Group started in a taxi

Press, 30 August 1977, Page 6

Group started in a taxi

By

MARIA SCOTT

A few years ago an impoverished musician was driving a taxi in New York when he met a red-headed woman who looked like the person he needed to start up another group. Tim Hauser was the taxi driver, and Larel Masse was his passenger. They later met Alan Paul and Janis Siegel and now they are collectively The Manhattan Transfer, a group the radio advertising says "you won’t believe.” The Manhattan Transfer arrived in Christchurch last evening to start its tour. The first concert will be in the Town Hall tomorrow.

Manhattan Transfer has built up a glamorous stage act and this and its style of music is reminiscent of the

I last two or three decades, although the group doesn’t like . ■ |to think of itself simply as ; a nostalgia group. “We didn’t make it be-| I cause we made hit records,’’! ! said Tim Hauser. i Manhattan Transfer has become an act to see — i tickets for some of their; i Australian cabaret acts sold t for up to $3O. I The Manhattan Transfer — ' named after an American i novel of the 1920 s — has ’ released two albums, which have been the only contact ■ New Zealanders have had 1 with the group, and the • members view their tour ! with a little trepidation. Overseas reaction to their

act, however, should assure them of a solid and growing core of devotees in this country’.