Acclaimed drummer, composer, and producer Geoff Mann is set to release Underground, a full-length tribute to his father Herbie Mann’s landmark 1969 album Memphis Underground. Out today is the second offering from the project: a cinematic reinterpretation of “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” the abolitionist anthem popularized through Herbie’s fusion classic and later adopted by Hunter S. Thompson as the official campaign song for his 1970 run for Sheriff of Pitkin County.
The notorious gonzo journalist also cited Memphis Underground as one of his ‘Favorite Albums of the 1960s’ adding to its cross-genre, cross-cultural commercial success that garnered a devout audience across the globe. On his cinematic approach to the classic soul ballad, Geoff Mann says, “I treated this arrangement almost as if it was film score, starting very minimally with just the rhythm section and slowing building up and adding instruments chorus by chorus until we finally hit the melody at the very end.”
Herbie Mann’s original Memphis Underground remains a landmark in the melding of jazz and Southern soul and is often cited as one of the first albums deemed as “fusion.” Released on Atlantic Records, the album brought together a merger of New York jazz soloists including Roy Ayers, Larry Coryell, and Sonny Sharrock with the rhythm section at Memphis’ American Sound Studio, a hub for R&B and soul hits. Produced by the legendary Tom Dowd, the record blended deep groove and improvisational freedom to create a genre-crossing sound that resonated well beyond the jazz world. It remains one of the best-selling jazz albums of all time and was famously praised by Rolling Stone as “a piece of musical alchemy.”
Speaking about the new reinterpretation project, Geoff Mann says, “Memphis Underground deserves to be remembered for the impact that it had, but in my opinion it could only be properly re-presented as an evolution of the original concept. There are others who could’ve made a similar record with the same intention, but having a unique insight into my father’s music, being both intimately familiar and detached at the same time, I was the only one who was going to do it.”
