Manhattan Tower (Gordon Jenkins album)
| Manhattan Tower | |
|---|---|
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| Studio album by Gordon Jenkins | |
| Released | 1946 |
| Recorded | 1946 |
| Label | Decca |
Manhattan Tower was a composition written by Gordon Jenkins in the 1940s, and first issued to the public in 1946 as a two-disc 78-rpm set on the Decca label, DA-438. It was considered quite innovative for its time, and was quite warmly received by critics and the public alike. Jenkins also performed the suite in its entirety on the very time-conscious Toast of the Town, hosted by Ed Sullivan.
With the advent of 45-rpm and 33 1/3-rpm records in 1948 and 1949, the suite became one of the first recordings to be reissued by Decca in all formats then available, including 45-rpm set 9-2, 45-rpm Extended Play ED 462, and LP DL 8011, the LP issue being backed with Jenkins's later composition "California." The original monaural recording was "reprocessed for stereo" in the early 1960s, and that LP release remained in print into the 1970s as Decca DL 78011.
By the middle 1950s, "High Fidelity Sound," available on LP and 45 (as well as magnetic tape), had become the rage, and Jenkins rewrote major parts of the suite, expanding it to approximately three times its original length, and recorded it for Capitol Records in 1956 as The Complete Manhattan Tower, catalog number T-766. This new version of the suite was again a monaural recording, and appeared with Capitol's turquoise LP label; the entire suite was also issued as a 45-rpm EP set, EDM-766. Later, the album was issued on Capitol's "High-Fidelity" rainbow label. Capitol also reprocessed the recording for stereo with their own "Duophonic" process, and issued that version as DT-766; it also remained in print into the 1970s.
The 1946 Manhattan Tower combined mood music, original songs, spoken narration/dialogue, and sound effects to tell the story of a young man who travels to New York City for a visit. The tower referred to in the title is the apartment building in which he resides. Although the original suite introduces the theme of love, it is more thoroughly developed in the expanded 1956 composition. In both recordings, Elliott Lewis narrates the story and Beverly Mahr is the featured soloist; in the Capitol version, they are given the names "Stephen" and "Julie," Lewis also sings, and their brief love affair forms the context of the expanded composition.
The most popular song from Manhattan Tower seems to have been "Married I Can Always Get" from the 1956 incarnation of the suite. "Married I Can Always Get" was used as the name of an album recorded by Micki Marlo, whose version of that song was contained therein. Both Teddi King and Jeri Southern issued 45-rpm singles of that song, on the RCA Victor and Decca labels respectively, while Sammy Davis, Jr., also on Decca, tried his hand at "New York's My Home."
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