Stan Kenton

Stan Kenton

Stanley Newcomb Kenton (December 15, 1911 – August 25, 1979) led a highly innovative, influential, and often controversial American jazz orchestra. In later years he was widely active as an educator.

Origins

Stan Kenton was born in Wichita, Kansas, and raised first in Colorado and then in California. He learned piano as a child, and while still a teenager toured with various bands. In June 1941 he formed his own band, which developed into one of the best-known West Coast ensembles of the Forties.

Music

Kenton's musical aggregations were decidedly "orchestras." Sometimes consisting of two dozen or more musicians at once, they produced an unmistakable Kenton sound--as recognizable as that of the bands of Glenn Miller, Duke Ellington, or Count Basie. So large an orchestra was able to produce a tremendous, at times overpowering, volume in the dance and concert halls of the land; among musical conservatives it developed a reputation for playing strange-sounding pieces much too loudly, and indeed one comical MC introduced Stan Kenton as "Cant Standit."

A Kenton specialty was Afro-Cuban rhythm, as exported to North America by such bandleaders as Machito (whose brass and reed sound, in turn, began to show the influence of Kenton). Translated into the Kenton idiom, however, the Latin rhythms might be scored for a full panoply of percussion instruments: tympani, bongos, conga, timbales, claves, and maracas. This component of Kenton's work may be heard on the 1947 recording "Machito" and on the album Cuban Fire, still in print after more than fifty years of ceaseless change in popular music.

Many of Kenton's band arrangements were written by Kenton himself, as well as other composers and arrangers such as Gene Roland, Pete Rugolo, W. A. Mathieu, Johnny Richards, Lennie Niehaus, Gerry Mulligan, Hank Levy, Bill Russo, Dee Barton, Bill Holman, Shorty Rogers, Ken Hanna, and Bob Graettinger (ref. his formidable but fascinating "City of Glass"). The music, which could be intensely dissonant, made use of powerful brass sections and unconventional saxophone voicings that showed Kenton's love of experimenting, reflected in the names he gave his ensembles: "Innovations Orchestra," "Neophonic Orchestra," and "Mellophonium Orchestra." Kenton's theme song from the early days to the last was called, significantly, "Artistry in Rhythm." It was owing in part to Kenton's ambitious musical nomenclature that many critics dismissed his work as mannered and pretentious. But apart from recording a few dance-band albums (Kenton's men could play standards beautifully), he avoided compromising his idea of jazz to please either critics or public.

It has been suggested that Kenton exhibited racial prejudice in his selection of personnel, in that no African-American musician ever played in the Kenton Orchestra; certainly, none is included in the list below.

Noted band personnel

Noted band personnel included

• Laurindo Almeida,

• Gabe Balthazar,
• Milt Bernhart,

• Conte Candoli,
• Pete Candoli,
• Jack Costanza,
• Buddy Childers,
• Bob Cooper,
• Bud Brisbois,
• Maynard Ferguson,
• Carl Fontana,

• Stan Getz,
• Dizzy Gillespie,
• Bob Gioga,

• Bill Holman,
• Clay Jenkins,
• Lee Konitz,

• Skip Layton,
• Stan Levey,

• Willie Maiden,
• Shelly Manne,
• Vido Musso,

• Lennie Niehaus,
• Art Pepper,

• George Roberts,
• Gene Roland,
• Frank Rosolino,
• Shorty Rogers,

• Eddie Safranski,
• Jay Saunders
• Ed Soph,
• Bud Shank,
• Zoot Sims,

• Bart Varsalona,
• Mike Vax,

• Kai Winding

Famed vocalists Anita O'Day, June Christy, and Chris Connor were featured with the Kenton orchestra. Kenton discovered The Four Freshmen performing in a small club in Dayton, Ohio, and gave them a huge boost.

Famous recordings

• Adventures In Jazz
• Intermission Riff
• Opus In Chartreuse
• Opus In Pastels
• On The Street Where You Live
• Quintessence
• The Stage Door Swings

Latter years

In his latter years, the genial and charismatic Kenton expended much energy encouraging big band music and what he called "progressive jazz" in schools and colleges throughout the country. His entire library was donated to the University of North Texas in Denton. He was a salient figure on the American musical scene and made an indelible mark on the arranged type of big band jazz. Kenton's music evolved with the times throughout the 1960s and 70s, although he was no longer one of the great innovators. His final performance was in August 1978, a year before he died. He lived to see his son Lance, a key member of the Synanon drug rehabilitation cult, condemned to prison for assault and conspiracy after placing a rattlesnake in a lawyer's mailbox; what he missed, however, was the later critical "rediscovery" of his music, with many reissues of his recordings.

Stan Kenton died on August 25, 1979, after suffering a stroke a week earlier. He was interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery, Los Angeles.

Selected discography

• New Concepts of Artistry in Rhythm (1952)
• Contemporary Concepts (1955)
• Cuban Fire! (1956)
• Viva Kenton (1959)
• Live at Redlands University (1970)
• Kenton '76 (1976)