The horns give Chicago a unique sound. There's nothing else quite like them.
To be fair, Terry Kath was a madman on the guitar, and he wrote some great music too.
After he died, the band slowly moved away from the horns, too. They all had to pick up keyboards or guitars if they wanted to play in the band.
They didn't even get credit on the album for the ending of "Hard to say I'm sorry" (youtu.be) which was one of the only times the band brought out the horns after they became a ballad band.
Don't get me wrong, that was a fantastic sounding horn line, and they were musically very talented. Iirc the trombone player arranged the horns, and Kath made sure his music supported them.
After they became a ballad band with (((David Foster))) producing their shit, they never went back to this (youtu.be) or even a love song as moving as this (youtu.be).
-edit- trombone, not sax. duh.
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