35 CHICAGO — LIVE IN JAPAN
Coming out the year after their epic four LP set Chicago Live At Carnegie Hall, this is a far superior document of the brass-driven outfit in concert. The playing is energetic and powerful while the recording is much, much better than the tinny sound of the 1971 release. The easy listening ballads of later years can obscure what a vital and inventive band Chicago was; this is a document revealing fire and passion. This Japanese pressing sounds great and has a sleeve of that thick cardboard beloved of record collectors. The cover image of the band name — a repeated theme on Chicago sleeves — is very nicely done here: a textured brand on leather. [Released November 1972]
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34 CARSON — BLOWN
A hard-edged blues rock dominated the Australian pub scene in the early to mid-1970s, particularly in Melbourne. To this beer-soaked arena Carson brought their infectious brand of boogie; a rolling, pulsing, foot-tapping stew of rock and blues featuring the excellent vocals of Broderick Smith. This is honest, denim clad music; a larrikin Canned Heat, perhaps. While the original vinyl (on the Harvest label) is highly collectible and thus extortionately expensive, there are two fabulous Aztec Music CD re-issues of this and their live album On The Air (recorded at Sunbury ’73) that are packed with extra music. Tribute must also be paid to the brilliant cover art/design by the legendary Ian McCausland who died very recently. Boogie on. [Released November 1972]
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33 FOCUS — 3
Dutch instrumental band Focus had a brief moment in the sun with a single from their second album. “Hocus Pocus” combined a killer guitar riff (Jan Akkerman) and yodelling (Thijs van Leer) and was, for the general music-buying populace, a hard act to follow. That they followed up Moving Waves with the double album Focus 3 says something about both the band and the times. It’s a strong album, though not without a couple of flat spots. Things begin strongly with “Round goes the gossip” followed by the romantic “Love remembered” then the record’s single, the wonderful “Sylvia”. Side 2 is the core of the album, “Focus II” into the cumbersomely named “Answers? Questions! Questions? Answers!”. The playing is much more spritely than the title, with van Leer’s liquid flute runs interacting with Akkerman’s fabulous guitar. “Anonymous II (Conclusion)” is filler, but overall this is high quality progressive rock that demonstrates how Western Art music can influence and inspire rock without it all becoming pompous and turgid. [Released November 1972]
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32 IAN CARR — BELLADONNA
Having formed and led UK progressive jazz-rock outfit Nucleus, trumpeter Ian Carr is a legend of the British scene. This solo-credited album has all the trademarks of the band; great horns, cool arrangements, some flashy soloing and strong riffing. Featuring Alan Holdsworth on guitar and Roy Babbington on bass, both Soft Machine alumni, this is an album recommended for fans of the cool, brassy sound of 70s jazz-rock. That the re-issue reproduced the famous Vertigo label is a bonus. [Recorded July 1972]
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31 FRANK ZAPPA — THE GRAND WAZOO
If the term ‘big band’ makes you think Glen Miller or Guy Lombardo, this Zappa album will (a) make you think again, (b) blow your mind, or (c) both. An amazingly limber large ensemble, this outfit plays complex jazz-rock like other bands boogie. It’s crammed with invention and stellar playing from the likes of George Duke, Don Preston and Aynsely Dunbar, and is mostly instrumental. That latter may be something of a relief to those who, like the author, rather lost respect for Zappa as his lyrics tended increasingly towards the banal, sacrificing cleverness for cheap thrills. But this LP does some serious smiting; the enemy didn’t stand a chance. Highlight: “The Grand Wazoo” [Released November 1972]
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Next: Wonder at the feat of slaying black calamari!
Name the five albums in advance and win!
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I’ve been listening to Grand Wazoo and Focus III (the latter on your recommendation), but don’t have a firm impression on either yet.
I have never seen or heard of that Chicago live album before – Chicago at Carnegie Hall is a lot more high profile.
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Yeah, the Chicago isn’t quite so easy to find, compared to the Carnegie Hall box. I bought my copy in a shop maybe six years ago, and recently saw another ‘in the wild’, so it does turn up. Good hunting!
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That Chicago album, which I didn’t know, sounds great. I completely agree with you they were such a good band in their pre-Peter Cetera ballad era.
Carson is new name to me. Based on sampling the first couple of tunes, that album sounds right up my alley!
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Delighted at both of those responses, Christian. Definitely give early Chicago a try (and you could do a whole lot worse than this live set, if you can find it!). Carson’s boogie sound is foot-tapping bliss. 🙂
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I never heard of that Chicago live in Japan before. Recently I listened to the expanded version of the Chicago live at Carnegie Hall, and it took me about a month cuz it’s 14 hours long. And has more than 200 tracks. This is ridiculous even for Chicago, who were always obsessed with multiple disc albums. . I thought the 4 disc original album was going overboard, but this gazillion track version is just totally absurd. But to tell the truth, a lot of it was better than the original. But it’s hard to remember which were the better ones because there’s about 88 versions of every song and you can’t remember which is which. Lol
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That is an astonishing volume of music! I know that feeling of being overwhelmed by different performances of the same set. When I got into the King Crimson boxes (20 live CDs, anyone?) I tried to take notes on standouts but it all got too much!
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Gee it’s been a while since I listened to Zappa. I’m just seventeen minutes into the Grand Wazoo and already wanting to say how glad I am that you mentioned this one.
It seems to be a nice follow on from The Power of Soul which I had on this morning – it’s got a tad more of most everything I like about Idris Mohammed’s album, plus a few of it’s own twists.
Thanks
DD
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Idris is on my wants list (any title!) but I’m yet to encounter anything in the wild. Glad Frank hit the spot, DD.
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I just had a look at prices. If I happen to see vinyl in an op-shop I will let you know.
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👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
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I typed Chicago into the VC search window to see if you’d ever mentioned Chicago (the band) in past posts. There were several hits, but I’m guessing they mention the city (confession: I didn’t open each individual post investigate, but from context, they didn’t seem to be about the band). What’s impressive to me about the Live in Japan LP is that they perform a couple of their songs in Japanese (including one of my favorites of theirs, “Questions 67 & 68”). Familiar with Zappa of course, but Carson, Focus and Ian Carr are all new to me.
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Well, JDB, I had to check, didn’t I?
One reference was to the Graham Nash song “Chicago” in a review of “Songs for Beginners”. Another was a reference to Muddy Waters and Chicago blues.
In the post “January 1971” we hit pay dirt with a short para on Chicago III, the band’s album of that year.
Several passing references came next… to the debut album, a comparison to Ten Wheel Drive, the city (as you predicted) appearing in a septet of references, then a feature on this very album! It’s a post from 2015 I’d totally forgotten, called “You Scrooge You Lose”. Who knew?
Thereafter, more city references before the band step forward again, with the Live 4LP set mentioned in this post being featured as part of the live album feature “Welcome Back My Friends” back in March 2014.
Thanks for prompting a dive into the archive, JDB!
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You definitely taught me something new here, Bruce. I thought I was pretty knowledgable of the early Chicago catalog, but I was never aware of the Live in Japan album. I will definitely check it out. I’ve always thought history has been a tad unfair to Terry Kath — definitely one of the greatest rock guitarists. – Marty
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Delighted to have been of value, Marty. 🙂
Absolutely agree with you on Kath. He’s astonishing on the debut album.
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Speaking of Focus, I recently picked a copy of Jan Akkerman’s Profile album out of the used bins. I believe it was released generally around the time of Focus 3. At first listen last night, I found it to be fantastic, maybe a bit more Mahavishnu than Focus. It most certainly reinforces Jan’s skill with and feel for his instrument. 🎸
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Excellent pick up, Vic. I like Profile a lot; it really does set out Jan’s stall. It’s playing as I type, and I agree that he’s listened to Mahavishnu Orchestra!
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I love the cover of the Ian Carr LP.
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‘Tis a corker, eh? Made me think of another instalment in the ‘Vertical Gatefold’ series of a few years back.
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[…] Zappa, flute, brass and boogie. That was #35-31. […]
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