Defending the As-Yet-Undefended: The Manhattan Transfer

That Cat is High, June 3, 2000
Reviewer: Tony Hinde (see more about me) from Sydney, Australia

This band is fun! Take a bunch of songs from the 20's to 40's add a band which is almost acappella and mix. What you get is some finger snappin', foot tappin'numbers that will perk up the dreariest day. This is the sort of music that makes you want to don a zoot suit and grab your best gal for some sexy swing dancing or drop in to your local speak-easy to sip a cold martini. This group of hip artists may make sweet music but you can tell they don't take it all too seriously. They're having a ball.

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Yes, it really is the VERY best of the Manhattan Transfer, May 8, 1998

Reviewer: A music fan from Seattle, WA United States
I found this title quite by accident. I was looking for "The Best of the Manhattan Transfer" only to find "The Very Best of the Manhattan Transfer." Yes, they are two different CDs, but the latter obviates the need for (even subsumes) the former.

First, I love the Manhattan Transfer. I wouldn't give them a bad review if they practiced bird calls while KISS provided vocal backup. BUT, this CD is truly extradinory. It encompasses the best (small 'b') of the Manhattan Transfer -- it gives us their style, their harmony, their effortless vocal ease, without the need to buy their whole collection of wonderful music. (Yes, I do hesitate to say that, because their repetoir is quite sublime.) The fact is, if you've ever thought of buying a Manhattan Transfer CD but never have, then THIS is the one to buy, because it truly does pick the very best titles from their many releases and puts them all in one convenient place.

This CD isn't the perfect gift for an MT fan (because he or she will already have the songs on other CDs), but it is the perfect CD for anyone to whom you might want to introduce this wonderful ensemble group.

Again, this really is the very best of the Manhattan Transfer.

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Actually I sort of do. I'm curious about the scene they sprung up from, the '70s off-Broadway/West Village/nightclub/comedy club thing.

also if they'd covered the law and order theme song they'd have been perfect.

surely their finest moment?
no, seriously

one of the duded from M.T. curates a lot of great compilations of vocal pop. i think they are big pop history nerds, which appeals to me. but their harmonies have this vast echoey quality that seems unsuited to the material. i'd rather listen to the persuaders.

so they're like nrbq (who i've always respected for those reasons, even if their music leaves me cold).

"We came, we saw, we fell in love..."

Genius.

http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drd100/d137/d137654w6j6.jpg

(I associate these images with antiseptic leather-backed seating and abrupt waitresses and lifeless corned beef sandwiches.)

when I was a teenager I could not imagine any music more uncool than this - and so of course last week I thought "what about the Manhattan Transfer?" and off to Spotify I went; and while they're never gonna be huge favorites, I really enjoyed listening to them & will probably do so some more. this feels like some final bridge of reevaluation for me, I seriously would hear these guys in h.s. and think "the day will never come when this seems hip to me"

that day has come

i interviewed these guys once, they were very charming and the food was fancy

i hope you asked for the ratatatatouille

Les Double Six are cool though, right?

My parents had a live album and a record called Extensions that came out in 1979 and contains their one off and rather odd New Wave moment, Coo Coo U.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzuKyxQi8EA

oh my, i wasn't expecting *that*

ok, that is genuinely not what i used to have to listen to when my parents would put on their albums !

landscape via early dolby.

its rather good.

My college a capella group did an arrangement "Duke of Dubuque" that I periodically got sing the solo in.

fricking love that song

Anyone with half a voice who heard MT as a kid and thought "this stuff isn't that bad" was destined for an a cappella group.

true

Name comes from a cool source doesn't it? One i started reading a few weeks ago. John Dos Passos , like.

But I think I prefer Lambert, Hendricks and Ross

I liked them when I was a teenager and still like this style of music and harmonising but to state the obvious the mid-century US vocal groups do it much better and more creatively. What some people may not realise is that the Manhattan Transfer lifted wholesale many of their vocal arrangements from old recordings - harmonies, syncopation etc all identical. This is not just covering the standards - it's ripping off someone's work entirely without acknowledgment. I don't know if a jazz artist that has done that before.

eg. This wonderful version of On the Sunny Side of the Street is copied identically by the MT.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOus1fYbe2M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5hPOWsDtJs

I was going to say cooler than the Swingle Singers, then I remembered the Swingle Singers worked with Berio - the composer, not the olive oil. Definitely cooler than the King's Singers though but, then, what isn't? OK, Instant Sunshine.

The King's Singers appeal is their relentless assault against the idea of what is "cool" about close-harmony singing.

I mean, this is hilarious and awesome, assuming you like madrigals:

https://youtu.be/sCssYhnSOeE

(I am admittedly biased because one of my college choir directors is good friends with Simon Carrington but I am and always will be pro-King's Singers)

their album covers inspired those ugly-yet-endearing '80s broadway posters (zebra patterns, red lips, top hats, loud colors on black backgrounds) you still see in decrepit last-holdout times square fast food joints and rolled up in discount boxes at hell's kitchen framing/mounting shops.

wow, right down to the long instrumental introduction. Blatant

Kings Singers stomp all over Manhattan Transfer. They certainly have their whimsical material which is often performed to showcase their virtuosity and there's no doubt that's very uncool. But their classical stuff and their more serious repetoire can be genuinely moving.
Love this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRIrqiwkdYs

They have a stellar arrangement of "Little David, Play on your Harp" that my kids love:

https://youtu.be/1Cu_jBAYpyE

That's all very well but the first post claimed about Manhattan Transfer that There is NOTHING less hip than this...

Already answered upthread - Instant Sunshine.

This video, for "Soul Food to Go," from the Brazil album (1987) touches a nostalgic nerve in me. The song was co-written by Doug Fieger of The Knack, of all people

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Gc9xVRLFHU