FOUR decades haven't diminished the rich four-part harmonies and sheer verve of The Manhattan Transfer, as audiences will discover tomorrow night when the group play the only UK gig of their current European tour at Perth Concert Hall.
The group – whose signature tune is their Grammy Award-winning cover of the Weather Report jazz fusion classic Birdland– are still setting lyrics to established jazz material, as demonstrated by their latest album, The Chick Corea Songbook (Four Qu
arters), which they've recorded not only with the blessing of the influential pianist and composer, but also with his participation, as Corea plays piano on one track, Free Samba, which he wrote specifically for the album.
The Chick Corea Songbook, due for release in Britain in the new year, is a richly toned and textured piece of work, including vocal settings of some of Corea's beguiling Children's Songs, and Spain with its echoes of Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez. The group used the lyrics already written for Spain by Al Jarreau, while writing new lyrics for the other tunes here, sometimes in collaboration with Van Dyke Parks.
The project is something which Manhattan Transfer's founder, Tim Hauser, has been discussing with Corea since the 1970s. Hauser says: "It's been a lot of work, but we're very satisfied with it."
The business of putting lyrics to an already well-known tune has never been an issue, says Hauser, referring to Killer Joe, from their double-Grammy winning Vocalese album of 1985. "Killer Joe was a famous instrumental piece by Art Farmer and Benny Golson's Jazztet, but when we did it, and Jon Hendricks wrote the lyrics to it, we never thought of it as being a risk in the sense that it was known already," says Hauser.
The niceties can become more interesting when it comes to "vocalese" – matching lyrics to precisely interpret an established instrumental number or solo. "You have to listen much more carefully, particularly to the soloists," adds Hauser, "because there are nuances you have to catch if you really want to get it."
The Manhattan Transfer have been performing their sassy blend of jazz, pop, and classic big band numbers in more or less their present quartet line-up since 1972, when Hauser – who had established a short-lived quintet by that name in 1969 – got together with Alan Paul, Janis Siegel and Laurel Massé. Six years later, Massé was badly hurt in a car crash and was replaced by Cheryl Bentyne.
As they take the road again with their touring band, led by pianist and musical director Yaron Gershovsky, Hauser, 68 next month, laughs off any suggestion of retirement, and says they would like to return for a proper British tour when the Corea album is released here. "It's always a nice feeling to come back to the UK. We've come a long way from Chanson d'Amour," he says, referring to their rather less jazzy UK hit from the Seventies.
Tomorrow's Perth gig is part of Tay Jazz, an extension of the burgeoning Dundee Jazz Festival, which also brings the award-winning young fusion band Empirical and Mike Maran's show about Chet Baker, A Funny Valentine, to Perth. The Dundee festival itself, which runs from this Friday until 22 November, has a strong programme which includes guitar virtuoso Martin Taylor in duet with singer Alison Burns, the first UK appearance of the latest Swedish jazz star, singer Josefine Lindstrand (who can also be heard at Peter's Yard, Edinburgh, on 21 November), the "a capella horns" quartet Brass Jaw, and the debut of a new band, Mercy Mercy Mercy, formed by trumpeter Colin Steele and saxophonist Martin Kershaw to play the music of Nat and Cannonball Adderley.
• For further details of Dundee Jazz Festival/Tay Jazz in Perth, see
www.jazzdundee.co.uk