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Performer: Chicago
Engineer: Fred Catero
Producer: James William Guercio
Distributor: WEA (distr)

Notes: Chicago: Terry Kath (vocals, guitar); Robert Lamm (vocals, keyboards); Walter Parazaider (winds, background vocals); Lee Loughnane (trumpet, background vocals); James Pankow (trombone); Daniel Seraphine (drums). Recorded at Columbia Studios, New York, New York in January 1969. Originally released on Columbia (GP-8). Includes liner notes by David Wild. This is part of Columbia/Legacy's Master Sound series. Master Sound releases are 24-karat gold CDs remastered from first-generation masters. This process utilizes 20-bit technology and Sony's revolutionary "Super Bit Mapping" system. It might come as a surprise to anyone familiar only with their satin-smooth soft-rock hits, but when Chicago first formed in 1967, they were actually doing something new, cool, and interesting: rock & roll with a fully-integrated jazz horn section. 1969's CHICAGO TRANSIT AUTHORITY has two of the group's early hits, "Beginnings" and "Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?" but it also includes some of their most audacious material ever, notably Terry Kath's seven-minute "Free-Form Guitar," a free jazz improvisation for heavily distorted electric guitar that--no kidding--would not sound out of place on an early Sonic Youth album, and the politically-charged, side-long suite comprised of "Prologue," "Someday (August 28, 1968)," and "Liberation," the closest Chicago ever came to a true jazz-rock synthesis. Chicago's later work deserves many of the critical brickbats it's received, but CHICAGO TRANSIT AUTHORITY is a genuinely interesting album. This debut has surprisingly endured, whereas all their following 18,000 albums with the same title (other than a number change) have little or no credibility in the public's memory. This album can be interchanged with the second and third Blood Sweat And Tears album; all represent the very best of late 60s American jazz/rock. The band changed their name soon afterwards as they ploughed a successful path into smooth AOR. Lengthy tracks such as "South California Purples" and their excellent cover version of Spencer Davis Group's "I'm A Man" prove beyond doubt that these chaps can really play. Maybe they were smarter than most in seeing the limitations of jazz/rock and moving on to play Russian roulette.

Q (8/94, p.119) - 4 Stars - Excellent - "...an aggressive metallic guitar sound...offered feedback, soulful grooves and a green attitude..." Uncut (01/03, p.140) - 4 stars out of 5 - "...Heavy on blasting brass, hollering vocals, and the turbulent psychedelic blues guitar of Terry Kath..." Uncut (01/03, p.140) - 4 stars out of 5 - "...Heavy on blasting brass, hollering vocals, and the turbulent psychedelic blues guitar of Terry Kath..."

Chicago was the longest-running and most commercially successful of the hordes of jazz-rock bands with horn sections that sprang up in the late-1960s wake of Blood, Sweat & Tears. After myriad personnel changes (including the death of founding guitarist Terry Kath due to a self-inflicted gunshot wound), Chicago eventually mutated into a more conventional pop group that was able to score hit after hit well into the '80s, usually with romantic ballads. They remain among the best-selling American bands of all time. In the mid 1990s they briefly returned to their roots with an album of big band-era standards given the Chicago treatment.

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