A personal question

[Mark Rippetoe]

How many of you have the 2005 CD release of Chicago IV: Live at Carnegie Hall?

http://www.amazon.com/At-Carnegie-Ha...cks/B00006FM77

Track 3, South California Purples, Kath's solo at the end of the tune. What do you think? I wonder if the people in the audience that night understood what they were seeing and hearing. Stef says that maybe 5% did, and the rest were just the general population.

[dpinsen]

Is this it?: http://youtu.be/9MX1cY-E-cs

[Mark Rippetoe]

That's it.

[tertius]

I dunno, but the bass playing on that version of 25 or 6 to 4 is pretty sublime.

[Corrie]

It's hard for me to really appreciate what's going on since I stink at guitar, but that was really fantastic. I've been playing music my whole life and I probably can't even begin to appreciate what he's actually doing there.
I was lucky enough to get to see Van Halen play one of their last live concerts and at one point the lights dimmed and it was just Eddie and his guitar alone on the stage for over 10 minutes straight. He made that thing speak in ways I did not know were possible.

I'm amazed by people who can sing with their instrument as if they were just improvising in their head. Here's someone else who can improvize at the very height of technical proficiency, it's astounding. (go to 45:50 if it doesn't take you there automatically)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...xmTNivQ#t=2743

[cutlet#]

I have that on Vinyl.

I want to believe that more than 5% of the audience must have known that they were seeing one of the greatest guitarists of all time. It's a shame that most people now don't realize what that band really was before it all went to shit. But in 1971, who else was playing the guitar like that? Hendrix was the only guy I can think of who was doing anything even comparable. I think a lot of people probably knew that while they were witnessing it.

Did you get to see them before it was too late?

[George Christiansen]

Considering that it was the best selling boxed set from '71-'86 I would say that a lot more people than you might think knew how great it was.

At the same time, I don't think that it was so extra-ordinary for the time. You had more music in the popular consciousness that had long, intricate instrumental sections. The influence of jazz was still in a large section of what was in the airwaves then. There were still audiences that had something along the lines of an attention span that let bands get away with it.

[Mark Rippetoe]

I dunno, but the bass playing on that version of 25 or 6 to 4 is pretty sublime.

Cetera was a very good bass player. Monster, even.

Did you get to see them before it was too late?

I saw them about 8 years ago with Earth, Wind, and Fire. Great show, but not the same thing.

I'm amazed by people who can sing with their instrument as if they were just improvising in their head.

George Benson is very good at this. But as far as melodic improvisation is concerned, Chet Baker playing here with Jim Hall, about 2 minutes deep:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuod7krz8jg

[dpinsen]

1: These live recordings also remind me of how solid Cetera was of a bass player before he started singing everything as a counter-tenor for the karate kid.

To be precise, that was for the Karate Kid II (which had another great singer on its soundtrack, Paul Rogers).

[Mark Rippetoe]

I have studied all these guys extensively, tried to play my trumpet with all these recordings. Chase cannot be played with because Chase was not an actual human being. He was as far above us as we are above the amoeba. Run back to Mama will eventually be the theme music for something we do. Saving it.