Manhattan Transfer: Round Trip With Detours

Who says you can’t go home again?

Last year, after a less-than-satisfying four-year hitch at Columbia Records, the Manhattan Transfer rejoined Atlantic Records, where the four-singer group got its start in 1975.

Money, “a lot of money,” says Transfer founder-leader Tim Hauser, had led the popular vocal-harmony group to stray from Atlantic. But its initial Columbia album, 1991’s “The Offbeat of Avenues,” appealed to neither buyers nor critics--though a follow-up, Johnny Mandel-arranged Christmas album was an aesthetic success. The band wanted out; Atlantic wanted it back.

Hauser says the Columbia move taught him and his cohorts--Janis Siegel, Alan Paul and Cheryl Bentyne--what we’re all supposed to know: “Money is not everything.”

Hauser, who with the Transfer and a six-member backing band appears tonight and Sunday at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, says the appropriate word to describe the return to Atlantic is “satisfied.” This despite sluggish sales of 1995’s “Tonin’,” the Transfer’s first effort in a new, multi-album pact with Atlantic.

“Tonin’ ” is a cameo-laden tribute to ‘60s-era pop songs such as “Too Busy Thinking About My Baby,” “I Second That Emotion,” “Groovin’ ” and “Along Comes Mary.” The album, produced by Doug Morris (MCA Records president), features such guests as Phil Collins, Laura Nyro, Smokey Robinson and B.B. King. About 250,000 copies have been sold worldwide; the quartet’s most critically acclaimed recording, the 1985, jazz-based “Vocalese,” has sold twice that.

Hauser says the singers believe “Tonin’ ” has sold slower because fans, who might have embraced such a pop effort earlier in the group’s career, have grown fond of the Transfer’s more jazz-oriented material, which has won them nine Grammy Awards.

“We think that people don’t really want us to do that kind of music, the kind of stuff you can hear from other people as well,” Hauser said in a phone interview from his home in Studio City.

That doesn’t mean the group won’t offer tunes from “Tonin’ ” at Cerritos. It plans to do covers of “Too Busy,” “Groovin’ ” and a couple of others. And it’ll deliver such early-career favorites as “Boy From New York City,” “Operator,” “Gloria,” “Route 66” and the band’s biggest-selling tune, a vocal version of Weather Report’s “Birdland,” recorded on the 1979 “Extensions” album.

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But close to half of the concert will be based on “Vocalese” and tunes in that style. In vocalese, words are written to previously recorded instrumental numbers, and the performers sing over both the original arrangement and the jazz solos. Among the vocalese tunes that the Transfer will perform are “Corner Pocket” and “Blee Blop Blues,” which were originally done by Count Basie’s orchestra; “Ray’s Rockhouse,” a vocal version of Ray Charles’ “Rockhouse” instrumental; and Sonny Rollins’ “Airegin.”

“We love this material because it’s really interesting stuff to do,” says Hauser, adding that the band sees “Vocalese” as its artistic peak.

“It swings; the solos are intricate; the orchestral parts are fun to sing; it all really works rhythmically, and when you really get in the groove with all those vocal parts, it’s a wonderful feeling. Let’s face it: Jazz is, for musicians, a more interesting form of music than pop. It’s more complex; there’s much more going on. When you can get inside that stuff, it’s more enjoyable because it’s richer.”

* The Manhattan Transfer performs tonight at 8 p.m., Sunday at 7 p.m. at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, 12700 Center Court Drive. $27-$36. (800) 300-4345.