5-3 Yaron Gershovsky - Pianist, Composer & Band Leader

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In this episode we’ll interview Yaron Gershovsky. As bandleader for Manhattan Transfer for 44 of their 50 years, he has a treasure trove of knowledge and experience around performing and composing which he will share with us on this episode. Get ready for a fun ride as we discuss his origins, career and what’s next.

In the spring of 2006, I was in a production of the musical “City of Angels” by Cy Coleman, David Zipel and Larry Gelbart with the Burlington Players in Burlington, MA. The musical is a story about a novelist whose book is adapted into a movie and about the entire LA movie scene. As the novel is turned into a screenplay the movie moves further and further away from the novel’s original purpose and meaning.  This causes a sort of schism in the mind of the novelist where he ends up having arguments with his lead character. There are lots of transitions from reality to scenes from the movie and so forth. 

At any rate, I was a part of a quartet that served as kind of a chorus that commented, amplified and clarified the action of the play, as choruses do. The whole play had a sort of film noir feel about it and the music for the chorus was very challenging jazzy close harmony type singing. I noticed that the vocal arrangement was written by one Yaron Gershovsky. I was curious about this fellow, so I Googled him. Now back in 2006 Google was primarily a search engine and not the GOOGLE that it is today. But regardless, I found out that Yaron was the band leader of Manhattan Transfer. That made so much sense in the context of the sound of the arrangements.

 Skip ahead to the early twenty teens. I was at Sculler’s, a jazz venue in Boston, to see Manhattan Transfer when who should I see walking down the hall toward me but Yaron himself. I introduced myself to him and told him that I had sung the Bass part in a production of “City of Angels”. In his quiet, understated way he looked at me and, I assume referring to the difficulty of the part, said, “I’m so sorry.” So began our acquaintance.

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