When it comes to Manhattan Transfer, it’s difficult for this reviewer to be objective. I’ve been in love with the innovative and distinctive vocal stylings of this fantastic foursome since I first heard them out of the corner of my ear when they were hosting a CBS-TV summer variety show in 1975. After worshiping them from afar ever since, I finally saw them live on the opening night of their current six-day, twelve-show run at the Blue Note. It was an absolute delight to discover that their sound is as fresh and tight and harmonic as it was thirty-five years ago.

Although Laurel Massé was the group’s soprano in those early days, in 1979 she was replaced by the sultry Cheryl Bentyne and, together with group founder Tim Hauser, Alan Paul and Janis Siegel, Manhattan Transfer has arguably been one of the best jazz vocal combos ever. But, as they proved again in their Blue Note set, the group has always been much more than a “jazz” or “vocalese” group. Pop, doo-wop, blues and swing have always been in their stylistic wheelhouse, and every once in a while they’ll even trot out holiday numbers from the Great American Songbook like “The Christmas Song” and “White Christmas” (the latter was given a breezy calypso arrangement by Musical Director/pianist Yaron Gershovsky).

The only negative in Manhattan Transfer playing a club like the Blue Note as opposed to a concert hall, especially for the die-hard fan, is that with only fifteen numbers (four of them Christmas songs) in a one-and-a-half-hour show, you just can’t hear many of your favorites. After thirty-five years and almost twenty albums of material to choose from, it must be a jigsaw puzzle-like challenge for Gershovsky, Hauser and company to select a set, especially since this group is too sophisticated to build a show around a “greatest hits” package. So there was no “Boy from New York City,” “Twilight Zone”/“Twilight Tone,” “Operator,” “Tuxedo Junction ” or one that I love, “Chanson d’Amour.”

But to paraphrase Spencer Tracy talking about Katharine Hepburn’s character in the film Pat and Mike, what was left was “cherce.” The eleven non-holiday songs covered the group’s entire stylistic repertoire. The set kicked off with MH displaying its vocalese chops on “Spain” (“I Can Recall”), from their 2009 The Chick Corea Songbook album. Janis Siegel scatted up a storm on this one, proving again why she is one of the best female jazz vocalists ever.

Manhattan Transfer has always been able to take an old swing tune and make it new again and the joint was jumping when they took on the 1938 Fletcher Henderson arrangement of the Count Basie Orchestra’s “Study in Brown.” And before the Blue Note audience could settle down, Hauser launched into the group’s classic rendition of “(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66” and many in the crowd had to restrain themselves from singing along.

After Alan Paul was highlighted on “The Christmas Song,” MH went back to Count Basie on “Corner Pocket” (which earned them a Grammy Award in 1981), delivering it so effortlessly you couldn’t help but think these guys could harmonize and scat perfectly right after getting out of bed. Paul was again featured on the Benny Goodman’s Sextet’s swinging “It’s Good Enough to Keep” (“Air Mail Special”), which Paul wrote the lyrics to for the group’s 1997 Swing album.

Hauser and Siegel then went solo: Hauser on the poignant “She’s Funny That Way” from his recent Love Stories album, Siegel delivering Lorraine Feather’s haunting “Something Like My Own.” Cheryl Bentyne then showed off her full vocal range and scatting style during the vocalese rendition of Miles Davis’s piece (lyrics by Jon Hendricks) about Bishop Desmond Tutu, “The New Juju Man.” The set ended fittingly with three MH standards: “Trickle, Trickle,” “Choo Choo Ch’ Boogie” and the song that has become the group’s signature piece, “Birdland,” their ode to the famous New York jazz club and the great saxophonist Charlie Parker.

If the definition of synergy is the ability of a group to outperform even its best individual member, then for more than thirty-five years Manhattan Transfer has been the embodiment of musical synergy—and they show no sign of dissipating any time soon.

Stephen Hanks
Cabaret Scenes
December 7, 2010
www.cabaretscenes.org