The Very Best Of The Manhattan Brothers: Their Greatest Hits 1948-1959

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Playing this album will have three effects on everyone who hears it. First you’ll smile. Next you’ll start tapping your feet or snapping your fingers. Then you’ll find yourself singing lines like ”vuka vuka” and ”dubula mfanandini” and ”Hey, won’t you come in and be my guest!” Seriously. Try it.

From the late 1940s right through the ’50s and into the early ’60s, the Manhattan Brothers were unquestionably the most popular and influential entertainers in South Africa. An entire generation of young urban South Africans modeled itself on the Brothers’ dress, speech, attitude and lifestyle. Their music made an even stronger impact. They took the rhythms of swing jazz and rock ‘n’ roll and the close vocal harmonies of American groups like the Mills Brothers and the Ink Spots and applied them to Zulu, Xhosa and Sotho songs, creating a whole new sound.

Soon that sound was reverberating from radios and phonographs in every yard on every street in every township in South Africa. The Manhattan Brothers jam-packed music halls and theaters around the country, and within a few years they were taking their ”jive” sound and stage moves to other parts of Africa and on to Europe. Trumpeter Hugh Masekela and pianist Dollar Brand (later known as Abdullah Ibrahim) got their first exposure to the big time in the Manhattan Brothers’ touring band. Young Miriam Makeba’s guest appearances and recordings with the Brothers in the mid-50s made her a star in South Africa and abroad. In fact, the Manhattan Brothers’ Lovely Lies, featuring Miss Makeba, was the first African record to break into the Billboard Top 100.

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From the late 1940s through the 1950s, the Manhattan Brothers were the biggest name in black South African music. Taking their cue from the swinging harmonies of America’s Inkspots and Mills Brothers, they sang in both Zulu and English, the hippest thing around. While primarily male, they did include women at times, including a very young Miriam Makeba, whose vocal on “Baby Ntsoare” is a joy. But all the tracks here are extraordinary. The voices blend as if born to do so (and in a way they were, because all four members grew up together), the small band swings as heavily as Dorsey or Goodman, and the material–much of it self- composed–is strong, the pop sound of its day; you’ll be hard-pressed to erase “Be My Guest” from your head. If you think this kind of music was uniquely American, though, this CD will make you think again. –Chris Nickson