Having formally adopted Chicago as its band moniker with its sophomore album, Chicago Transit Authority also solidified the commercial breakthrough based on its debut. Unfortunately, the supervision of the project by manager/producer James William Guercio also nurtured the group’s pretensions. As a result, with the hindsight of five and a half decades, Chicago II (released 1/26/70) stands as one of the most prominent examples of self-indulgence in the double album era of the Seventies. Still, the extended perspective also allows for quick and accurate discernment of how and where to pare down the project to the much more reasonable length of a single LP.
The cumulative force of the sixty-seven-plus minutes turns diffuse even when condensed to a single CD. In contrast, the impact of the small handful of standout cuts and otherwise memorable moments initially spread across the four sides of two LPs.Therein, it increases almost exponentially with the reduction in playing time. For instance, in a more condensed form, “Poem For The People” might better have been an instrumental. The same goes for the five-part composition “Better End Soon;” the ostensible topicality of the piece vividly represents pedantic, self-conscious tendencies that alternately camouflage and undermine the otherwise impressive virtues of Chicago. Accordingly, the horn fanfare on “Movin’ In” lacks the rousing punch of similar interludes on the previous LP, as does the intro to the otherwise ingratiating pop, “Wake Up Sunshine.” In contrast, “Make Me Smile” flourishes through its instrumental and vocal tradeoffs (reminiscent of vintage CSNY).
Terry Kath, who would pass in a tragic gun accident in 1978, was Chicago’s greatest proponent of hard rock. His guitar playing propels the unified gallop of “25 or 6 to 4” (actually written by keyboardist/vocalist Robert Lamm). Moreover, the late guitarist/vocalist’s gruff but flexible voice dominates the euphoric “Make Me Smile” in much the same way his rugged singing tones temper the otherwise mawkish nature of “Colour My World.”
As with its sprawling predecessor, Guercio oversees the album’s production, which is dominated by arrangements that are too diverse for their own good. The septet thus has little space to improvise on selections like “In The Country,” so the uplifting, slightly abandoned ebullience of “Fancy Colours” is all the more winning. The improved sonics arising from Steven Wilson’s 2016 remix of the Chicago II‘s master tapes are a logical extension of the pristine audio of the initial release five and a half-decades ago. However, the previously enhanced 2002 expanded CD edition of this album on Rhino also compares favorably in clarity and sonic separation.
Ensuring Walter Parazider’s woodwind instruments have as much presence as drummer Danny Seraphine’s sophisticated percussion, the sharp sonics also reveal the latter’s indispensable contributions to the musicianship of Chicago. His ingenuity during the instrumental “West Virginia Fantasies” stop-time segments is as readily audible as a similar interlude on “To Be Free.” Accordingly, such passages, interpolated with the other aforementioned standouts, would make for a more refined yet less anonymous work. Still, with numbers like “A.M. Mourning”/”P.M. Mourning” integrated into a hypothetical forty-to-sixty minutes or so, the concept might’ve come across as a bit too abstract for a burgeoning Chicago audience situated squarely in the mainstream.
The prevalent subservience to craft on Chicago II is a far cry from the bristling energy of the live shows from the summer of this same year (see the July concert from Tanglewood or the next month’s Isle of Wight presentation). Yet, over a half-century of hindsight surrounds this second album and ratifies its shortfalls and the release’s name. In fact, the numerical sequencing to follow on subsequent releases by the band is ultimately indicative of the slow but sure homogenization of the ensemble’s sound.
