The concluding part of our examination of the Chicago band’s evolution was put together by Hugh, who is much more familiar with it than I am, not to mention more accepting.  A failing on my part which I came to regret on listening to the selections here, and I’m now re-listening to the whole of Chicago’s history again.

Pre and post show selections were from a Chicago Christmas album (one of four), the 1999 Live in Concert album and from the slightly unrepresentative set of Big Band covers entitled Night and Day, which was assembled in a hurry to cover up for the sudden disfavour shown to Stone of Sisyphus by the record label.  We put Stone of Sisyphus back in its proper place as Chicago 22…

The latest Chicago album was released on October 11th 2019 and is their fourth Christmas album, simply titled Chicago Christmas.  Were it to be numbered, it would be Chicago XXXVII.  It was recorded during their 2019 tour using a mobile studio setup, but is not a live album.

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Some fumbling with the DST shift in Europe meant that our announced show time in the US kept changing, but we still had a good audience for the second of our Miles Davis shows.  This one covered a great deal of ground, too, from ’55 to ’85 including Kind of Blue, In A Silent Way and Bitches Brew.

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For our first look at this band, we covered their first years, up to the death of guitarist Terry Kath.  That covers a lot of ground, eleven albums in eight years, with a lot of change.

The preshow and postshow contained a couple of the long suites of songs that were a feature of their early years, but would have been too long for the main show.

Since I talked a lot about the covers, I’ve linked images of them to the album names.  The ones we missed out are Chicago at Carnegie Hall, which is number 4 in the sequence (White Tile), and Chicago IX – Chicago’s Greatest Hits (Painted Billboard)

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We do try to keep you on your toes with different types of show, and this was one of them, looking at big bands in the modern era.  Put together by Hugh, we had an excellent playlist and a good audience too – hope to see you all again.

The preshow consisted of tracks from the Duke Ellington album whose name was shared by the show.

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A show looking at just four bands from the ’70’s scene that became known as Krautrock.  Pre and post show sampled six more bands from that era.  We’ll certainly do more shows if the enthusiasm shown on the night is continued.

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Our oldest tradition is to get Ed to compose at least one show per year, by selecting his favourite tracks from the past 12 month’s shows.  This year was particularly fruitful, and we had a good crop of choices, which had to be whittled down a little.  Everybody enjoyed the final result, and we had a max of 20 listeners, which, for Labor Day, was pretty good (so I’m told 🙂 )

We had an unscheduled open mic moment over the start of the last track in the show.  You think we’d be good at this by now, but even the best of us makes mistakes.  As far as I know, Ed does not drive a Ferrari.  Or a Mercedes, come to that.

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A good selection in this show and one we enjoyed putting together and just listening to.  Pre- and post-show from Mal’s stash.

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A suggestion from both Hugh and Edison, and a favourite of Ed’s, we featured the songwriting and guitar virtuosity of Yorkshire’s Bill Nelson with his band Be-Bop Deluxe.  Managing to clash with Mysterium and the start of the holiday season, we nevertheless got into double figures in audience numbers, and enjoyed the show ourselves.  A short career for the band but full of great tracks.  Bill Nelson himself is still going.

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A change in pace, not before time, and a very welcome response from you, our audience, with a maximum of 22 listeners, and holding at 20 for a lot of the show.  Which was put together by Hugh, taking a small look at one of his favourite musicians.

We even had dancing on the plaza, which is a very positive encouragement 🙂

All tracks were taken from the box set The Last Word: The Warner Brothers Years, from 2001.  Collaborations are noted in the title text.

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A respite from weighty analyses of various people or groups, and a bit of relaxation with a Summer dance set, with a big dose of reggae-ish tracks because it’s hot and we don’t want to dance all night at a frantic pace.  I tried for a bit of diversity too, with jazz, blues, bossa nova and folk along with the rock, pop and reggae.

If you liked this show, let us know.  We already have one more in the pipeline.

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