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Credit: Steve Krakow for Chicago Reader<\/p>\nCredit: Steve Krakow for Chicago Reader<\/p>\n
Since 2005 Plastic Crimewave (aka Steve Krakow) has used the Secret History of Chicago Music to shine a light on worthy artists with Chicago ties who\u2019ve been forgotten, underrated, or never noticed in the first place.<\/p>\n
The Windy City birthed a world-famous horn-rock sound<\/a> in the late 1960s, led by the likes of the Mob and the band Chicago (formerly the Chicago Transit Authority). The city\u2019s rich jazz, R&B, and soul scenes prepared the ground for this development, producing horn players such as Eddie Harris<\/a>, Von Freeman<\/a>, Gene Barge<\/a>, and Johnny Pate<\/a>, who learned tuba as a kid and later arranged songs for the likes of Jackie Wilson, Major Lance, and Curtis Mayfield.\u00a0<\/p>\n When it came to merging a horn section with groovy, expansive rock \u2019n\u2019 roll, two of the most grievously underappreciated outfits are former garage band the Flock and the headier Aura. Unsurprisingly, they shared members, and I got more of their story from bassist Jerry Smith, who played in both groups and helped organize the Return of the Flock lineup last year.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The roots of Aura go back to the mid-60s and teenage band the Big City 5. Originally the Big City V, they were singer Al Lathan, guitarists Lenny Swiatly and Denny Giovannini, bassist Mike Walsdorf, and drummer Demetrius \u201cLarbi Ruslan\u201d Lapychak. Lapychak\u2019s classmate Nick Vitullo, a fan of the band, served as their manager for their first four years, and in 1966 he got them their first proper gig. For the occasion, they chose a new name: 4 Days & a Night, a reference to their soulful direction and racially diverse lineup (Lathan was Black, the other four members white).<\/p>\n This crew loved the Flock, so with Vitullo\u2019s help they bolstered their lineup with sax player Tom \u201cT.S. Henry\u201d Webb and trumpeter Frank Posa, who\u2019d played together in Webb\u2019s cover band, the Smith Henry Group. Since they now had seven members, not five, they changed their name to For Days & a Night. \u201cPromotion-wise, it didn\u2019t make a lot of difference,\u201d wrote historian Ken Voss in a 2021 story for his Illinois Music Archives series, \u201cas most clubs mis-spelled the band\u2019s name in their club flyers.\u201d<\/p>\n Posa and Webb didn\u2019t last long, leaving in September 1967 to join the Flock, where they felt they could play more progressive music. For Days & a Night recruited trumpeter John Priola and alto saxophonist Fred Entesari to replace them, in one of a dizzying number of lineup changes. Over the next few years, around 50 members came and went.<\/p>\n By 1969, For Days & a Night\u2019s soul-pop sound wasn\u2019t current anymore, and to make it on the college bar circuit in Illinois, they had to update their style by taking on an expansive acid-rock flavor\u2014more like the Flock, ironically. They changed their name again, this time to Giant City, after a state park south of Carbondale (where they often played a club called Bonaparte\u2019s Retreat). In 1970, the band included Sam Alessi on keys, Andy Foertsch on trombone, and Dennis Horan on drums. Then bassist Jerry Smith of the Flock entered the picture.<\/p>\n Smith was born on March 8, 1947, at Edgewater Hospital and raised in Albany Park, Skokie, and Niles. \u201cWhen I was ten years old, I wanted to play guitar,\u201d he says. \u201cMy parents enrolled me in a group lesson series at the downtown Lyon & Healy store. I only started playing bass guitar when I joined the Exclusives.\u201d<\/p>\n The Exclusives formed after Smith heard that two Rogers Park musicians, guitarist Fred Glickstein and saxophonist Rick Canoff, were looking for a bass player who could sing. \u201cI went to Canoff\u2019s home with my electric guitar, and Glickstein and [guitarist] Rick Mann blew me away with their playing,\u201d Smith says. \u201cI started to sing some songs with Glickstein, and they liked the results. So I said I would learn bass. We played some local clubs and schools under the Exclusives name.\u201d<\/p>\n The Exclusives became the Flock in late 1965, Smith says, when he was 18 years old. I wrote up the Flock\u2019s history long ago, so let\u2019s fast-forward to 1970, when the Flock decided to pack it in. \u201cWe just struggled to come up with new tunes for a third Columbia album,\u201d Smith says. \u201cBeing on the road for several years\u2014touring Europe, et cetera\u2014took its toll on us. We simply needed a break.\u201d<\/p>\n At the beginning of 1971, Smith got a call from Horan, the drummer in Giant City. He had an offer to make. \u201cWe knew each other from playing the same venues. He knew the Flock broke up, so he invited me to see Giant City perform at a club on Rush Street,\u201d Smith says. \u201cI was blown away! Very powerful music with an incredible lead singer in Al Lathan.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Smith soon joined the group, whose sound had evolved to fuse progressive soul, psychedelia, and funky rock. They signed to Mercury Records with the help of new manager Scott Doneen of American Tribal Productions. (According to Smith, the label also signed Lathan to a solo contract, in case the group didn\u2019t pan out.) \u201cRobin McBride was the A&R director for Mercury,\u201d Smith told Voss for his 2021 piece. \u201cHe really wanted to sign the Flock, but of course, we ended up signing with Columbia. Now with Doneen managing us, he had a connection to Mercury Records and we signed with them.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n At the label\u2019s suggestion, Giant City renamed themselves yet again, becoming Aura. \u201cIt\u2019s been said while they were recording the album, Lathan had noticed an \u2018aura\u2019 around the moon,\u201d Voss wrote. \u201cThe new name stuck.\u201d<\/p>\n Aura recorded their 1971 self-titled LP in New York City (at A&R Recording Studios and Mercury Sound Studios) and mixed it in Chicago at Paragon Studios with engineer Marty Feldman. Onstage Aura were an eight-piece, and the lineup on the album was even bigger: Smith, Lathan, Horan, Foertsch, Alessi, Entesari, guitarist Bill Waidner, trumpeter George Barr, flutist and baritone saxophonist Chuck Greenberg, and conga player Terri Quaye.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI coproduced the album with Robin McBride,\u201d Smith says. \u201cI love \u2018Show Me the Way\u2019\u2014a very powerful tune with a ton of energy!\u201d This author digs \u201cNo Opportunity Needed, No Experience Necessary,\u201d a funky, catchy Richie Havens cover, which benefits from Smith\u2019s mobile, jazzy bass playing. \u201cLife Is Free,\u201d which runs nearly seven minutes, shows off Aura\u2019s melancholic, progressive side, with fuzzy multitracked guitars by Waidner (from undocumented garage band the Bots, later renamed the Boston Tea Party).<\/p>\n \u201cCross-Eyed Eagle\u201d also features Waidner\u2019s sizzling ax crunch, and the addition of Alessi\u2019s rippling Hammond organ somehow makes this blaster sound like Iron Butterfly jamming with Sly Stone. \u201cCan You Imagine\u201d combines acid rock with melodic horns and Lathan\u2019s urgent and soulful singing; Greenberg (later the leader of jazz fusion band Shadowfax) adds a spacey break of flute flutters.<\/p>\n Smith recalled playing the local scene with Aura. \u201cAll the bands during the early 70s were generally playing the same circuit from Rush Street. Lally\u2019s, Barnaby\u2019s, and several other clubs were popular. Also, all the Dex Card and Don Manhart venues. Turning a VFW hall into a weekend teen club was popular back then. All the bands knew each other, and there was no tension at all. Plenty of work for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n This said, it was never easy to keep an eight-piece band going, and Aura rarely broke even. An abundance of work didn\u2019t necessarily mean an abundance of work that paid enough. \u201cWe never hooked up with a national tour,\u201d Smith says. \u201cWe were all still in our early 20s, and I believe there were some social pressures that arose also.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe could have kept working close to home and doing road gigs,\u201d Foertsch told Voss. \u201cBut management had this big dream and it wasn\u2019t happening.\u201d Aura broke up shortly after the release of their sole LP. \u201cMercury released the album,\u201d Voss wrote, \u201cbut for all practical purposes, it was in the cut bins by the time it came out.\u201d<\/p>\n In the decades since Aura\u2019s brief run, many of the musicians in the band\u2019s complicated family tree have left this plane\u2014including Canoff, Glickstein, Lathan, Horan, and Waidner. Barr still lives nearby in Arlington Heights. In 1976, Foertsch joined the Chicago Grandstand Big Band, who have a 50th-anniversary show at FitzGerald\u2019s on Sunday, November 2. He moved to Florida in 1980, but he\u2019s continued to play on and off with the Grandstand group (and with other jazz bands) in the decades since. Vitullo later founded Front Row Productions, which promoted concerts around the midwest, and appears to have left the music business in the 80s.<\/p>\n Smith restarted the Flock in 1973, and they parted ways in \u201975 following a European tour. At that point, he went to work on the manufacturing side of the biz, eventually becoming director of North American sales for Zildjian cymbals. \u201cI needed to sink my teeth into something new,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n In 1999, Smith met with Horan and singer Jimy Rogers, who re-formed Rogers\u2019s soulful, horn-driven garage band, the Mauds. \u201cI brought in Mike Flynn on guitar as well as Quent Lang on sax and flute, who then put together our three-piece horn section,\u201d Smith says. Rogers died in 2010, putting an end to that project. Smith later tried to re-form Aura, but that effort was short-lived\u2014Lathan passed away in 2017.<\/p>\n What would\u2019ve become the new Aura instead became Dinosaur Exhibit, whose name certainly sounds like a nod to the Flock\u2019s second LP, 1970\u2019s Dinosaur Swamps. That group included Barr from Aura and featured appearances by the Flock\u2019s virtuosic violinist, Jerry Goodman (also of the Mahavishnu Orchestra). When Goodman moved back to the midwest, members of Dinosaur Exhibit brought back the Flock name as well\u2014the Return of the Flock now includes Smith, Goodman, Flynn, Lang, harmonica master Howard Levy, and trumpeter Mitch \u201cthe Lip\u201d Goldman.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, a concert by the Flock at Park West on November 1 has been postponed because Goodman has injured his left hand. I\u2019m keeping an eye out for a rescheduled date\u2014and I\u2019ll be there, annoying the band with requests for Aura songs!<\/p>\n![\"YouTube](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1761856454_810_hqdefault.jpg\")
\nAura\u2019s sole album includes the Richie Havens cover \u201cNo Opportunity Needed, No Experience Necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"YouTube](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1761856455_415_hqdefault.jpg\")
\n\u201cLife Is Free\u201d also appears on the self-titled Aura album, released in 1971.<\/p>\n![\"YouTube](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1761856455_506_hqdefault.jpg\")
\n\u201cCross-Eyed Eagle\u201d from Aura<\/p>\n