Search - Gordon Jenkins :: Complete Manhattan Tower

This DRG CD is the legitimate version.

T. Ono | Toronto, ON Canada | 03/05/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The key point the other reviewer doesn't understand is this IS a legitimate (authorized and licensed) re-issue re-mastered from the original master tape. The Sepia CD is a compilation of 2 LPs but dubbed from LPs not from the master tapes. DRG pays the publishers for the mechanical rights (use) of the songs, but Sepia hardly pays anything to anyone. The Sepia CD is indeed an illegal product in the territory of the USA technically speaking. I am an owner of a fellow record label in North America. I don't work for DRG. I am affiliated with an American song publishing company that gets constantly victimized by European bootleg labels like Sepia."

The "Not So Complete" Manhattan Tower

BrewHaHa | Portland, OR | 09/06/2007

(3 out of 5 stars)

"It's fantastic that Manhattan Tower finally got released on CD. But this version from DRG is not as complete as the version from Sepia. Most confusingly, they both have the exact same title, "The Complete Manhattan Tower", but the DRG release has 12 tracks, while the Sepia release has 24 (which includes 10 bonus tracks).



I haven't heard the DRG version, so it may be that they both may have the exact same Manhattan Tower, just combined into CD tracks differently. But even if that's the case, the Sepia contains some nice bonus tracks, and - here's the kicker - it's less expensive. (At least as I am writing this.)



Bottom line: If you're interested in the Complete Manhattan Tower, instead of this shorter DRG CD, consider buying the Sepia version instead. (As of this writing, both versions are available on Amazon.)



Caveat: The only thing that the DRG version MAY have going for it is sound quality. I am not unhappy with the Sepia CD, but I haven't heard the DRG. If they were mastered independently, it certainly is possible that the DRG release sounds better, but I have no way of knowing that.



(The 3-star rating is simply because the Sepia version contains more content.)"

Wonderful 1950s kitsch

Craig Dickson | San Mateo, CA USA | 02/07/2010

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Gordon Jenkins originally composed and recorded "Manhattan Tower" in the late 1940s for Decca. In the mid-1950s, with the advent of hi-fi, he recorded it again with additional material, and released it on Capitol as "The Complete Manhattan Tower." This later version, along with a couple of bonus tracks, is presented on this CD in very nicely digitized sound.



"Manhattan Tower" tells a story inspired by Jenkins' own experience as a young man from a small town visiting New York City for the first time. On the album, the young man arrives in town with a dream of living in a tall building with a view of the city. He meets a young woman and falls in love with her over the course of his visit, but in the end, he has to go home, and she won't go with him.



The image of New York that the album presents is kitschy but charming; it is very much how New York (and America as a whole) wanted to see itself in those days. This, along with the quality of the music and the witty dialog between the two main characters, probably accounts for the album's commercial success.



"Manhattan Tower" is best regarded as a stage musical without a stage, the original cast album for a show that was never performed in a theatre. The songs are great, especially "Married I Can Always Get" and the standard "New York's My Home." It's light entertainment but very well done, and half a century later it can still give us a sense of what Americans in the post-war period wanted to believe about themselves and their greatest city."