Let us all salute the vocal harmony juggernaut that is The Manhattan Transfer.
After 50 years of touring and recording, they officially end it all tonight with a final performance in Los Angeles. Their longevity, their impact, their brilliance: are are deserving of celebration.
From the very beginning, The Manhattan Transfer had a vision for a vocal harmony quartet that covered diverse repertoire from current pop to classic jazz and novelty. Emphasis on the novelty – one of the many things I love about TMT is their continued exploration with songs on almost every album that broke ground and tried things that might not work. (Coo Coo U is a family favorite in this category.)
I won’t list their many many awards an honors (Wikipedia can do that for you) but I will say that no group in the post-Rock era has done a better job of making complex vocal harmony relevant to a wider audience. Their best songs (and there are many) remain instantly compelling – whether they were recorded last year or in 1973.
For me, beyond the Greatest Hits (which I wore out on cassette and double-CD in my high school and college years), the pinnacle is The Christmas Album. As much as I love many vocal harmony Christmas albums including those from The Singers Unlimited, Take 6, The Real Group, and The Swingles, TMT’s Christmas record is the album that puts me in the holiday spirit more than any other.
It’s to my eternal regret that I haven’t seen them live in nearly 20 years, and that I couldn’t get to hear their Michigan stop on their farewell tour (it was the weekend school started). I know their live performances to be the perfect blend of rich harmony and highly polished entertainment. I secretly (not so secretly) hope that they might consider and encore farewell tour just so I can get one more chance to hear this amazing quartet live one more time.
Cheryl Bentyne, Janis Siegel, Alan Paul, Tim Hauser and Trist Curless – amazing singers with a legacy that may never be matched.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.