JUDAS JUMP - SCORCH 1st UK Press PARLOPHONE Beatles Traffic Vertigo

	£		57
	$		75

JUDAS JUMP -

SCORCH

Parlophone

PAS 10001

1st UK Press 1970

Who the hell were Judas Jump, I hear you all trumpet with one accord?
They were a UK supergroup from such origins as The Herd, Amen Corner and the Mindbenders, branching  out to the beyond, with a more progressive direction, as was de rigueur at the fag end of the 60's. Despite a fair amount of promotion and a contract with the Beatles label: Parlophone, they only made this one great album and 2 singles, but failed to click with the public.
With Amen Corner's Alan Jones they were able to augment their sound with brass and woodwind, and listening today you can see some parallels with contemporaries Chicago and BST, but most of all the flavour is British and puts you in mind of a Traffic/Spooky Tooth groove, with some Jethro Tull thrown in for good measure - yet their pop roots were not deserted, which is what sets this album apart from so many others that line my shelves from the 1969/1970 period.
In common with many contemporaries at this time, Judas Jump were keen to throw of the shackles of the pop success they'd previously enjoyed with their Top 40 bands. Judas Jump was their collective attempt to "go progressive". Luckily for us they avoid the pitfalls of many of their bombastic pretentious contemporaries and retain a poppy, rocky edge which permeates the whole album.
The LP kicks off with "John Brown's Body", a great lurching ballsy opening statement as ever you'll hear, with a nice wailing harmonica backdrop. The pace hardly lets up with "Rocking Chair" and "Beer Drinking Woman", but slows a little for the closing percussive dressed "Bossa Jump".
Side two starts with the acoustic "Cry De Cry" and then we get the tasty single, Trevor Williams' "Run For Your Life". It's not all wonderful though as towards the end of the album, it runs out of steam, and like a disappointing fizzy drink - goes slightly flat. Ending with the thoroughly awful Ye-Olde-Musical-Hall-Romp "Private Holiday Camp" - this dated piece of nonsense is not on the US copy - be thankful my American cousins!
Alan Jones, Trevor Williams and Andy Bown all contribute material, but Bown deservedly gets the lion's share - as it's at that point where the others kick in, that downward trend is marked. Unbelievably, these days Andy Bown sessions for the boogie stalwarts Status Quo , so he's still around, and still doing it. A strange place for him to be? Maybe not so strange when you consider Status Quo and The Herd were Pop Contemporaries in the late 60's, which is no doubt where they must have met up and down the proverbial swinging circuit. In fact the Quo were a formidable pop combo back in the days before they discovered the 12 bar ad nauseum and their early albums:"Picturesque Matchstickable Messages", and "Spare Parts are full of charming youthful and naive psychedelic whimsy.
_Scorch_ sold in the 100's or very low 1000's, so unlikely to get CD remastering or re-release with choice bonus cuts. That's a shame - this is one of my rarest and most treasured albums - it deserves a much wider exposure. Go seek IT out on GEMM, eBay, or your favourite record emporium – you know I can be trusted!
VINYL: VG++. Super heavy vinyl with stamped matrices from 1970. It has a beautiful glossy sheen. There are no marks or hairlines. Under a strong light there are many paper retraction traces. The sound is awesome with just very little background noise in places which will improve on future plays.
Sleeve: EX. Laminated gatefold sleeve. Light under laminate edge creases. Otherwise this looks really nice. A fully legible spine. Edges have no wear at all.