Push Push

Push Push contains a potent blend of jazz, funk, and R&B from the famed flautist and a crew of crack session players from both Memphis and New York. Mann was coming off a string of R&B-influenced releases when this 1971 album was released, so Push Push didn't arrive as a revelation. It did, however, reiterate Mann's capabilities as a purveyor of funky soul-jazz and laid-back, slow-jam R&B ballads. Among the Memphis players on the sessions was Duane Allman, who contributed all but one of the album's guitar solos; Allman's searing licks on the hard-grooving title track help make it one of the record's finest moments. Mann's take on the contemporaneous Marvin Gaye hit "What's Going On" shows off the subtler side of the flute hero's expertise, as does an ostensibly anomalous but undeniably lovely version of another 1971 hit single, Bread's soft-rock smash "If." Even sans vocals, Mann and his men make Ray Charles's "What'd I Say" speak quite loudly.