Chicago II

Description by OLDIES.com:

Chicago was founded in 1967 by Walt Parazaider (woodwinds), James Pankow (trombone), Lee Loughnane (trumpet), Roert Lamm (keyboards and lead vocals), Terry Kath (guitar and lead vocals), and Danny Seraphine (drums). They called themselves The Big Thing. They added bassist-lead vocalist Peter Cetera and began working with their original producer-manager James William Guercio, subsequently becoming known as Chicago Transit Authority. Their self-titled 1969 debut release was an ambitious mix of free-form rock and horn-influenced jazz, the first of three double LPs that would start their career. The band dropped the "Transit Authority" and became known as simply "Chicago" on their second album in 1970, which was the first album to carry their trademark logo. Chicago II yielded some of the group's most enduring hits, which came from Pankow's suite "Ballet For A Girl In Buchannon," emulating the form of the great classical composers from a pop perspective. The album peaked at #4 on the Billboard charts. With the success of Chicago II, radio went back and discovered hits on the earlier Chicago Transit Authority album. Their 1971 release Chicago III peaked at #2, driven by the success of the tracks "Free" and "Lowdown." These three classic Chicago albums can now be experienced from a new perspective with remastered sound and expanded liner notes

Product Description:

Chicago: Terry Kath (vocals, guitar); Robert Lamm (vocals, keyboards);

Peter Cetera (vocals, bass); Walter Parazaider (winds, background vocals); Lee Loughnane (trumpet, background vocals); James Pankow (trombone); Daniel Seraphine (drums).

Recorded at Columbia Studios, New York, New York; Columbia Studios, Hollywood, California in August 1969. Originally released on Columbia (KGP-24). Includes liner notes by David Wild.

All tracks have been digitally remastered.

In some ways the first real Chicago album (1969's self-titled CHICAGO TRANSIT AUTHORITY had, in addition to the longer band name, a harder and somewhat more experimental sound), 1970's CHICAGO II is fairly progressive and jazzy, especially in comparison to the straight pop records the ensemble would be making in only a few short years. The album, originally a double-disc record on vinyl, is composed as four side-length suites of interconnected songs, a conceit that works better here than it often can, not least because CHICAGO II includes some of the group's best material. In particular, the hits "Make Me Smile" and "25 or 6 to 4" (incidentally, author Robert Lamm finally cleared up the mystery of that title a couple of decades later--it's about someone looking at a clock and seeing that the time is around 3:35 a.m.) are here. So is the simply perfect ballad "Colour My World," the band's first masterpiece and still perhaps their finest song ever.