The Manhattan Transfer -- Tuxedo Junction/Chanson D'Amour

 

It's a two-for-one thing on this week's Reminiscings of Youth article and the first one for one of my favourite bands, The Manhattan Transfer. In fact, it's so much one of my favourite bands that for a person like me who doesn't really attend concerts, I actually paid out the yen to get the ticket to see them with my own eyes at The Blue Note in Tokyo, some time in the last few years of my life in Japan. 

It was a packed house and as has been the case with a number of other acts over the decades such as The Ventures and Carpenters, The Manhattan Transfer has been a beloved musical guest in Japan. I've known about Tim Hauser, Alan Paul, Laurel Masse (to be replaced by Cheryl Bentyne), and Janis Siegel since I was an elementary school student, and to see Hauser, Paul, Masse and Bentyne a mere four or five metres away from me on the stage at last performing their biggest and most recognizable hits was a singular thrill. I remember one middle-aged fan even closer in front jumping to her feet as either Siegel or Bentyne sang right to her face. Hygiene issues aside, I'm sure that the fan's life was fulfilled. For me, it was also poignant because Hauser would pass away a few years later at the age of 72.

Although I did pick up their "Bodies & Souls" album from 1983 when I was in university, I really didn't go onto the purchasing binge for their discography until my time in Japan. I was in my jazz phase then so being a regular at the various CD stores, I started snatching up a number of their early albums including the two BEST compilations that you see at the top and bottom. The wonderful thing about The Transfer was their ability to tackle not only vocalese jazz, but also urban contemporary, Latin and doo-wop (and others). Their vocal stylings were truly magnificent instruments on their own and although a lot of their songs were covers of earlier numbers, they really made them their own.

One such example is "Tuxedo Junction" (Buddy Feyne, Erskine Hawkins, Bill Johnson, and Julian Dash) which was originally recorded in 1939 by legendary trombonist and band leader Glenn Miller. However, the first version that I heard was by The Manhattan Transfer for their self-titled 2nd album from April 1975. I'm always going to enjoy that intro with Hauser, Masse, Siegel and Paul (oo-pah, oo-PAH...I think), and the collaboration of those joyous harmonies and the boogie-woogie horns helped me decide that this Tuxedo Junction was truly the happening place in Birmingham, Alabama where folks got together in their finest clothing for a magical night of dance and music.

I very vaguely recall that The Transfer did have a TV show as a summer fill-in which turned out to be in 1975. Perhaps it can be said that Sunday nights on the network back then were indeed the televised Tuxedo Junction. I've known that "Birdland", another landmark song by the quartet, has been considered to be their theme song, but I have to admit that I enjoy "Tuxedo Junction" better as the song by them so it was nice to read on the article for the song itself that it was indeed the theme for them.

I definitely remember the first time that I heard "Chanson D'Amour" which was a track (and a 1977 single) on The Manhattan Transfer's 3rd album "Coming Out" from August 1976. When I was in junior high school, my friends and I were picked up from the school one Friday afternoon by my friend's father. As we were waiting for the last guy to come in, "Chanson D'Amour" was playing on the car radio and along with the Edith Piaf imitation by Siegel, there was the catchy "ra da da da da" chorus to insinuate it deep into my musical memories.

Reading about "Chanson D'Amour" on Wikipedia, I discovered that The Transfer's take on the song was a cover of the 1958 original created by American songwriter Wayne Shanklin and recorded by the husband-and-wife singing duo, Art and Dotty Todd.

As with a lot of the other singers and bands covered in ROY articles, The Manhattan Transfer will get some more of their songs covered here in the months to come. But of course, we have to find out what was being released in Japan when "Tuxedo Junction" and "Chanson D'Amour" made their presence known Stateside.

Well, in April 1975 (although once again, J-Wiki reports that it was March) it was:

Sayuri Ishikawa -- Chiisana Himitsu（ちいさな秘密）

And in August 1976:

Craft -- Kototoi Bashi（言問橋）

Keiko Maruyama -- Douzo Kono Mama (どうぞこのまま）

Craft -- Kototoi Bashi（言問橋）

Though I worked in the Asakusa district for two years, I never got a chance to go over Kototoi Bashi (Kototoi Bridge) which has Taito Ward on one side and Sumida Ward on the other. It was just a little out of the way for me when considering the distance to there from my NOVA school, and frankly after several hours of teaching, I usually didn't want to linger around and simply scooted back home to Ichikawa.

I found this ballad by folk group Craft（クラフト）called "Kototoi Bashi" which was their 4th single from July 1976. Written and composed by band guitarist Makoto Mitsui（三井誠）and Masanao Hirai（平井正尚）, I've enjoyed the rich mahogany of the guitar as well as the chorus provided here. It's almost as if every instrument and voice were keyed into the deeper tones of cellos and string bass.

As would be the case, the lyrics by Mitsui and Hirai give a wistful and bittersweet story of a man and woman who promised when they were kids that they would get married only for the various ripples and waves of life to intervene. By the time they are well into adulthood, their lives have diverged with the woman having become a classy proprietress of some venerable establishment. The only common denominator left is the titular bridge where they used to play and now use to cross. However, it looks like they have remained friends and still stop to chat whenever they meet up on Kototoi.

I'm not sure which version was the album cut or the single, but this one right above is a lighter take on "Kototoi Bridge" with an ocarina and without the solemn chorus. For me, I think I will go with the first version higher up. Have a look at my first article for the band.

Craft -- Boku ni Makasete Kudasai（僕にまかせてください）

I may have mentioned about this 1970s folk band called Craft（クラフト）in one of Kingo Hamada's（濱田金吾）articles, since Hamada was the bassist in this group that lasted from 1973 to 1978. Craft also included guitarist Makoto Mitsui（三井誠）, who happened to later compose one of J-Pop's evergreen (no pun intended) Xmas songs, "Christmas Carol no Koro ni wa"（クリスマスキャロルの頃には）, a Junichi Inagaki（稲垣潤一）classic.

Hamada himself has become known to readers of the blog as the perennial City Pop/J-AOR singer in the 1980s, and that's how I first got to know him. With Mitsui and Hamada, this is a further reflection on how these folk singers in Japan somehow morphed into urban contemporary specialists.

However, this article is on their former group, Craft, which became best known for its hit second single "Boku ni Makasete Kudasai" (I'll Take Good Care of Her) from April 1975. That mandolin (or similar instrument) sets the tone as this bittersweet song, penned by famed folk singer Masashi Sada（さだまさし）, relates the story of a couple walking up the hill to the grave of the woman's mother as the man vows that he will take good care of his beloved. I'm not sure who is singing lead vocal but it could be Hamada.

Although there was no report on how it did in the Oricon rankings, according to music critic Issei Tomisawa's（富澤一誠）book on 300 of the top folk songs in Japan, "Boku ni Makasete Kudasai" sold around 500,000 records. It was also used as the theme song for a NTV drama titled "Houzuki no Uta"（ほおずきの唄...The Song of the Lantern Plant）in 1975. As for Craft, they released a total of 6 singles and 4 original albums. They broke up in 1978 but decided to come back together in 2012 to give concerts again.