Music’s Aviation Tragedies: Chase

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While I deal with some family issues I’ll continue on with the monthlong look at musicians who perished in aviation accidents over the years. (If you’re wondering, the first recorded fatality in an airplane wreck was LT Thomas Selfridge, who died on September 17, 1908 when a plane piloted by Orville Wright crashed. Selfridge died of head injuries. You’re welcome. ) Here’s the next band on the list of musicians whose songs ended too soon. Chase: Bill Chase, Walter Clark, John Emma, and Wallace Yohn In the late 60s we saw the closest thing to a jazz breakthrough that I guess we’ll ever see. You had bands like Chicago and Blood, Sweat, and Tears adding horns to their sound to “jazz things up” a little. In 1971 another group joined the horn parade. This one was called Chase. They were named after leader and trumpet player Bill Chase. Although the band was new, Chase himself was a veteran of the music world. His credits included lead trumpet for Maynard Ferguson and Stan Kenton. He also played for Woody Herman throughout the 60s. Chase put together an ensemble that, unlike Chicago or BST, was all trumpets in the horn section. The nine-piece band blended jazz, rock, and soul in a way that got them noticed with their hit “Get It On,” which led to a “Best New Artist” Grammy nomination. Although Chase never achieved the same international success as a band that Chicago or BST did, they were popular, especially in the Midwest. On August 9, 1974, Chase was scheduled to perform at the Jackson County Fair in Jackson, Minnesota, which is near the border with Iowa. Five of the band members drove from Waterloo, Iowa, where they’d performed the previous evening, to the venue; however, Chase and three other musicians opted at the last minute to fly. They chartered a Piper Comanche to fly to the gig. The plane crashed less than half a mile from the Jackson airport runway, killing the four band members as well as the pilot and his secretary (no kidding, that’s the way the newspapers all identified the sole female occupant of the plane). The NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board…get used to those letters, you’ll see them a lot this month) ruled that a combination of pilot error and poor visibility in rainy conditions caused the accident. (Post script: the day before, Charlie Rich canceled his scheduled appearance at the Jackson County Fair due to illness.) While most of the world has forgotten Bill Chase over the past 50 years, trumpet players and jazz musicians alike are still mesmerized by his astonishing high notes and the fusion he and his band created in their short tenure. Chase Bill E. Chase (October 20, 1934 - August 9, 1974) (age 39) Walter J. Clark (January 24, 1949 - August 9, 1974) (age 25) John Thomas Emma (April 30, 1952 - August 9, 1974) (age 22) Wallace Keith Yohn (January 12, 1947 - August 9, 1974) (age 27) Place of crash: Jackson, Minnesota Here’s Chase’s biggest hit, “Get It On,” from 1971: