I’ve always been a sucker for bands with horns, since I saw B.B. King at the University of Wisconsin shortly after the Vikings landed. He played at the Union Theater, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, and he had a horn section. I was seated in the twenty-fifth row and then all of a sudden I was standing in front of the stage along with everybody else. I don’t know how I got there.
My love affair took off when I saw the Paul Butterfield Blues Band at The Factory, just off State Street. This was the Resurrection of Pigboy Crabshaw band with Elvin Bishop, Mark Naftalin, Phil Wilson on drums, Gene Dinwiddie and Dave Sanborn on sax, and Keith Johnson on trumpet. Butter was forging a new sound, part blues, part soul. That album is brilliant, followed by the even more astonishing In My Own Dream. I saw Butter again in Milwaukee at Summerfest.
Bill Chase formed Chase, a rock band with four lead trumpet players. It was the loudest band I ever saw, in a small club, Dewey’s, just off State Street. When I play that music today, with four shrieking horns, I wonder at the wisdom of the sound. But I still listen to it. Trumpet, sax, and bone are the essentials of any great horn rock band, and Dreams, with the Brecker Brothers on horn and sax, and Billy Cobham on drums, was perhaps the greatest horn rock band of all time. I saw them at Dewey’s too.
I loved Chicago and Blood, Sweat, and Tears, but I never saw them live. Years later I interviewed Al Kooper for my book, A Brief History of Jazz Rock. He was not happy when the band booted him after the first album. They hired David Clayton-Thomas as their new lead singer and came to hate him even more. It’s in Steve Katz’ book, Blood, Swseat, and My Rock ‘n’ Roll Years. Chicago and B,S and T are legacy bands that still tour today. Much as I loved B,S and T’s two albums, I think they saved their best material for New Blood, especially the last two cuts, “Snow Queen” which segues into “Maiden Voyage.” I saw Herbie Hancock last year and it was all noodles. But that’s another story.
I had been collecting Tower of Power for years but did not see them until the nineties, when first they played Summerfest in Milwaukee, and then the Square in Madison. In each case, they were forty-five minutes late and the sound was perfect. I would love to see them again. They recently played Red Rocks, but I no longer drive seventy miles for a concert. They celebrated their fiftieth anniversary. Think about that. They sound just as vital today as they ever did. I know, because there are about five weeks of live Tower of Power on Youtube.
Jam Factory was another one. Never got to see them but their first and only album lingers because of its brilliance. I often post this song. It incapsulates everything great about the seventies. Hard blowing horns, brilliant changes, and cosmic hippy philosophy.
In England, they had If, a brilliant band unlike any other. Mogul Thrash. Satisfaction. All great bands. Where I live now there are several outstanding horn rock bands. The Burroughs, a nine piece soul band from Greeley with a four man horn section, and ginger haired Johnny Burroughs, who sings like James Brown. Funky Business, in which our friend Eric, also our insurance agent, plays trumpet. Sons of Champlin. Santa Fe and the Fat City Horns. The list goes on. All I have to know is the band has two or three horns and I’m there. I am rarely disappointed.
HORN ROCK
Thanks Mike!
Another nice piece about bands and music. I liked your article where you talked about power pop too.
The use of the word incapsulate made me wonder if you meant encapsulate. Or are the two words interchangeable. I'm going to look them up right after those comments .