by Michael LelloWeekender Editor
There’s an episode of The Simpsons in which Mayor Quimby introduces the band Blood, Sweat & Tears at a town event, adding, “Sorry to hear about Sweat.” It’s a funny joke, but one shouldn’t get the idea that Blood, Sweat & Tears is or ever was a trio or duo. In fact, the band currently features a whopping 10 members. And its roster of former players is comically large, boasting more than 100 names.
Even founding guitarist Steve Katz , who will lead the band to Mount Airy Casino’s Gypsies Lounge and Nightclub for two shows on Saturday, Jan. 2, left the band for 35 years, returning for a few reunion shows until last year. But to Katz, the revolving nature of the jazz/rock/pop band’s lineup has been less of a roadblock and more of a positive force.
“I think that’s the nature of the band, because to be in the band, for musicians, it’s like an institution,” Katz said in a recent phone interview. “It’s not an oldies band. Blood, Sweat & Tears is almost like a school, like an apprenticeship to go onto other things.”
Katz isn’t exaggerating. Former BST members include legendary bassist Jaco Pastorius, Miles Davis guitarist Mike Stern and Randy Brecker, who played trumpet on the group’s 1967 debut, “Child Is Father To The Man.” Brecker went on to form the landmark bands Dreams and The Brecker Brothers. Al Kooper — known for, among other things, playing the classic organ riffs on Bob Dylan’s “Like A Rolling Stone” — was a BST founding member.
BST, which went on to sell millions of albums and rack up 10 Grammy nominations and three Grammy wins, was one of the first popular bands to merge jazz and rock, and songs like “Spinning Wheel” and “You’ve Made Me So Very Happy” are still beloved. When the group formed around the happening Greenwich Village scene in New York City in 1967, Katz said the members knew they were onto something.
“It was pretty new,” he said. “We were doing something that no one was really doing. We were synthesizing a bunch of different styles, the jazz and the rock together.”
And frankly, the longevity of BST’s material, he said, doesn’t surprise him.
“I think there are two reasons,” Katz explained. “One is the hits. We did some really good songs and made some really good records. Two is the playing. When people come to the show, they’re not only hearing our hits, they’re hearing some great playing.”
Katz — one of the rock players in a band that featured rock and jazz men — left in 1973 with the band pursuing more of the jazz direction. He stayed involved in music, including working as East Coast Director of A&R, and later, Vice President, of Mercury Records.
BST stayed on the road and in the studio in various incarnations with Katz. He participated in 1993 and 1994 reunion shows but didn’t rejoin the band full-time until last year.
“Well, it was like 35 years, and they called me out of the clear blue,” he said. “The management called me and said they’re playing Yonkers and the band would like it if you sang your song, and I said, ‘Sure.’”
Katz did the show, singing “Sometimes in Winter” from BST’s self-titled album.
“It was just great, it was fabulous,” he said. “I told Larry (Dorr), the manager, ‘I’d like to do this again,’ so I did it (the) next week.”
The current BST features a wildly diverse bunch of musicians, including keyboardist Glenn McClelland, who plays with zany alt rockers Ween; bassist Gary Foote, who has toured with jazz drumming great Billy Cobham; lead singer and harmonica player Rob Paparozzi, whose credits include work with Roberta Flack, Whitney Houston, Judy Collins, Bobby McFerrin and Cyndi Lauper; and a horn section whose combined experience includes performing with everyone from Don Henley, Bon Jovi and Paul Anka to John Mayer, Stevie Wonder and Justin Timberlake.
Rejoining the band has been a blast for Katz. And he’s enjoyed some added perks, like recently receiving BST’s long lost 1970 Grammy trophy for Album of the Year — in which his band beat out The Beatles’ “Abbey Road.” (The award was for the self-titled album, actually released in 1968.)
“In those days, they only gave (the trophy) to one person in the band,” Katz recalled. “I don’t know who wound up with it.”
The Grammy folks finally got him his own Grammy, and it’s not something he takes lightly.
“Yeah, it’s about three feet from me,” he said, laughing. “I never leave it. I carry it wherever I go.”
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