Bangor Flying Circus "Bangor Flying Circus" 1969***

Now here's a coincidence: one week my random selection method chooses New Colony Six (NC6), and the next I get another Chicago band of the same period. Back in the mid-60's, the best garage band in Chicago were the Stones-like "bad boys" Shadows Of Knight (SoK) while their rivals NC6 were the clean-cut Beatles types. Moving forward to the end of the decade, garage rock is dead and NC6 are playing light pop while two SoK members (keyboardist David "Hawk" Wolinski and drummer Tom Schiffour) form Bangor Flying Circus. By they time they recorded their only album, Schiffour was replaced by Michael Tegza (from local psychedelic rockers H.P. Lovecraft). The music in this album has some blues influences, but couldn't otherwise be more different from SoK. This is adult music while SoK was for teenagers. Most of the songs are written by Wolinski who also plays bass and shares singing duties with guitarist Al DeCarlo. The album is very well-arranged and played (this is the "adult" part), even though devoid of any really memorable compositions. The song that opens the album "Violent Man" has a melodic West Coast psychedelia sound with nice harmonies and guitar solos. It's followed by the soulful and jazzy "Come On People" - at this point I started thinking of them as Chicago's version of Traffic, and the impression sticks with me throughout the whole album. "Ode To Sadness" is another jazzy piece with great organ work, scat singing and a female guest vocalist singing bossa nova. "Concerto For Clouds" is another Traffic-like number and "A Change In Our Lives" (the only De Carlo composition) a jazz rock ballad with scorching guitar solo and cool piano. "Mama Don't You Know" has some country-ish harmonies, "In The Woods" is a prog-ish piece with fast drums, guitars and organ, and "Someday I'll Find" another ballad with jazzy improvisations. A long instrumental cover of The Beatles' "Norwegian Wood" is a testament to the trio's abilities as arrangers and instrumentalists, but short on rock'n'roll grit (which the SoK had oodles of). Bands these guys remind me of: Traffic, Blood Sweat & Tears, and Santana minus the Latin element. De Carlo and Wolinski would continue together as Madura, while Wolinski would become a successful session musician and producer, appear in various albums by Chicago and join Rufus and Chaka Khan for whom he wrote disco classic "Ain't Nobody". All in all, Bangor Flying Circus is a better than average record that will appeal more to fans of jazz soul than psychedelia even though it's usually considered psychedelic, probably because of its name and album cover.

**** for Violent Man, Ode To Sadness, In the Woods

*** for Come On People, Concerto For Clouds, A Change In Our Lives, Someday I'll Find, Mama Don't You Know (That Your Daughter's Acting Mighty Strange), Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)