They just don’t live ‘em like this anymore… After his graduation from Harvard in 1916, he traveled to Spain to study art and architecture, but with war raging in the rest of Europe he joined his friends E. E. Cummings and Robert Hillyer and volunteered as an ambulance driver in Paris and Northern Italy. By the summer of 1918 he was back in the States and working on his first novel when he enlisted in the U.S. Army Medical Corps.  On Armistice Day he was re-stationed in Paris where he was able to study anthropology at the Sorbonne through the U.S. Army Overseas Education Commission.

Right time, right place and right inclination for John Dos Passos to join the likes of Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, F. Scott (and Zelda) Fitzgerald, T. S. Eliot, Isadora Duncan and Hart Crane in “shunning American materialism” for the phrenic, idealistically bohemian lifestyle of the Lost Generation. And while his first novels, “One Man’s Initiation: 1917” and “Three Soldiers” gained him critical recognition; it was his stream-of-consciousness third novel in 1925 that was an actual commercial success.

Focusing on the evolution of New York urban life from Gilded to Jazz Age, it was Hemingway who wrote that “Manhattan Transfer” actually enabled Europeans to see “the America they really find when they come here,” while D.H. Lawrence hailed it as “…a very complete film…of the vast loose gang of strivers and winners and losers, which seems to be the very pep of New York.”

And that’s what doo-wop extraordinaire Tim Hauser no-doubt had in mind when he formed his a capella swing and pop group in 1969, emphatically named The Manhattan Transfer.  With its initial line-up the group released the album “Jukin’” in 1971. Then after a major change-up (Hauser and and his city of New York were pretty much the only common factors) the more famous second line-up was formed in 1973, with its “debut” album, “The Manhattan Transfer” (featuring the memorable gospel hit “Operator”) released in 1975.

Inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1998 and still touring to this day, but with a much broader range (their first Grammy came for Best Jazz Fusion Performance in 1980 for their recording of “Birdland”) the only change in the line-up since 1973 occurred in 1978 when singer Laurel Masse was badly injured in a car crash and replaced by Cheryl Bentyne.

Written by Ben Oakland and Milton Drake, “Java Java” was initially recorded by the Ink Spots in 1940.  First recorded by The Manhattan Transfer on that 1971 album, “Jukin” it was recorded again by the “realigned” group in 1978 on “The Manhattan Transfer Live.”  Still not sure, but I think there may be a double entendre or two slipped in there…mind you, I’m only here for the coffee.

  Groove to this Tune – Monday 4 February

Java Jive

I love coffee, I love tea,

I love the Java Jive and it loves me

Coffee and tea and the java and me,

A cup, a cup, a cup, a cup, a cup!

I love java sweet and hot,

Whoops, Mister Moto, I’m a coffee pot

Shoot me the pot, and I’ll pour me a shot,

A cup, a cup, a cup, a cup, a cup!

 Oh slip me a slug from that wonderful mug

And I’ll cut a rug ‘til I’m snug in a jug

A sliced up onion and a raw one,

Draw one!

Waiter, waiter, percolator!

I love coffee, I love tea

I love the Java Jive and it loves me

Coffee and tea and the java and me,

A cup, a cup, a cup, a cup, a cup!

Boston Beans (soy beans)

I said those itty-bitty green bean 
(cabbage n’ greens)

You know I’m not keen about a bean

Unless it is a chili, chili bean! Boy!

 I love coffee, I love tea

I love the Java Jive and it loves me

Coffee and tea and the java and me,

A cup, a cup, a cup, a cup, a cup!

Blow me a slug from that wonderful mug

And I’ll cut a rug that’s snug in a jug

Drop a nickel in my pot, Joe

Takin’ it slow

Waiter, waiter percolator

I love coffee, I love tea

I love the Java Jive an’ it loves me

Coffee and tea and the java and me

A cup, a cup, a cup, a cup – BOY!