The Manhattan Project is a jazz fusion album, the only recording to be made by a band of the same name comprising Wayne Shorter, Michel Petrucciani, Stanley Clarke, Lenny White, Gil Goldstein and Pete Levin. The arrangements were written by Lenny White and Gil Goldstein, and the album was recorded live before an audience at Chelsea Studios, New York, with Alec Head engineering. Executive producers were Michael Cuscuna and Stephen Reed.

The project was the brainchild of White, who proposed transforming traditional jazz standards based on saxophone/piano arrangements with multiple synthesizers. The musicians invited for the project ranged from jazz traditionalist Petrucciani to longtime fusion experimenter Clarke. The project was also just one of many collaborations between White and Clarke. The musicians experimented with blues and funk arrangements of the standard jazz songs, and used bothe electric and acoustic instruments.