50 Years of the Manhattan Transfer: The Quintessential Vocal Group Kept Harmony Alive When the World Needed It Most
variety.comChris Willman Music WriterLooking back at the last 50 years, you’d be hard-pressed to say the world has gotten a lot more harmonious since then — not figuratively, in the geopolitical sphere, and certainly not literally, in a popular music world that’s become a slave to the rhythm, and to singers’ disinterest in sharing a mic, much less a spotlight.
But you can’t fault the Manhattan Transfer for not doing their part — and just about everyone else’s, too — to keep the spirit of harmony alive ever since the group formed in 1972.At their modern-day shows, attendees may not know whether to weep or to literally get a buzz on from the actual physiological oscillation produced by four master voices meticulously coming together. (A combination of both responses is, of course, allowable.) “Getting a little philosophical here,” says Transfer co-founder Alan Paul, “we live in a very dis-harmonic world.
There’s a lot of clashing that’s going on, and when things harmonize together, people, when they hear it, it affects them.” Agrees Janis Siegel, the other member with a 50-year pedigree: “The sound of harmony always did something to me, viscerally.
It released endorphins. The sound of voices singing in harmony provides a vibration that does that to most people — it’s a physical fact, I think.”But what were the odds of endorphins overcoming ego, and personal harmony trumping any collective’s inevitable obsolescence, to keep a group like the Manhattan Transfer together and thriving for a half-century?
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