The Life and Times of Manfred Mann Chapter Three

Melody Maker December 6 1969

Thanks to Mick Maloney

MANFRED MANN and Mike Hugg were holding court on Chapter Three.

"I suppose it sounds like a cross between a big band and small group. It doesn't sound like Blood Sweat and Tears or Chicago, which have the same kind of line-up. It doesn't, sound anything like that, or perhaps it does!

Not exactly illuminating, but the important thing is, Chapter Three is with us, having made its first stage appearance in Newcastle last Friday, and with its first LP "Manfred Mann Chapter Three" out tomorrow on the new Vertigo label. Chapter Three had been in the minds of Mann and Hugg for several years and Mike confesses honestly that he was fed up with Manfred Mann, pop group, 'nearly five years ago when they were number one in the chart.

"The real frustration," said Mike, "was that we were, aware what the possibilities were for Manfred Mann, yet we always ended up with just another jolly chart single." '

'It would be terribly wrong," adds Manfred, "to say we never liked, Manfred Mann.

"A lot of our singles were very nice and catchy tunes that we would never be ashamed of, but on the other hand some of them we found somewhat embarrassing.

"Why did we keep going for so long? Why do you think'!"  But this year we felt the time had come for Mike and me to do what WE wanted to do . . . and we also felt that people now might accept what we wanted to do.

We both (Mike and I) wanted to get back on the road again. We had stopped Manfred Mann making public appearances because we simply never felt happy with the reaction we got . . . masses of screaming at the beginning and nothing when the curtains closed.

Style

"But we've absolutely no grouse about the rest of the old group, either as people or musicians."

"We all got on very well, and even if it had been possible musically to change our style we still, couldn't have done it. Partly because, apart from Mike and myself, we all had different ideas, so there would have been the inevitable clash of temperaments and partly because our audience would not have allowed it. Manfred Mann was a very democratic group, whereas Chapter Three is ruled by the two of us!"

Amazingly, Mike Hugg ends up as featured vocalist "simply because there was no one else. I've been writing the words and singing them, all the time thinkin' that a real vocalist will turn up soon… and no one has!" He also reverts at last to his original instrument, piano this time of electric variety;' Manfred stays on organ, and the hub of the group is completed by Australian Craig Collinge on drums,

former jazzman Bernard Leving on alto and Steve York on bass guitar.

These five are augmented by. a further five brass instruments for live appearances. Manfred stresses that Gerald Drewett (trombone), David Coxhill (baritone), Sonny Corbett (trumpet) and Clive Stephens and Carl Griffith (tenor and flute) ARE an integral and permanent part of the group, but are not so involved in the musical ideas and aims; of the band.

Nervous

"I really am very nervous about the success of Chapter Three," he adds. "In the past, whatever we've done and however bad we've been, people have always come up with the phrase, `but they're good musicians underneath!'

"Well, our heads are really on the block now for the first time. If so many- people really thought we were good musicians underneath, now is the time when we have to prove that we are!"

Chapter Three have already i been described, with some ` justification, as typical of the new synthesis of jazz and t rock. How does Manfred feel about the jazz tag?

Dancing

"I don't think of it as a jazz outfit. We've all got past trying to prove to everybody

that we can play.  "The sort of musicians we have in our band don't think of themselves as jazz or pop musicians any more.  "The beautiful thing is that the guys come out of the Archie Shepp side of jazz, rather than the Ben Webster side.

" They're notplaying1950s jazz any more, and Bernie Living, our altoist, says that he doesn't even want to play in a jazz group again.

' His record collection contains albums by people like Pink Floyd and the Mothers, and ' Mike and I are the same.  We dig Ornette and so forth, but then we might also dig pretty pop songs - after all we've been writing and recording .them for years.

"We're trying to put it all together and just play it. In rehearsal today we got into an Albert Ayler-ish thing, with everybody clapping along, and at Bath University recently, where the audience were in tuxedos and long dresses, we played a number on which the whole band freaked out, with no chords or rhythm - just noise.

"And the people dug it - because it didn't last too long and it was just a section of a set which also included rather more conventional songs.  "lf we freaked out for half an hour and then walked off they wouldn't have dug it at all, but as part of the set it was fine.  "At the Roundhouse last weekend we even got people dancing to it! ,

That's what I like about the album - it has a lot of contrast and songs like 'Ain't It

Sad'and 'Sometimes' are cute littlenumbers which take the edge off the rest.

"Out of context they'd probably be ridiculous, but in the album they're right."

Embarrassed

Is he happy with the way the album turned out?

"Obviously there are things one would change or leave out, but overall it reflects what we wanted it to be. We're trying to go in and play without preconceptions."

After five years of pop  stardom, is he bothered about the sales of the album?

"Well, obviously one is concerned to a certain extent - and Philips seem to be happy about it, so I am too.

"You know this is the first time for years that I've been able to go on stage holding my head high and not come off embarrassed. For years I've been lying on stage."

How does he feel about being back 'on the road' again?

"Well it's funny, but for a long time we waited for the moment we could stop touring. Now Mike and I find ourselves sitting in a little cafe at four in the morning eating eggs and chips and really digging it".

Chapter Three's early gigs were not, however, without their hang-ups. Manfred reports:

"We had a lot of problems with the sound to start with. There was trouble with amplifying the brass, and Mike sings very softly anyway. '

" In fact to start with the response we got varied according to how good the sound was, but we seem to have it sorted out.

Happy

"And that's what it's all about, now, playing. live."

From the tone of his voice, - Manfred sounded happy to be: back in musical harness. And judging by the way the album is selling, the world seems ready to greet its wailing infant - Manfred Mann, Chapter Three.

David Hughes

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