I noticed an old – but now rare – feeling enveloping me while listening to “Crazy Happy” from 2014’s Chicago XXXVI: Now. Its slightly offbeat title signaled this must be a Robert Lamm song.
As it turned out, I was at least partially right because the composing credits belong to both Jason Scheff and Lamm. The latter was always Chicago’s best composer and it is he who always gave the world Chicago’s highest quality out-of-the-mainstream work.
“Crazy Happy” is not an avant-garde piece, though Lamm’s inbred, unique composing flair ensures that it’s not just another money grabbing, post-Terry Kath power ballad. It’s a radio friendly, pop-rock song possessing just enough jazz elements to prove that Lamm still has the goods. His typically pleasing, lounge-lizard vocal during the verses is a plus, and Scheff does a good job singing the chorus because he’s being himself, instead of trying to be a Peter Cetera clone.
Tris Imboden also proves there is something special going on here. His two-beat drumming early in the song is from outside the rock realm, and Lee Loughnane offers a pleasing muted trumpet solo. All of this means it’s a piece that fits the old original jazz-rock description of Chicago, and that is almost always a good thing.
The horns are onboard too, though Walt Parazaider and James Pankow are not. The only original two players present from Chicago’s ’70s golden era are Lamm and Loughnane so one can make a case we’re not really listening to a Chicago song. However, the replacements do a fine job, and that means the old guys aren’t really missed.
Even though “Crazy Happy” does not sound like “Wake Up Sunshine” it was written and arranged with that song’s spirit in mind. Not many writers can compose something this upbeat without sounding juvenile or sappy, but Robert Lamm and Jason Scheff manage to avoid those pitfalls here.
