Biography

A Chicago-based group whose eclectic sound encompassed funk, soul, disco, jazz, rock, and new wave influences, all coupled with intelligent and imaginative lyrics, Universal Togetherness Band would have to wait until decades after they broke up to see their music finally receive a proper release under unexpected circumstances. Universal Togetherness Band was founded and led by Andre Gibson, who was born in Chicago in 1956. Gibson's interest in music was first sparked by seeing shows at Chicago's Regal Theater, where the youngster witnessed performances by R&B legends such as Jackie Wilson, the Temptations, and Little Stevie Wonder. In junior high, one of Gibson's teachers was Artie "Duke" Payne, who sidelined as a session musician, playing horns on dates for Cadet Records, and he encouraged Gibson to devote more time to his music. Gibson began learning to play keyboards, and soon formed a combo to play a school talent show; while attending Chicago Vocational School, where the music faculty included respected jazz artists Joe Miller and Harold Bray, Gibson played with the marching band, jazz band, and concert band, and his repertoire expanded to include cello, flute, and percussion. When not busy with his school work, Gibson played with a local band called Blue Flame, which also featured his brother Arnold Gibson on drums. After high school, Andre attended Illinois State University, where he studied Music Therapy and played with a band called Foreal. In 1976, Gibson left Illinois State to return to Chicago, where he landed a job with CBS Musical Instruments (then the parent company of Fender), formed a new group called Colorvision (featuring former members of Blue Flame and Foreal), and soon married his girlfriend Cynthia Tibbs. In 1978, Andre chose to return to college part-time to further his study of music, and as Colorvision faded out, he formed a new group, teaming with his brother Arnold Gibson (drums, bass), former Colorvision member Fred Misher (bass, backing vocals), and Fred's brother Leslie Misher (lead guitar) while Andre held down keyboards, vibraphone, and lead vocals. Looking for a name that reflected the group's creative ambitions, Andre chose the handle Universal Togetherness Band. While Andre was attending Chicago's Columbia College, he discovered the school offered courses in audio engineering and was looking for bands willing to play for the benefit of students learning the art and science of recording; the musicians got to do sessions in professional recording studios and keep the recordings as long as they paid for the tape, so Andre quickly volunteered Universal Togetherness Band for the project. While the group played the club circuit in Chicago for several years and occasionally landed bigger gigs (most notably a spot opening for Peter Gabriel), they struggled to find a larger audience for their sophisticated R&B melange. But over the course of five semesters between 1979 and 1982, the band logged dozens of sessions with Columbia College students, documenting Gibson's expansive vision as a composer and bandleader. During Gibson's time at Columbia, Universal Togetherness Band grew into a sextet, with Paul Hanover (harmonica and piano) and Louis Sanford (percussion) joining the original four multi-instrumentalists. The band were also documented on video when Gibson's wife Cynthia created a video for their song "More Than Enough" for a film production class; the band also appeared in late 1982 on a short-lived Chicago television series, The Chicago Party, where they lip-synched to a recording of UTB's "Pull Up." A few months after their Chicago Party appearance, Arnold Gibson left the group to strike out on his own, and Paul Hanover dropped out of performing to become a recording engineer. After the original lineup of the Universal Togetherness Band finally disintegrated, Andre Gibson continued to record with a lineup featuring Frank Alexander (drums), Allen Burroughs (guitar), Art Love (bass), and Michael Young (sax). But Gibson was juggling his musical career with more lucrative work as a market reporter with the Chicago Commodities Exchange, and the band eventually broke up, though Gibson continued to write songs, and later self-released a handful of solo albums via CD Baby. In 2014, the crate diggers at the respected reissue label the Numero Group were working on a project taken from the archives of the Chicago Party TV series when they saw UTB's performance of "Pull Up." Eager to know more about the group, they tracked down Andre Gibson and discovered he still had the master tapes from his years of recording with Columbia College students. Numero Group offered to release a sampler of the Universal Togetherness Band's unreleased recordings, and the album, simply titled Universal Togetherness Band, was issued in January 2015. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi