olympia, Musicorama Europe 1), everyone locks themselves in the dressing room to concentrate in peace. The time and the faces are serious. Quickly, before going on stage, Jimmy asks me how to say “beautiful people” in French. Of course, there is no equivalent, and I give it an approximate translation.
Simplicity In light. Lee Loughnane, left, looking a bit lost, trumpet; Walter Parazaider, the Bohemian, olive face and long hair, saxophones; Jimmy Pankow, dandy, laughing, restless, trombone; Robert Lamm, impassive, handsome, organ, electric piano on the organ, grand piano; Terry Kath, massive, bearded, focused, guitar; Danny Seraphine, lively, nervous, ecstatic; Pete Cetera, far right, solid, powerful, bass.
The two shows, the one at 7:00 p.m. and the one at 10:30 p.m., will be identical and of the same quality, enthusiastically welcomed by an audience as dense as it is warm, worthy of the music they had come to hear. CTA played, both times, almost all of the songs from its first album (except "Free form guitar"), plus three themes from the second, "Poem for the people", "It Better End Soon" and "25 or 6 to 4”.
Immediately, from the introduction of "Introduction", one could notice that the group plays, on stage, its themes much more quickly than on the disc. “Yes, it came on its own. Sometimes we almost double the tempo.” Well tight together, the three brass bite, enter at the same time, leave at the same time, sound nicely.
Steamhammer, show opener in Paris.
Terry Kath sings. Very well. But it appeared throughout these concerts that his greatest quality is to be an exceptional guitarist, as gifted for rhythmic work as for improvisation, a perfect link between the rhythm section and the brass. If we absolutely want to find a leader for this group which refuses to have one, it is he who must be mentioned.
Terry Kath demonstrated in many songs, and particularly during the formidable "Liberation", that he is one of the very few current guitarists (brand new) to have fully assimilated the two opposing languages of Clapton and Hendrix. From the first he borrowed the clarity of the ideas, the neatness of the discourse, its vigorous rigor. From the second he has the flame, the taste for "freak out", this ability to surpass himself and to renew himself (never in four concerts, his solos were not quite identical) which makes the great Jimi fascinating. “Hendrix is tall. It is even “too much. Clapton is great too, in a different way. I also really like George Benson, too little known in my opinion.
You ave to see with what enthusiasm Kath enters into his solos, on a long held note, with what skill he knows how to use the amplification of his instrument, and how he never sinks into confusion. Nothing is free in his playing, not even (especially not) the long free passage of "Liberation" during which he literally struggles against his amp, braced against it, possessed but not to the point of letting the sound escape him.
A sound that seems to owe quite a bit to West Coast guitarists, and more particularly to a man like Jorma Kaukonnen: exceptionally thick, dirty, stretched to the extreme ("Listen", "Poem 58"), often obtained by trituration of the bass strings. And then there is this enormous “pump” that Terry Kath does behind his companions and which is an indispensable, vital support for them. " Thanks. Maybe it's because I was a bass player for a long time”.
Also a talented singer, undoubtedly the most gifted of the three, Robert Lamm is, by his own admission, much better pianist than organist. “I still have to work a lot on the organ. When I listen to a Jimmy Smith...But for the piano it's fine, I studied the instrument a lot. Lamm's out-of-tempo introduction to "Does Anyone Know" and his work on "Someday," the beauty of his touch and the precision of his accompaniment make these words sound modest. Lamm's contribution to CTA's music doesn't stop there, as he is the band's main vocalist, blessed with exceptionally clear diction and a truly "black" feel at times, as he is the composer of most themes.
Danny Seraphine is, one could say, the perfect illustration of the difference that exists between CTA and B, S & T: as much Bobby Colomby is clean, precise, fine, discreet, almost a stylist, as much Danny Seraphine is exuberant, fiery, prodigal of his accessories and his sweat.
We can prefer one style or the other, but Seraphine is exactly what the CTA and its unsophisticated and ultimately very simple music need. “That's what we want: simplicity. We prefer, all in all, that our music is exciting rather than refined.
Danny of course had his moment of glory with “I'm a man”. Everyone, except Terry and Pete, hammers on the cowbells or metal tubes a frantic samba rhythm, Terry then Pete, then Bobby sings, and Danny leaves alone, slowly at first then louder and louder, so strong that he burst, during the first concert, the skin of his bass drum.
Pete Cetera, also a singer (“Questions 67 and 68”), a high-pitched voice, is a solid bass player who is content to provide the orchestra with a solid foundation, without ever straying from the tempo. “I first played the accordion! And then I turned to bass and rock, and played for six years with various bands in Chicago. I had a good job when the others asked me to join them, but what they wanted to do seemed exciting to me. Needless to say I don't regret anything.
We hardly hear the horns soloing when CTA plays, for the reason explained above by Jimmy Pankow. "Introduction" and especially "Beginnings" still allow you to realize that they know how to blow into their instruments something other than ensemble parts.
“We are a pop music group, not jazz. I don't think long trombone, sax or trumpet solos can fit into the pieces we play. Anyway, as I already told you, even if we wanted to do it, we don't have our instruments well enough to embark on this kind of adventure.
What the Electric Flag had tried, what B, S & T has already done, Chicago succeeds perfectly: making the brass one of the essential voices of the group, no longer intended to underline the speeches made by others but to discourse in the same way as them.
This is obviously not so easy to achieve, a problem of space distribution arising, a problem which, if not solved, can flank a group on the ground. This sharing of space, Chicago accomplishes it very skillfully by using the brass in turn as a background and as a dominant voice, without them ever getting in the way or being bothered.
Simple but not simplistic riffs, rejection of bugle blasts, slow increases in tension, subtle counterpoints, perfect integration into the exposition of the themes, long passages in unison and, even within the brass section, a few small contrapuntal subtleties, all this makes Walter Parazaider, Lee Loughnane and Jimmy Pankow much more than needy blowers, as are the musicians of Janis Joplin, for example.
One certainly had to see the big Chicago machine spinning on the Olympia stage to realize that something is really happening in pop music, like a violent jolt, a new impulse that suddenly makes it go from stage of approximations to that of a sort of formal perfection of a musical architecture with clean lines (but that was already the signature of the Beatles) in which long organized delusions come to be integrated. Until now, one made the distinction in pop music between structuring and improvisation. The use of the two within the same groups is indeed a novelty, even if some short-lived experiments had already been attempted by precursors of the Blues Project genre (it would be absolutely fascinating to talk to Al Kooper for a long time) .
The merit of Chicago is to have been able to popularize this style of music without watering it down. If the group is not revolutionary in the absolute (the Mothers or the Soft Machine, to stay in the pop domain, go further), it will all the same have advanced pop music by a good step, although it now happens to him, and will have seriously contributed to opening the minds of listeners to more "distant" things.
Evidenced by the public's total acceptance of the long free passage of "Liberation" or "Free form guitar", even though Chicago knows that it is still too early to play this last piece on a stage. With bands like this, we're dealing with the music and nothing else. Nothing is attempted by the musicians to seduce the public, I mean nothing outside the music; no amazing stage outfits, no psychedelic lights, nothing. Only the pleasure of the ear matters.
And it was great for everyone, so much this music which “falls” marvelously into place has so much vitality in it. And finally, isn't it a kind of revolution to see a pop audience applauding a well-executed brass unison with the same vigor as they applaud a frenetic guitar or drum solo? Really, these Chicago concerts were great moments that ended with a little misunderstanding that no one realized: at the end of "Liberation", the brass began to sing "La Marseillaise" and received in return a nice ovation from the public. Curious, I asked the musicians why they had done that, and they replied that it was to thank the French public.
That is to say that their "Marseillaise" was totally devoid of irony and interpreted with as much respect as by the CRS brass band! I don't know if everyone did, but a lot of people I know and I cheered because we thought Chicago was showing complete disrespect, smearing red the Arc de Triomphe, in the process of destroying with ferocious humor this anthem that we heard above all on the battlefields.
But no, it was quite the opposite: “We thought we were making people happy. We're sorry people took it the wrong way and thought we were making fun of their anthem. We had to explain to them that they were the ones who had taken it the wrong way...
Anyway, "La Marseillaise", when they arrived in Europe, they thought it was the English anthem and were very disappointed by the complete lack of reaction from the Albert Hall audience when they performed it there!" — PHILIPPE PARINGAUX.