Walter Parazaider, saxophonist and founding member of Chicago, dies at 81

Walter Parazaider, a founding member of the 1970s rock band Chicago whose saxophone work on “Just You ’n’ Me” and his flute solo on “Colour My World” gave the band its signature jazzy aura, died on Wednesday. He was 81.

Parazaider died of complications from Alzheimer’s disease while in hospice care, Deadline reported.

His wife, JacLynn, told TMZ that Parazaider passed away at 2:10 a.m. on Wednesday and that she was by his side when he died.

“He had put up a good fight with Alzheimer’s, and unfortunately it ended tonight,” she told the outlet. “We are going to miss him.”

The musician’s daughter, His daughter Felicia Helen Parazaider also confirmed his death in a Facebook post.

“My father, my hero, is gone,” she wrote. “There’s no more pain. No more struggle.

“This was the worst six years. The hardest season of my life. And I’m so grateful that my dad is not suffering anymore. I love you poppy, my Pal.”

She expressed thanks to fans of the band and her father.

“Thank you for loving my father, even if you didn’t personally know him,” she wrote. “I know that many of you loved him.”

He was a member of the band from its origins in 1967 until he left in 2016 due to health issues, Rolling Stone reported.

The band formed in Parazaider’s basement on Feb. 15, 1967, after the group played together for the first time at Chicago’s DePaul University, according to the magazine.

“We sat around my kitchen table and said, ‘Let’s make a band that’s the best in the world,’” Parazaider told Classic Rock in a 2015 interview. “My idea was to make horns an integral part of a rock band. In that sense, we blazed the trail. We had lofty ideas and hopes. We were young and ignorant.”

Parazaider appeared on nearly all of the group’s albums, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2016.

The group -- Parazaider, Peter Cetera, Terry Kath, Robert Lamm, Lee Loughnane, James Pankow and Danny Seraphine -- originally called themselves The Big Thing and then the Chicago Transit Authority before shortening the name to one word, Billboard reported.

The group would have three songs hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 list, with 20 Top 10 hits and 47 overall in the 100.

Parazaider was born on March 14, 1945, in Maywood, Illinois, according to Deadline. He studied classical clarinet before heading in the rock ‘n’ roll direction with friends from his teen years to start Chicago.

When the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2016, Parazaider spoke first, according to Rolling Stone.

“When we played together for the first time in my basement, we never thought we’d be standing up here at this time,” he said. “I’d like to thank my brothers up here for the incredible experience of creating and playing music with them.”

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