AIRPLANE CRASHES have tragically ended the musical careers of Lynyrd Skynyrd, Jim Croce and Buddy Holly, but it was a hand-gun that almost finished off Chicago. Earlier this year guitarist Terry Kath, one of the most creative members of the group, was playing with a gun that not-so-playfully went off and killed him. Beset at the time by various artistic and contractual problems, the members of Chicago considered bagging the whole thing and ending their joint musical career.

Friends, acquaintances, music industry officials and fans convinced them to go on, so Chicago searched for a new guitarist and settled on 26-year-old Frampton look-alike Donnie Dacus. With a new producer and a revamped style, Chicago came up with Hot Streets, an album destined to take its place as one of the better Chicago albums in a twelve-record pantheon of truly amazing consistency. Every Chicago album has gone platinum and deservedly so--the group is seriously committed to producing high-quality, enervating, harmonious jazz-rock (heavy on the rock); and Hot Streets is a fine album in that tradition.

Chicago is blessed with so much creative ability that virtually every band member has composed a song or two on Hot Streets, which is reflected in the album's diversity of form and sound. The first cut, called "Alive Again" as a defiant challenge to the fates that almost broke-up the group, begins with a single guitar line, which is soon joined by another, and then a couple of horns sneak in, until, having followed the first guitar along, you find yourself enveloped in the upbeat, thematic richness of the chorus of voices and instruments.

But before you can dwell on the strength of the first rocker, Chicago comes back with a soft, mellow love song, done with great control and feeling by bassist Peter ("et") Cetera. It may not be their most effective attempt, but sandwiched between two hot, hard-driving numbers it does very well for itself. While Cetera and Dacus, along with pianist Bobby Lamm, do all the vocals, the highlighted instrument in each number varies, with flutes, trombones, guitars, pianos, and even synthesizers snaking their way through the medley of sound. Chicago pieces are rarely dominated by a single performer. However, in their interweaving of sounds and the multi-rhythmic arrangements they are more closely related to classical suites than to many modern rock compositions, with their drum-thumping and guitar twanging.

One problem with Hot Streets is its narrow focus on love and the loss of love as song subjects. Only the fact that Chicago can do a love song in a great variety of styles and patterns--from slow and moody, to light and airy, to classic bop-bop-bop hard rocking--saves the album from an over-specialization of theme. Still, one wishes they would throw in a few of the political songs they once did, before the '70s musical paradigms ruled out everything but immediate gratification as valid musical topics.

Perhaps the best love song is "No Tell Lover," which treads a fine line between being too up to be true and being too down to keep from falling into a sentimental stupor:

Everyone keeps telling me this affair's not meant to be

Even though I need you night and day

Walk away if you see me coming, even if it's you I'm loving

Every minute is an hour every day's a lonely lifetime

You're my no tell lover

Hot Streets represents a slightly new direction for Chicago. They de-emphasize the familiar script Chicago emblem on the cover, put their pictures up front for the first time, and try a different musical tack. They even use the Bee Gees for background vocals on one song. But the similarities are more important than the changes. Hot Streets is another high-class Chicago album, another platinum-to-be. Chicago is "Alive Again."