Blood, Sweat & Tears -- "Spinning Wheel" (1969)

It's amazing to think that in rock history, there were only two jazz/rock bands that ever became huge: Blood, Sweat & Tears and Chicago. While both were pioneers that began in the late 60's, they could not have been more different: Chicago was a rock band with jazz elements, powered by a guitarist who worshiped Jimi Hendrix (the late Terri Kath), and had more hits than I have fingers and toes that went on for a few decades.

On the other hand, Blood, Sweat & Tears was a jazz band with rock chops, a big band New York vibe that swung hard, and like "The Natural," they soared to mystical heights once early on and never got it back again.

While initially an experiment conceived by rock Zelig Al Kooper for their debut album, Kooper departed, and in stepped lead singer David Clayton-Thomas, the stars aligned and they produced the magical album Blood, Sweat & Tears. Ironically, this album, and most of Chicago's classic output were produced by the same man, James William Guercio.

Like a bunch of West 52nd Street jazz escapees who wanted to put some rock juice into the mix, Blood, Sweat & Tears were the truest combination of the two genres: merging bluesy rock with bebop swing and chords you just never heard on Top 40 radio before. As a matter of fact, this was a band where you really had to listen to all the parts, because they were just such accomplished musicians that there was no member who really played "normal" rock style -- they were all skilled moving cogs in the wheel.

And that wheel was "Spinning Wheel," the second single from the album that just blew the roof off and you couldn't hide from it. I urge you to listen to the bass, because it's all over the place, not like any rock song at the time. Like all the best BS&T songs, the arrangement was amazing, horns blasting up and down like the song's immortal opening "what goes up" line, key builds between verses, and clever spaces to let Bobby Columby's airy drum riffs cut between the lines.

Happy enough with the single, the album version went a full minute longer with a crazy jazz jam break, featuring an extroverted Maynard Ferguson-type trumpet solo, swinging piano chords mixed clearly in another speaker, and a sax blast right off a Sonny Rollins album.

That never-heard-it-before rumble earned them a spot on the bill at Yasgur's Farm. Think about it -- this large group of intellectual-looking studious jazz/rock nerds actually played Woodstock, surrounded by the pinnacles of raw hippie culture and acid rock like Jefferson Airplane, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Ten Years After, Sly & The Family Stone, and Crosby, Stills & Nash.

I had my own personal musical connection to the song back in junior high school. Pushing aside the classical pieces of my old world piano teacher, I became a regular buyer of rock sheet music at Sam Goody, Colony and other stores. "Spinning Wheel" was one of them, because it started so promptly on that groovy E7th-A7th-D7th-G piano bass note riff. Man, I practiced that song over and over, because I was heading to the elementary school talent show to play what I knew. The real bitch of the song was that wacky jazz chord, one I had to really put my fingers in some weird formation, when the "let the spinning wheel turn" line came up. You know that part -- it's like a cross between a major and minor chord.

When I had my chance on the baby grand piano at the Robert H. Goddard JHS stage, I got nervous and fumbled. I don't even remember if I finished the whole song. All I know is the girl piano prodigy got up shortly afterward and played the whole damn thing perfectly with no sheet music in front of her.

Below, you have Blood, Sweat & Tears doing the single version of "Spinning Wheel" on live TV back in '69 (and the only solo is Steve Katz's little guitar number), followed by the full album version below it.

Chicago -- "Ballet For A Girl In Buchanon" (1970)

Much like art rock band Ambrosia, which also became symbolic of 70's "soft rock" when they sugar coated their style, Chicago Transit Authority (aka Chicago) was very much a whole different band earlier on. They experienced quite a bit of commercial success early on with their then fresh merger of psychedelic rock, free form jazz, and horns, only to then go through the roof when they added syrupy stuff with each new album.

When they came on the scene in 1969, Chicago was considered very hip because of their unusual sound at the time. Blood Sweat & Tears were also pioneering the jazz/rock genre, except they were a little less on the "rock" and more on the "bebop jazz." Chicago wasn't afraid to let their Hendrix-worshiping guitarist Terry Kath loose with an overheated Strat and lots of feedback.

Although it was technically called Chicago, their second album became known as Chicago II because of the band's habit for numbering their albums. The album's centerpiece, following the wonderful "Fancy Colors," with its unusual multiple-take one chord faded ending, was an 18-minute multi-song epic called "Ballet For a Girl From Buchanon," written by trombonist James Pankow. Several pieces blended into one, some of them short instrumentals, this lengthy workout actually produced two hit singles -- "Make Me Smile," an edit of the song that begins and ends the "Ballet," and "Color My World," a pretty ballad with a flute solo that's right in the middle.

Changing keys and tempo along the way, "Ballet For a Girl In Buchanon" is full of dissonance, angst and conflict, resolved by sheer joy. Chicago took the unusual step of cranking out double albums right from the beginning, Columbia Records allowing them to not hold back the band's creative roll. Not that all of these albums were great from beginning to end... they could have easily been sliced down to one album each.

"Make Me Smile" was notable for drummer Danny Seraphine's acrobatic moves around his kit, the very melodic middle horn break, and Kath's solo during the Em-A7 break. I used to go to music stores, study the sheet music, and then play the whole thing on the piano, solos and all. Starting from the Ab buildup, changing from E major to G major and then three unusual chord stabs, and into C minor. Woosh!

Children play in the park, they don't know
I'm alone in the dark, even though
Time and time again I see your face smiling inside

I'm so happy
That you love me
Life is lovely
When you're near me
Tell me you will stay
Make me smile

Living life is just a game so they say
All the games we used to play fade away
We may now enjoy the dreams we shared so long ago.

I'd put "Color My World" in the same category as Emerson, Lake & Palmer's "From The Beginning" and Led Zeppelin's "Stairway To Heaven" -- a song you had to know to show off your chops on your instrument. For "Color My World," it was the very simplistic Fmaj7-Aminor-Bb, etc. single note pattern, that made it one of the biggest prom songs of the 70's. And you had to know the flute solo as well to make the grade. Yes, this was a corny song, I'm not denying it, but it impressed the chicks.

I give Chicago a lot of credit that to this very day when they tour, they play the entire "Ballet For A Girl In Buchanon," not just the two individual hits, and often open up their shows with it.

From 1970, just as Chicago II was released and "Make Me Smile" was already a hit single, here is the two-part video of "Ballet For A Girl In Buchanon." Note how the band was ragged, long-haired and hippie-ish, with Kath leading the group. The first part ends just as the band is about to go into "Color My World." For whatever you think about Chicago, these videos are a truly invaluable early look at this band's early power and impact with Kath front and center, several years before the charismatic guitarist accidentally shot and killed himself.