Customer Reviews

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This is the first Manhattan Transfer cd I've bought, and it's absolutely outstanding! Their vocal blend blows my mind. I got it in a used cd store, and why anyone would have given it up is beyond me.

My family had only this album of the Manhattan transfer for a long time, and recently bought another one, but this is the one I fell in love with. I love the front cover, I adore the picture on the CD, but most of all, I love the music. This is a GREAT addition to any collection of their songs or of jazz, and an awesome introduction to the marvelous group known as Manhattan Transfer.
My favorite songs on this CD are: Birdland, Tuxedo Junction, Twighlight Zone, and Trickle Trickle.
(Heh, as if you wanted to know about some random person who uses the internet)

Since buying this CD for the bargain of $4 recently, I have listened to it daily and never tired of it.

The amazing harmonies, some pop tunes, a swing number, some jazzy songs with great band accompaniment are great.

My favourite songs are:
Java Jive
Operator
Birdland
A Nightingale Sang In Berkely Square
Four Brothers
Candy
Gloria
Body and Soul
Tuxedo Junction
Boy From New York City

Except for the exception of "Twilight Zone", a pretty awful song with cheeseball introduction that is very bad in comparison with the other wonderful tracks, this CD is very good. I am not a fan of live recordings, and Tuxedo Junction is live, but still good.

It's a varied collection from the lyrical version of "Birdland" (gorgeous jazz) to "Twilight Zone" (just a little warped). This is a listenable CD and one that's worth adding to your collection. I originally had this collection on vinyl and recently replaced it as I was aware it was available on CD. Good stuff and a fun CD to just put on.

I *do* like the Manhattan Transfer, and this is a great CD with many wonderful songs. I have listened to it many, many times, and it never tires.

Michael from Audio High (www.audiohigh.com)

I bought this album in 1980 a few years after its original release date. It is an excellent compilation of early MT tunes, with Laurel Masse as the 4th vocalist. She was replaced by Cheryl Bentyne in 1978. With the exception of "Twilight Zone", all of the tunes are excellent. A very worthwhile addition particularly if you are a MT fan

This was the first Manhattan Transfer album I owned, and it's still my favourite. I love this album. Each song is stupendous. The talent of these four singers is incredible and this one of those albums that shows it off. This is an album that you can have on in the car and sing along with, or while you're working; or that you can sit down when the house is quiet and sit in that perfect chair and focus all your attentions on, that you can close your eyes and listen to harmony of each chord and be amazed over and aver again. Worth twice the price!

Atlantic, one of the great innovators in the recording industry as it applies to R&B/R&R, was really no different than the rest of the majors when it came to CD releases at the start of the CD era. Generally good sound reproduction, but minimal tracks [10 to 12] and absolutely nothing in the way of liner notes.

This is one such CD. Also, considering that the talented jazz vocal harmony group from NY City only had seven Billboard Hot 100 hits for Atlantic from 1975 to 1985 [and one R&B hit that "bubbled under" on the Hot 100 charts in 1984], to go along with four more that made only the Adult Contemporary (AC) charts) you might reasonably expect to see them all included.

But no. For reasons known only to producer Brian Avnet, we miss out on the following: Chanson d'Amour, a cover of the 1958 Art & Dotty Todd hit which reached # 16 AC in early 1977; Smile Again (Dedicated To Angela From Alan), a # 41 AC in November 1981; Route 66, the old Nat Cole hit which the group did for the Burt Reynolds film Sharkey's Machine, and which reached # 78 Hot 100 in 1982; Spice Of Life, a # 40 Hot 100 in late 1983 which also crossed over to the R&B charts at # 32; Mystery, a # 80 R&B in 1984 which "bubbled under" at # 102 Hot 100; Baby Come Back To Me (The Morse Code Of Love) which, in reaching # 83 Hot 100 in 1985, paid tribute to The Capris, a doo-wop group from the early 1960s; Soul Food To Go (Sina), a # 25 AC in late 1987/early 1988; and Too Busy Thinking About My Baby, a cover of the 1969 Marvin Gaye hit which topped out at # 27 AC in the spring of 1995, billed as "The Manhattan Transfer Featuring Phil Collins (their last charted hit).

What we DO get are both sides to their first two hits, Operator, which reached # 22 Hot 100 and # 34 AC in 1975 b/w Tuxedo Junction, and Twilight Zone/Twilight Zone which peaked at # 30 Hot 100 five years later in 1980 b/w Body And Soul. For their third hit, Trickle Trickle [# 73 Hot 100 in late 1980] they reached back to another old 1958 doo-wop recording by a group known as The Videos. That was followed in mid-1981 by their best hit, The Boy From New York City, a faithful cover of the 1965 Ad Libs hit which actually did better, making it to # 4 AC/# 7 Hot 100 [the original finished at # 8 Hot 100].

The remainder of the tracks are from various Atlantic LPs, and at least this is reflected in the list of songs contained in the insert. The best are their rendition of the old Cadillacs doo-wop single Gloria, their pure jazz treatment of Birdland, and The Ink Spots big hit from the 1940s, Java Jive.

These were supremely talented singers, the original group consisting of Tim Hauser, Alan Paul, Janis Siegel, and Laurel Masse, with the latter replaced in 1979 by Cheryl Bentyne. In 1975 they hosted their own CBS television show.

But this is yet one more album that could be immediately raised to 5 stars with the addition of the missing hits plus a few pages of liner notes to give us a bit of information on the group, including what they're doing now.