In adding muscular horns to California Transit Authority, Danny Seraphine has fulfilled the promise of one of the best songs on CTA’s hard-grooving new release Sacred Ground: He’s come full circle.

It’s not just that Chicago doesn’t sound like old Chicago anymore. In fact, nobody does. Or, more correctly, nobody did. What’s left of the original band, having now issued just one original album since 1991, has been supplanted.

California Transit Authority, which boasts a throwback sound to leader Danny Seraphine’s co-founding stint in Chicago, didn’t feature horns at first. But all of that is about to change with its forthcoming new studio effort.

Ronnie Montrose would have been 65 on November 29, 2012, and former musical collaborators like Marc Bonilla say this first birthday without him is going to be particularly hard.

Despite having collaborated with him for years, in some ways Marc Bonilla is still that kid watching as Keith Emerson took the stage in Oakland for 1974′s Brain Salad Surgery tour with Emerson Lake and Palmer.

There is a visceral power in these recordings, as the Keith Emerson Band performs within this orchestral torrent — blending the keyboardist’s long-held passions for rock and classical, finally, in the most complete of ways.

The remaining members of Montrose will lead an all-star cast of rock musicians gathering on April 27 to honor the band’s late leader Ronnie Montrose.

On this special edition of Something Else! Reviews’ One Track Mind, we hand the reins over to Chicago co-founder Danny Seraphine

Chicago co-founder Danny Seraphine is putting the finishing touches on his second album with California Transit Authority – which fashioned its name and its muscular jazz-rock approach from his old group’s initial sound