Chicago – Chicago II (1970)

From progarchives.com

Review by ClemofNazareth

While the band gets a rep for being a jazz/rock fusion group, one listen to this album shows that isn’t quite right, at least not as far as their early recordings are concerned. The brass section is of course what tends to give people the impression this is jazz-rock, but the guitar, keyboards and especially the lyrics tell a different story.

Chicago seem to have been a complicated group of individuals right from the start. Peter Cetera, while cast as the bass player, was clearly one of the more commercially ambitious members and his vocals tend to be more memorable than those of keyboardist Robert Lamm or guitarist Terry Kath. That said, the left-leaning and political Lamm’s warm and even tenor on “Fancy Colours” and “25 or 6 to 4” are a big part of Chicago lore and are instantly recognizable by millions of music fans from at least three generations. His “Poem for the People” and “It Better End Soon” were less well-known and not released as singles, but they reveal a tense political side to the band that reflects the time and circumstances they lived in; the lyrics and guitar work also skirt the line between rock and contemporary American folk in my opinion, along the lines of Harry Nilsson, Warren Zevon and Tom Waits despite the horn trappings. Terry Kath was huge with experimentation on guitar, while Walter Parazaider gave more of an impression of being a virtuoso perfectionist on woodwinds. They were (and are) all consummate musicians, but the collaboration in retrospect seems rather unlikely and unusual (which, this being art, is of course probably why it worked out so well).

The lengthy “Ballet for a Girl in Buchannon” gets most of the attention on this record, and of course it yielded the band their first hit single with “Make me Smile”. But for me “Colour my World” is the highlight of the record, despite its being a somewhat uncharacteristic piano and flute-driven acoustic piece with none of the trademark brass that made the band’s reputation. It’s kind of like KISS’s “Beth”, Kansas’ “Dust in the Wind”, or Styx’ “Babe” in that respect.

The number of signature Chicago songs on this album are a testament to its prominent place in their discography: “Fancy Colours”, “25 or 6 to 4”, “Make me Smile”, “Movin In”, “Now More than Ever”, “Poem for the People”, “Where Do We Go From Here” and the acerbic anti-war anthem “It Better End Soon” are all classic Chicago and virtually timeless. I bought the 2-disc vinyl version somewhere around 1977 and these songs were still being played constantly on the radio even then; I hear most of them on FM radio regularly even today while traversing across America on road trips, a testament to both the staying power and the broad reach of Chicago’s music, and of this album in particular

For younger and newer Chicago fans I think there might be a tendency to disregard the folksier and multi-part sections of this record in favor of the well-known hit singles. That would be a huge mistake, and you will miss out on a real treat by doing so. Wrap your head around 1970 and all it meant while checking out “It Better End Soon”; and spend some time with a loved-one grooving to “Ballet for a Girl in Buchannon” – both are well worth the trip.

Defining a musical masterpiece is so subjective that the exercise becomes irrelevant almost immediately. In the case of this album though, I can easily say that I can’t think of a thing the band could have done to make it better, and in that light Chicago II must reasonably be considered a masterpiece. If you don’t have this one in your collection, you should.

Review by Sean Trane

 When the rightful CTA (Chicago Transit Authority) learned that some hippies usurped their names, they went tits-up and phoned their lawyers and in no time the hippies had changed their names, shortening it to just their hometown’s name. Sooo their self-titled second album is just known as Chicago, and not as Chicago 2, although it became that way for those weaker on maths. With an unchanged line-up and their now famous logo in its final form, the septet headed out to record yet another double album, still under Guercio’s directions. This album sees the advent of James Pankow becoming the equal of Robert Lamm as songwriter, while Kath remains the third gun, but we also see Cetera and Parazaider popping here or there. Two singles from this album were also sent up the charts.

The group is now more experienced than on their debut album, and if the first and third side are made of unrelated songs, the second make up a giant Pankow-penned suite called Ballet For A Girl In Buchannon, while the fourth side makes another (and separate) suite. While the first side of the album has some typical Chicago or If-type of songs, none seem to stand out, especially surprising from Kath who pens two out of five. You can’t win them all!

Directly as the first notes from the almost 13-mins Buchannon suite strikes in Make Me Smile, you just know that the Chicago from the first album is back, with plenty of energy, drama and Kath’s guitar, but it’s the succession of those short tracks So Much To Say, Anxiety’s Moments, WV Fantasies, Now More Than Ever and the awesome To Be Free that makes this suite going even if the two longer movement Make Me Smile and Colour My World (after a Bach arpeggio) went up the charts. We’re looking at Pankow’s best works along with the upcoming Elegy.

The second disc starts on the slow-starting but carnival-esque Fancy Colours, which could’ve easily raced up the charts as well if it wasn’t for that ending, only to lean on the fantastic 25 Or 6 To 4 (that one did ;o))) before a short (around 9 minutes) Kath-undeclared and unnamed mini-suite takes over, where Kath experiments with a string section directed by Peter Matz. This sounds a bit like Deep Purple’s April suite on their third “Bosch” album, but a bit out of the usual Chicago scope, but nevertheless interesting. The fourth-side suite It Better End Soon is a much more urgent business, tense and melodic, but so dramatic lyrics depicting the wars and violence. The Lamm-suite is intelligently shared with Kath and Parazaider. Closing up the album, and probably not linked to the suite is Cetera’s Where Do We Go From Here? An intelligent question, but a tune that indicates a different tone for the band, an AOR/MOR sound that prefigures If You Leave Me Now. Yuck!!!!

Although Chicago were a septet, there is no other group who had released so much music after their second album that they’d had done as much as four album’s worth and it wasn’t finished. As if the remastered album boasting the 2 disc on 1 Cd wasn’t enough, they even found the space to place the single edits of two album hits (both seriously shortened/edited), but for me it’s not really the kind of bonus track I appreciate. But it won’t make a dent in this reviewer’s idea that this second Chicago album just bettered the debut album.