Laurel Massé: How Can I Keep From Singing?

As a founding member of the world-famous Grammy-winning vocal jazz group The Manhattan Transfer, singer Laurel Massé achieved international success in the 1970s and was on track to keep soaring–until she nearly lost everything one tragic night, forcing her departure from the group. Overcoming numerous obstacles in an industry that saw her as a product to be discarded, Massé gradually returned to music on her own terms with a vocal prowess that has endured in a decades-long career delighting millions.

Laurel Massé: How Can I Keep from Singing? is an inspiring, at times dark, and ultimately uplifting tale of surviving adversity and an intimate portrait of a unique musical talent. Massé has performed and recorded jazz, folk, blues, pop, pop standards, traditional hymns, spirituals and more, earning comparison to Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan. Massé’s personality—and especially her performances—will awe audiences and beg the question: could she ever reunite with The Manhattan Transfer?

Project Status

THE FILM IS COMPLETE! Laurel Massé: How Can I Keep from Singing? had its world premiere at the 2024 Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival and was selected for an additional Best of the Fest screening. We’re now raising funds to apply and travel to other U.S. and international film festivals over the next year. Any amount you contribute will help and is 100% tax-deductible, as our fiscal sponsor is FilmNorth, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) media arts organization. Attending festivals will not only enable Laurel and me to connect with audiences and discuss the project, but also increase our chances for distribution. You can donate by clicking on the red Donate to This Project button at the top of the page. Donations can be made online or by check. Thank you so much!

In New York City, on a snowy night in February, 1972, Laurel Massé hailed a cab. The driver was wearing a cap covered with 1939 World’s Fair buttons, and she asked about them. The resulting conversation started a musical friendship that led to the founding of the award-winning vocal group, Manhattan Transfer, and the beginning of her long musical career. For seven years, Ms. Massé toured internationally with the Transfer, recording four albums (certified gold and platinum) and the Just a Gigolo movie soundtrack, and making numerous television appearances (including The Manhattan Transfer Show on CBS TV in 1975 and Mary Tyler Moore’s 1976 television special Mary’s Incredible Dream). With her expressive voice, clear diction, and ready wit, the tall redhead left an indelible mark on the group.

But in 1978, a near-fatal automobile accident cut short her tenure with the quartet. Recovery took a long time; she returned to stage and studio in 1980 as a solo artist. Her solo recordings Alone Together and Easy Living both charted on Billboard; Again was a People magazine pick. Feather and Bone (2000) was described by audiophile magazine The Absolute Sound as “a recording of extraordinary musical and sonic value.” That Ol’ Mercer Magic, a recording of Johnny Mercer tunes (with Janis Siegel of Manhattan Transfer and Lauren Kinhan of New York Voices) came out in 2009 to great critical acclaim. In 2012 she released Once in a Million Moons, a duo collaboration with pianist/arranger Tex Arnold. Ms. Massé has also guested on CDs of many other artists, including Barry Manilow, percussionist Layne Redmond, bluegrass artist Tony Trischka, and songwriter Carol Hall. She has toured internationally.

Since 1997 she has taught every year at the iconic Ashokan Music and Dance Camps, leading classes in swing and jazz vocal styles. She has lectured and taught master classes at prestigious institutions such as Yale, Dartmouth and The Royal Academy of Music (UK). She is a respected adjudicator/clinician for high school and college choir festivals.

As a performer, Ms. Massé received the prized MAC Lifetime Achievement Award (2004), and the Bistro (Best Jazz Vocalist, 2009). She has been both a guest soloist and a member of the professional choir at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York. As an actor, she appeared in Project Rushmore’s readings of Beth Henley’s Crimes of the Heart (as Lenny) and Shakespeare’s King Lear (Cordelia). She is featured singing her own composition “The Heavens Tonight” (co-written with Larry Kerchner and Hubert “Tex” Arnold) in the Kairos Productions feature film, Camilla Dickinson.

Ms. Massé is an ASCAP writer and a member of SAG/AFTRA.

Reilly Tillman (producer/director/editor) earned his bachelor’s in communications with an emphasis on radio, television, and film from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. As an independent filmmaker, he produced, directed, and edited the feature-length documentary Madison on Tour, which follows a year in the life of a world-class competitive drum and bugle corps. The film aired multiple times on PBS affiliates Twin Cities Public Television and Wisconsin Public Television and also screened at festivals. Madison on Tour was nominated for the Minnesota Film & TV Board’s D. L. Maberry Award for Best Minnesota Feature Film of 1999.

Since 2002, Reilly has served as Education Director—and Deputy Director as of 2012—at FilmNorth, a nonprofit media arts organization in St. Paul, Minnesota whose mission is to empower artists to tell their stories, and launch and sustain successful careers. In addition to coordinating up to 100 classes and workshops annually in screenwriting, film production, editing, animation, sound, and photography, Reilly helps coordinate FilmNorth’s annual Forum filmmaker conference and various professional development events for emerging to mid-career independent filmmakers.

A lifelong musician, from 1990 to 2018 Reilly was a frequent rostered member of the Minnesota Chorale, the principal chorus of the internationally acclaimed, Grammy-winning Minnesota Orchestra, performing under the direction of Edo de Waart, Eiji Oue, and Osmo Vänskä. Reilly is also a brass instrumentalist who regularly performed with the world champion Minnesota Brass Drum and Bugle Corps 2002-2015.