We continue our look at the music of 50 years ago….
Bill Chase wasn’t the first person to add horns to a rock band. But unlike Chicago, Blood Sweat & Tears, and the horn sections from Stax, Muscle Shoals and Tower of Power, Chase and the three other trumpet players he gathered, spent most of the time wailing in the upper registers. Double and Triple high C’s stacked in a mass of brass.
Chase, the man and the band, released their debut LP “Chase” in April of 1971. It made it to #22 on the charts on the muscle of a hit single “Get It On” which spent 13 weeks on the charts and hit # 24 in July.
The single was fine but I found many of the other songs more interesting. Side 2 was made up entirely of a suite called “Invitation To A River” which was the most experimental and jazzy part of the LP. They also did a nice cover of “Handbags and Gladrags” written by former Manfred Mann lead singer Mike D’Abo and done by a number of artists including Rod Stewart.
The trumpet guys (Chase, Ted Piercefield, Alan Ware and Jerry Van Blair, were also talented arrangers and the tunes on the LP sound good. The LP earned the band a Grammy nomination for best new artist (they lost to Carly Simon). But the success was short-lived. Their second LP “Ennea” didn’t do well. They returned in 1974 with a new , more jazz oriented LP ‘Pure Music”. Unfortunately on April 9 1974, Bill Chase and three other members of the band, were killed in a plane crash while flying to a gig in Minnesota.
I seem to remember Chase playing a concert at Wausau West High School at some point although I wasnt there. In any case, here is a 1974 concert I found on line which will give you a taste of the band “live”. Not all the personnell are the same as the debut Lp and the keyboardist Wally Yohn, drummer Walter Clark and guitarist John Emma, died with Chase on that plane.
Here is the 1971 LP that got them going. It’s an early relic of the 70’s jazz-fusion craze. Enjoy.
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