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, 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.

Noted band personnel

Noted band personnel included

Bob Gioga,
Vido Musso,
Eddie Safranski,
Bud Shank,
Laurindo Almeida,
Zoot Sims,
Lee Konitz,
Gabe Balthazar,
Lennie Niehaus,
Art Pepper,
Stan Getz,
Shorty Rogers,
Shelly Manne,
George Roberts,
Milt Bernhart,
Buddy Childers,
Carl Fontana,
Bob Cooper,
Bill Holman,
Frank Rosolino,
Skip Layton,
Jack Costanza,
Kai Winding,
Bart Varsalona,
Ed Soph,
Jay Saunders
Clay Jenkins,
Conte Candoli,
Pete Candoli,
Mike Vax,
Stan Levey,
Maynard Ferguson.

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

Intermission Riff
opus in Chart reuse
Opus in pastels
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)
Cuban Fire! (1956)
Viva Kenton (1959)
Kenton '76 (1976)

1911 births | 1979 deaths | Jazz bandleaders | People from California