Chicago
Chicago II

THE REVIEW

The second album by Chicago, released at the beginning of 1970, is still fully in the varied and progressive style, only occasionally commercial, with which this septet intended to start their career. The four composers of the group were still fraternally competing for exposure, with the result that the LP was released as a double album just like their debut, and as will also be the case for the subsequent third work (later they will go overboard with a fourth live work spread over four vinyls, eight sides!).

The tracklist includes the masterpiece "25 or 6 to 4", an episodic but groundbreaking sortie into hard rock that can be seen as the mother of all the LA-SOL-FA-MI harmonic descents. There are many similar riffs in rock music, but this riff (which actually also sneaks in a F#) beats all its brothers, also thanks to the fact that in the bridges between verses, it is enriched by a dramatic, stunning fanfare of exquisite jazz harmonization, boldly played by the three horn players (saxophone, trumpet, and trombone) of the group.

The lead vocal for the occasion is by bassist Peter Cetera, endowed with a powerful and tenor-like timbre. Meanwhile, the expansive and highly inspired guitar solo, full of stupendous half-jazz, half-blues swing, starts calmly with the closed sound of the bass pickup, ignites as it moves to the more penetrating high pickup, and explodes with the insertion of the wah-wah pedal. These are two minutes of epochal quality, grit, fluidity, and instinct, enough to make the good Jimi Hendrix exclaim (directly to the incredulous Terry Kath, reached in the dressing room just after a concert) "You know you're better than me, right?".

Kath wasn't maybe as skillful as Hendrix, but he was even more reckless than him: he killed himself playing Russian roulette still at the age of thirty-one, in '78. Besides his abundant instrumental skills, poor Terry also possessed a magnificent soul voice, which can be admired here and there in the album and especially on the other two hits he performed, titled "Make Me Smile" and "Colour My World". The first has a progressive jazz introduction (completely removed in the single edition) but soon consolidates into a pop-rhythm & blues sung by God and enriched with beautiful harmonies; the second is a slow ballad marked by a pianistic arpeggio in a vague Bachian style, a bit boring. The funny thing is that both of these pieces are taken from a suite in seven different movements titled "Ballet For A Girl In Buchannon", put together by the septet's trombonist James Pankov... Good portions of the rest of the composition are decidedly less commercial, among flute flights, drum breaks, and brass fanfares.

A second, abundant progressive release is constituted by another suite, this time divided into four movements, titled "Memories of Love". This time it's the guitarist Kath who composes and exercises himself on the decidedly progressive side, assisted by a classical musician, namely conductor Peter Matz. It was, after all, the era when Deep Purple, Nice, Pink Floyd, and others were going all out in an attempt to combine rock with real orchestral scores (not just the usual background strings and woodwinds) of symphonic flavor.

All this constitutes an enormously varied album, oscillating from Beatles-like nuances to jazz, from orchestral pomp to hard rock, from moderate rhythm & blues (because executed by whites...) to the first signs of "adult" and sweet American pop which later became the predominant genre of the formation over the many years of its career. For those who only know Chicago superficially, even this work, just like all their first six or seven records, certainly provides a reason for great wonder.