It was more pop-oriented, featuring fewer compositions by the band. The group's second album, Blood, Sweat & Tears, was produced by James William Guercio and released in late 1968. With new trumpeters Soloff and Winfield the now nine-member band debuted at New York's Cafe Au Go Go on June 18, 1968, beginning a two-week residency. Trombonist Halligan took up the organ chores and Jerry Hyman joined to take over trombone. With her prodding, they went to see Clayton-Thomas perform and were so impressed that he was offered the role of lead singer in a reconstituted Blood Sweat & Tears. Reportedly, folk singer Judy Collins had seen Clayton-Thomas perform at a New York City club and was so taken and moved by his performance that she told Colomby and Katz about him (knowing that they were looking for a new lead singer to front the band). Ultimately, they decided upon David Clayton-Thomas, a Canadian singer, born in Surrey, England. Jerry Weiss went on to start the similarly-styled group Ambergris.Īfter Kooper left the group, Colomby and Katz began to look for a new vocalist, considering Alex Chilton (after the breakup of the soul-rock group the Box Tops but before the formation of Big Star), Stephen Stills, and Laura Nyro. Brecker joined Horace Silver's band with his brother Michael, and together they eventually formed their own horn-dominated musical outfits, Dreams and the Brecker Brothers. The group's trumpeters, Randy Brecker and Jerry Weiss, also left and were replaced by Lew Soloff and Chuck Winfield. He became a record producer for the Columbia label, but not before arranging some songs that would be on the next BS&T album. Colomby and Katz wanted to move Kooper exclusively to keyboard and composing duties, while hiring a stronger vocalist for the group, causing Kooper's departure in April 1968. Growing artistic differences among the founding members resulted in several personnel changes for the second album. The album cover was considered quite innovative showing the band members sitting and standing with child-sized versions of themselves. Īfter signing to Columbia Records, the group released Child Is Father to the Man. Kooper's fame as a high-profile contributor to various historic sessions of Bob Dylan and others was a catalyst for the prominent debut of Blood, Sweat & Tears in the musical counterculture of the mid-sixties. Jim Fielder was from Frank Zappa's the Mothers of Invention and had played briefly with Buffalo Springfield. Īl Kooper was the group's initial bandleader, having insisted on that position based on his experiences with the Blues Project, his previous band with Steve Katz.
The creation of the group was inspired by the "brass-rock" ideas of the Buckinghams and its producer, James William Guercio, as well as the early 1960s Roulette-era Maynard Ferguson Orchestra. The band was a hit with the audience, who liked the innovative fusion of contemporary styles. The octet debuted at the Cafe Au Go Go on November 17–19, 1967, then played The Scene the following week. A few more shows were played as a quintet before Lipsius then recruited fellow horn players Dick Halligan, Randy Brecker, and Jerry Weiss. Fred Lipsius then joined the others a month later. Unlike " jazz fusion" bands, which tend toward virtuosic displays of the instrumental facility and some experimentation with electric instruments, the songs of Blood, Sweat & Tears merged the stylings of rock, pop and R&B/ soul music with big band, while also adding elements of 20th-century classical and small combo jazz traditions.Īl Kooper, Bobby Colomby, Steve Katz, and Jim Fielder did a show at the Village Theatre (later renamed Fillmore East) in New York City on September 16, 1967, with James Cotton Blues Band opening.
The band is most notable for its fusion of rock, blues, pop music, horn arrangements, and jazz improvisation into a hybrid that came to be known as " jazz rock". Since its beginnings, the band has gone through numerous iterations with varying personnel and has encompassed a multitude of musical styles. They also incorporated music from Thelonious Monk and Sergei Prokofiev into their arrangements. The group recorded songs by rock/folk songwriters such as Laura Nyro, James Taylor, the Band and the Rolling Stones as well as Billie Holiday and Erik Satie. They are noted for their combination of brass and rock band instrumentation. Blood, Sweat & Tears is a jazz rock music group founded in New York City in 1967.