Sunday 1 April 2018

Soundtrack??? Manfred Mann - Up The Junction 1968 (2004 Umbrella, DigiPack) 9 bonus tracks


One of the great soundtracks of the 1960s, Up the Junction shows Manfred Mann shedding their pop skin and evolving into a truly awesome jazz outfit, which would later be fully realized in their Chapter Three incarnation. Not that they didn't have some lovely pop gems on this record. The title song, sort of a flipped-out, very very British alternative to "Good Vibrations," is one of Manfred Mann's finest pieces ever, with an excellent vocal from Mike d'Abo, Paul Jones' (Manfred's original vocalist) replacement. But the series of brief jazz-based instrumentals such as "Sheila's Dance" and "Belgravia" are equally arresting, showing off Mike Hugg's drumming and Mann's own piano abilities as never before. Priceless.(allmusic.com)

That's the one side of this album, yes album, because that's it for me and much less a soundtrack (although it's of course a soundtrack). It is perhaps the best album that Mann has created in the sixties. The most versatile, the least obvious commercial, the most demanding...maybe.... . Manfred Mann combines small jazz freedoms with small pop pearls that don't make the album sound like a soundtrack but like an outstanding piece of contemporary modern music. Quite at the beginning I wrote it's maybe Mann's best album of the sixties. It IS Manfred Mann's best album of the sixties. Sure, he's got more hits on other sixties albums, but the music plays here. Clearly! (Frank)

Flac 
mp3@320 




6 comments:

  1. Spot on notes about UP THE JUNCTION.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hello Mark,
    I'm sorry that the comments were published so late,
    but Blogger just forwarded it. I read in the Blogger forum that they have changed or want to change some things. Anyway, I hope it works now with the comments.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi Frank,
    Love Manfred Mann ...any chance of an upload of the full "Ascent Of Mann" Fontana 534 806-2 (1997)?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hello Louis,
      i am very sorry but i haven't the ''Ascent Of Mann'' :-(

      Frank

      Delete
  4. Amazing album -- could you please let me know the password for the files?

    ReplyDelete

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