MANGIONE

Rip It Up, Issue 14, 1 August 1978, Page 15

MANGIONE

blows fever away

one of these musical feasts young Chuck came under the spell of the great Dizzy Gillespie. To this day Mangione claims, “I regard him as being my musical father.” Mangione’s switch to flugelhorn came while studying at the Eastman School of Music in the late 50's. "I decided it suited my personality. It was darker and mellower than the trumpet.” After graduating from Eastman in ’63 he

worked with the big bands of Kai Winding and Maynard Ferguson, then at the end of ’65 was offered the trumpet chair in boyhood idol Art Blakey’s quintet. (During this 2 1 /2yeaF stint the Jazz Messengers also included Keith Jarrett and Chick Corea on piano.) Subsequently Mangione wrote for a rock group (The Outsiders), returned to Eastman to teach, began exploring the mixture of jazz with orchestra, and generally worked hard touring with his own groups of various sizes. All the while his popularity was steadily growing. These past 6 years have been full of Grammy nominations, appearances and musical support gigs on American T.V., and high poll placings. Although he’s recorded over a dozen albums, only the recent A & M selection is available here. Chase The Clouds Away and Bellavia (both 75) demonstrate Mangione’s experiments in orchestral/jazz fusion, sometimes with marked success. The latter album won considerable praise for its orchestration and performance, the title track scooping a Grammy for composition. Main Squeeze (76) showed Mangione forsaking orchestra and his quartet to employ top sessionmen on a number of styles encompassing R & B, rock, ballads and (yes) disco. Feels So Good, continuing the popular music orientation, is recorded with his current four-piece group. It's inevitable, I suppose, that any critical response to music of such broad-based appeal betrays one’s own musical predispositions. To an easy-listening audience Man-

gione must blow like fresh air, however if your idea of horn playing runs to Miles Davis and Freddie Hubbard then he often sounds bland and passionless. On the credit side are the Man's considerable talents as performer, composer and arranger of attractive melodies, and the impeccable standard of musical support; (dig the snappy guitar solo on “Feels”). Not so engaging, perhaps, is Mangione’s tendency on the last two albums to spin musical ideas out for too long, to allow the lush tunes to lapse into mere mood music. Things tend to be played safer now with less varied dynamics. Mangione can burn with the best witness Bellavia’s ' Torreano” but increasingly he'd rather lull us with those haunting melodies. Which is, of course, precisely the reason for his wide appeal. It is also his intention: “The music is very accessible . . . Our music always has a strong melodic content. I think that’s one thing that appeals to people.’’ This is not to say that he is, in any sense, selling out’’ however. “There’s no attempt to reach a specific audience of any kind. We’re just doing what we do and the audiences have been getting bigger.” And, when you consider some of the dreck we suffer on top 40 radio, one can only wish all power to Mangione’s horn. Allow him the coda: “My goal is to play the music and get it to as many people as possible to keep playing the music I believe in . . . people feel good and the record company feels good. I’m not looking to get out.”

Peter Thomson

One time Auckland legend, Streettalk, have shuffled back onto the sidewalk. Nostalgically, it seems like yesterday. But two years back this crew ravaged the live circuit pumping out groggy blues and stomp, spear-headed by the twin lead attack of Hammond Gamble and Mike Caen. Windsor Castle die-harders must cherish those performances from a street band that steamed when stoked by the input from their hardearned following. It all appeared to be on a haphazard casual basis then, with Hello Sailor churning along steadily behind them in the ranks. With fusible, potent elements you will have ignition. So with old time buddy, bassist Andy MacDonald, and friend, Jimmy Lawrie, prised out of Rockinghorse, it is full tilt. With no leaning upon the lurking laurels of the past. The bondage of the band dissolved when Caen did a do or die effort on the enticing pastures abroad and Gamble abandoned guitar to unite with his dying grandmother in the north of England. Hammond didn’t play a note whilst away, but Mike trod the hardworn treadmill of London. “I was existing day by day on a $22 dole cheque with $lB rent, waiting for Melody Maker to come out, trying to get a

job. Put my own ad in at one stage. You smartly sort your feelings out about playing when you’re competing with hundreds of guitarists to work in a crummy band doing long hours for no pay.” He slogged it out for nine months with a band called Mister Sister. “You’re fortunate if you can get work in a pub. You have to give it your utmost even though you’re depressed about it all cause you never know there might be someone important out there." Gamble evaluates the English situation: “It’s not that the standard of musicianship is better, there’s miles more people thus miles more good and miles more worse bands. You get to the top through clever management and marketing.” It has been 20 months since they all plugged into the same P.A. They resurfaced at their home stable the Windsor Castle where they have been tightening their form. But they are labouring under mixed feelings. “We’ve come back to a situation where there is animosity directed at us from many sides.” The premise of resorting to the oldtime success formula has drawn some resentment- “Breeze in and make a buck and expect to be treated as hotstuff still.” “The reality is that there is no money to be made. It is tougher to eat than ever before with so many outfits competing for dwindling space. When we were in it before there were only a few regular bands working the track.” The situation is this: you have the essence of two ace axemen, if it is still cool to use the term, presently doing 70% their own thing, but edging along a tightrope with a now dissipated audience. Also the tenuous task of retaining the old appeal with the blues-based standards but, with a rip, snort or bust attitude towards the new refurbished feel. The founder of the band Hammond Gamble the man that moves people with his gritty blues, says: “We’ll still be doing blues based things, but will be kicking out the 68 and bringing in the 78.” He reckons the spark occurs when Caen charges the 70’s rhythms to it all, with the traditional duel guitar crossfire. But today’s fashionable rock has guitar leads quashed. Can they fuse the blues with the present packaged form? Can they become commercially viable? The real chemistry that counts, Streettalk has. Is it in good taste to suggest that they might pull off a Bee Gees-like comeback and return with an onslaught? Ray Castle

Postscript: Chris Hillman of the newly reformed Byrds returned to Auckland after the Byrds’ Australian dates to assist Streettalk in recording a single the tracks recorded were “Leaving the Country” and “Falling to Pieces”. It is possible he may return later in the year to aid the band in recording an album.