Chicago-Chicago 16 (1982)

In the mid-70s, Chicago began to drift their sound towards more commercial directions to the detriment of the jazz and rhythm & blues influences of their first eight albums.
But it would be from their album "Chicago 16" published in 1982, when they would make the definitive leap towards the sounds considered AOR with an album full of commercial melodies, pop choruses, a bombastic sound, full of effects and arrangements that would make this album in one of the best of the 80's.
The world would surrender to songs like the beautiful "Hard To Say I'm Sorry" and "Love Me Tomorrow", the sensational "Waiting For You To Decide" or the energetic "Chains", propping up the group among the most emblematic of the AOR.

Chicago-At Carnegie Hall (1971)

In 1971 Chicago had already released three double albums, (his first three works), something surprising and unprecedented in the history of rock music, but for that year they went even further, challenging their fans with a quadruple live album.
Recorded at different concerts at Carnegie Hall in New York during the month of April 1971, and at the insistence of producer James W. Guercio who differed from the opinion of the members of the band due to the quality of the sound, it was released at the end of that same year.
This overwhelming batch of live records is a perfect anthology of his first works, in addition to his singles "Make me smile", "Color my World" or the well-known "25 or 6 to 4".
This quadruple album would break all records by reaching third position on the North American charts.
However, fans began to ask themselves some questions; What kind of group was this that published 10 albums (three doubles and one quadruple) in three years? Did they make so many songs in such a short time? And if they initially took extreme care of their productions, as they now publish a live with a mediocre sound ?.
These issues and others led the band to reconsider their style and radically change from jazz rock to a much more commercial sound, with soft rock very close to AOR.

Chicago-V (1972)

By 1972, Chicago had released three double albums and a quadruple live album, all of them number one on the American charts, and all this in just three years since the band's formation in 1969. For their fourth album, they decided to abandon the double LP format and focus on a single LP. In addition, they opted to shorten the long improvisational tracks and extended suites, replacing them with shorter pieces, always within Chicago's unmistakable style of jazz and rock. Here too, Robert Lamm took a much more prominent role in the songwriting, composing eight of the album's ten tracks, while Terry Kath and James Pankow shared the remaining two. Another significant change is the inclusion of tracks geared towards the more commercial sounds that would become their hallmark in subsequent years, with a soft rock style like "Dialoque (Part I)", while Pankow's "Now That You've Gone" continues the band's previous work. Other tracks in this jazz-rock vein include "A Hit By Varèse", "Saturday In The Park", and "State Of The Union". Meanwhile, the velvety "All Is Well" and "Goodbye" showcase the group's melodic side. "Alma Mater", Terry Kath's only composition, is a powerful gospel piece featuring the driving horn sounds so characteristic of their early albums. With this fourth release, Chicago returned to the top of the Billboard charts, earning several platinum records for their enormous sales.

Chicago-X (1976)

One of the leading proponents of jazz brass rock is the American band Chicago, one of the most successful bands of all time with over 100 million records sold worldwide. However, their style wasn't always tied to jazz rock. During their long career, spanning from 1967 to 2022, they explored a wide variety of styles, including blues, rock, rhythm and blues, pop rock, and psychedelic music. By the mid-seventies, Chicago was fully immersed in a period where they blended their jazz-rooted sound with mainstream rock. From this era comes "Chicago X", the eighth album by this large group comprised of Peter Cetera, Terry Kath, Laudir de Oliveira, Danny Seraphine, Walter Parazaider, James Pankow, Lee Loughnane, and Robert Lamm. This album features one of their most famous songs and a true classic of 20th-century music, the timeless ballad "If You Leave Me Now", which, along with the album itself, led the band to win three Grammy Awards the following year, in addition to several platinum and gold records. Although this iconic song might initially seem to overshadow the rest of the album, it contains enough merit to consider it another of their great masterpieces, as evidenced by the rock & soul track "One Or Twice", the dramatic mid-tempo "Hope For Love", the luminous "Another Rainy Day In New York City", and the jazz-rock anthems "Skin Tight" and "You Are On My Mind".

Chicago Transit Authority - Chicago Transit Authority (1968)

Few debut albums can boast as consistently solid an effort as the self-titledChicago Transit Authority (1969). Even fewer can claim to have enough material to fill out a double-disc affair. Although this long- player was ultimately the septet's first national exposure, the group was far from the proverbial "overnight sensation." Under the guise of the Big thing, the group soon to be known as CTA had been honing its eclectic blend of jazz, classical, and straight-ahead rock & roll in and around the Windy City for several years. Their initial non-musical meeting occurred during a mid-February 1967 confab between the original combo at Walter Parazaider´s apartment on the north side of Chi Town. Over a year later, Columbia Records staff producer James Guercio became a key supporter of the group, which he rechristened Chicago Transit Authority. In fairly short order the band relocated to the West Coast and began woodshedding the material that would comprise this title. In April of 1969, the dozen sides of Chicago Transit Authority unleashed a formidable and ultimately American musical experience. This included an unheralded synthesis of electric guitar wailin' rock & roll to more deeply rooted jazz influences and arrangements. This approach economized the finest of what the band had to offer — actually two highly stylized units that coexisted with remarkable singularity. On the one hand, listeners were presented with an incendiary rock & roll quartet of Terry Kath (lead guitar/vocals), Robert Lamm (keyboards/vocals), Peter Cetera (bass/vocals), and Danny Seraphine (drums). They were augmented by the equally aggressive power brass trio that included Lee Loughnane (trumpet/vocals), James Pankow (trombone), and the aforementioned Parazaider (woodwind/vocals). This fusion of rock with jazz would also yield some memorable pop sides and enthusiasts' favorites as well. Most notably, a quarter of the material on the double album — "Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?," "Beginnings," "Questions 67 and 68," and the only cover on the project, Steve Winwood´s "I'm a Man" — also scored as respective entries on the singles chart. The tight, infectious, and decidedly pop arrangements contrast with the piledriving blues-based rock of "Introduction" and "South California Purples" as well as the 15-plus minute extemporaneous free for all "Liberation." Even farther left of center are the experimental avant-garde "Free Form Guitar" and the politically intoned and emotive "Prologue, August 29, 1968" and "Someday (August 29, 1968)." The 2003 remastered edition ofChicago Transit Authority offers a marked sonic improvement over all previous pressings — including the pricey gold disc incarnation