Artist: Manhattan Transfer
Album: Man-Tora! Live In Tokyo
Genre: Vocal Jazz
Label: Rhino
Released: 1996
Quality: FLAC (tracks+.cue)
Tracklist:
- Birdland (Joe Zawinul/Jon Hendricks)
- Route 66 (Bobby Troup)
- Jeannine (Duke Pearson/Oscar Brown, Jr.)
- Malaise en malaisie (Alain Chamfort/Serge Cainsbourg/Alan Paul)
- Trickle Trickle (Clarence Basseft)
- Boy from New York City (John Taylor/George Davis)
- This Independence (Marc Jordon/John Capek)
- Foreign Affair (Tom Waits)
- Body and Soul (Edward Heyman/John Green/Robert Sour/ Frank Eyton)
- Blue Champagne (Frank Ryerson/Grady Watts/Jimmy Eaton)
- How High the Moon 11. (Nancy Hamilton/Morgan Lewis)
- Twilight Zone / Twilight Tone. . (Bernard Hermann) (Alan Paul/Jay Craydon)
- Four Brothers (Jimmy Giuffre/Jon Hendricks)
- Operator (William Spivery)
- Spice of Life (Rod Temperton/Derek Bramble)
- Tuxedo Junction(Buddy Feyne/William Johnson/Julian Dash/ Erskine Hawkins)
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On October 26, 1983, The Manhattan Transfer embarked upon a month-long tour of Japan to promote their latest album, Bodies And Souls. It was their third visit to Japan, and the mood on the plane was jubilant; the group was on a roll. The previous few years had seen a creative renaissance for the singers, beginning in 1979 when they added jazz singing to their repertoire with the release of the album Extensions. It proved to be a watershed recording, which not only attracted a new audience and renewed critical recognition but also won them their first Grammy® (for "Birdland").
A breakthrough of another kind followed in 1981, when their single "Boy From New York City" held the pop charts for 21 weeks, peaking at 7, their highest ranking to date. They won two more Grammys in 1982 in two different musical categories, pop ("Boy From New York City") and jazz ("Until I Met You [Corner Pocket]"), a feat unprecedented in Grammy history. A hipster version of "Route 66," quickly recorded for a movie soundtrack, won them a fourth Grammy in 1983. And now, to promote the release of their eighth album (which would soon snag their fifth Grammy), they were bound for Japan—where they were more popular than anywhere else in the world.
The Manhattan Transfer seemed to have been designed specifically for Japanese tastes. In the '50s, the Japanese had embraced all things American, including popular music, with a particular fondness for jazz and beautiful voices in the Peggy Lee/Perry Como/Rosemary Clooney mode. The MT's early big band interpretations sparked some notice, but there was ignition when Extensions was released (the fact that the cover design was pure Japanese futurism certainly didn't hurt). The group's first visit to Japan in 1980 to promote the record was a rousing success, and they soon acguired a popular nickname, "Man-Tora!" This popularity in turn led to a deal for the group to represent Suntory brandy, and the striking ad campaign, graphically somewhere between George Orwell and Federico Fellini, was in full bloom in the winter of 1983, with magazines, televisions, and billboards all shouting their name. Man-Tora! had arrived.
Before reviewing the track list, a few facts for the record: The Manhattan Transfer is, of course, Tim Hauser, Janis Siegel, Alan Paul, and Cheryl Bentyne. (The name of the group was taken from John Dos Passos' modernist novel of 1925, which in turn was named after a mythic, turn-of-the-century railroad station connecting New York City to the rest of the country.) On the 1983 Bodies And Souls tour, the singers performed 22 dates in 11 major Japanese cities, including Tokyo, Osaka, Yokohama, Sapporo, and Hiroshima, with a band composed of Yaron Gershovsky and Tom Kellock on keyboards, Alex Blake on bass, Art Rodriguez on drums, Don Roberts on horns, and Wayne Johnson on guitar. The set contained here was recorded by FM Tokyo radio on November 22 and 23 at Tokyo's Nakano Sun Plaza theater and later broadcast stateside on the Westwood One Startrack radio program.
The MT's enthusiasm in the following set is inescapable, and the set list as diverse as their repertoire. The big band material (the group's "roots," if you will) includes the first song they ever learned, "Blue Champagne," which has never before been released live and catches Cheryl in a very Art Deco mood. In the same vein is "Tuxedo Junction," based on the Glenn Miller instrumental and a longtime favorite from their earliest concerts. "How High The Moon," relatively new material in 1983, had been memorably performed by the group earlier that year at the Grammy Awards with a lady who had also covered the tune, Miss Ella Fitzgerald. (Although a studio version has never been recorded by the quartet, Janis' solo effort, Experiment In White, features the song with accompaniment by the man who popularized it, Les Paul. "Four Brothers," a big band offering that marks some early experimentation with vocalese, is a harbinger of things to come.
The world of rhythm and blues is represented here by "Operator," the MT's first single, originally recorded by the gospel group The Friendly Brothers and a bona fide hit for the MT ever since their first gig in the back of a Manhattan bar in 1973. "Trickle Trickle," a doo-wop gem unearthed from Tims fabled 45 collection, was originally recorded by the Videos and has similarly become a crowd-pleaser. The Bobby Troup classic "Route 66," stripped down to the basics, was performed in concert for the first time during this tour and quickly became one of their signature songs.
The world of pop is represented by "Boy From New York City," a hit for The Ad Libs in 1965 and, as previously mentioned, the MT's best-selling single. "Twilight Zone/Twilight Tone," by Jay Graydon and Alan Paul, was another hit on the pop charts at #30, going to #1 on the dance charts. In a more mellow tone is a bittersweet rendition of Tom Waits' "Foreign Affair." The remaining pop offerings all come from the Bodies And Souls album: "Spice Of Life," penned by Michael Jackson collaborator Rod Temperton; "This Independence," written by Marc Jordon and John Capek; and "Malaise En Malaisie," by Alain Chamfort, Serge Gainsbourg, and Alan Paul. The latter is rarely performed anymore, and Alan's ethereal falsetto is a standout here.
For jazz fans, there's an incandescent reading of "Body And Soul," the Johnny Green standard based on Eddie Jefferson's rendition of a saxophone solo by Coleman Hawkins. "Jeannine," recorded for the first time here (and never released in a studio version), is a look ahead to the group's classic album Vocalese. And, finally, there is "Birdland," the MT anthem and signature song. Celebrating Charlie Parker's legendary New York nightspot, this jazz/fusion pearl is pure Manhattan Transfer—effortlessly stunning.
Immediately following the Japanese tour, the group returned to America and ushered in 1984 with a memorable New Year's Eve concert at Radio City Music Hall. They made their entrance from beneath the stage, brought up on a hydraulic riser, like phoenixes reborn, to tumultuous applause. By anyone's standards, it was an extraordinary evening but, sadly, never recorded. What we have in its place is this snapshot from Tokyo, recorded the month before, of the vocalists in their prime.
Curt Gathje