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. 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 (according to Kooper's autobiography).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, which had been organized as an egalitarian collective. The band was a hit with the audience, who liked the innovative fusion of jazz with acid rock and psychedelia.Īl Kooper, Jim Fielder, Fred Lipsius, Randy Brecker, Jerry Weiss, Dick Halligan, Steve Katz and Bobby Colomby formed the original band. The final lineup debuted at the Cafe Au Go Go on November 17–19, 1967, then moved over to play The Scene the following week. Lipsius then recruited the other three, Dick Halligan, Randy Brecker, and Jerry Weiss, who were New York jazz horn players Lipsius knew. A few more shows were played as a quintet. Fred Lipsius then joined the others a month later. Kooper, Colomby, Katz, and Fielder did a show as a quartet at the Village Theatre (which was renamed Fillmore East) in New York City on September 16, 1967, with James Cotton Blues Band opening. 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. 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.