Speaking of Great Live Bands of the Early '70s

War's 1974 live album, the first to feature its classic lineup in 50 years

The meteoric brilliance of Sly and the Family Stone did not happen in isolation.

Just in the band’s San Francisco area base of operations were countless hard-working acts that took live performance seriously (see Santana, the Grateful Dead, Malo) — and many more in the state of California. Among them: The impressively locked 7-piece funk/soul/Latin outfit known as War, based in Long Beach, which in 1973 released a landmark album, The World Is A Ghetto, that became Billboard’s top-seller that year.

War’s success led to a large 1974 tour that blanketed the U.S., included more than 30 dates in Europe and the band’s first-ever visit to Japan. The mobile recording rigs were rolling during dates in several Japanese cities, but that sliver of history remained in the vaults until a few weeks ago, when Rhino brought out the dizzyingly sharp 2-disc anthology Live In Japan 1974.

It’s got expansive versions of War staples — “So,” “All Day Music,” “The Cisco Kid” — that show how harmonica player Lee Oskar and the other instrumentalists stretched and re-imagined the durable melodies of the songs. Like Sly and many others, War took its sweet time letting rhythmic ideas coalesce; one thrill of these tracks is following the band' as it communicates, non-verbally, to arrive at a groove “happy place” before the vocals kick in. That’s just one level: As the songs unfold it’s possible to hear a zillion small ways the musicians work to deepen and develop the rhythmic intensity. How in-sync was this band? Check the dramatic pulse-quickening accellerando on “Me And Baby Brother” for one answer, among many.