"Funkallero" <funkmeistermike@gmail.com> wrote in message news:1193888783.226876.195180@22g2000hsm.googlegroups.com...
Pretentious and pompous, or genius? I like Kenton's output a lot, but
it certainly got pretty heavy. Discussion?
Has anyone here even listened to Stan Kenton?
-- Mike C. http://mikecrutcher.com "A great percentage of people don't want a challenge. They want something done to them, they don't want to participate. But there'll always be maybe 15% that desire something more, and they'll search it out. And maybe that's where art is." - Bill Evans
Funkallero <funkmeistermike@gmail.com> wrote: : I love Kenton's music, but I never see anyone : bring it up around here, even when rec.music.bluenote was a happening : place to post.
I remember several discussions about Kenton here. Just search among the old posts in the Google group archives. By the way, my favorite Kenton album was "Live in Europe" from 1976. The versions of "My Old Flame" and "Turtle Talk" were outrageous! Not easy to find on CD, though.
To be honest, I don't understand what you guys are talking about. That's not saying you don't. Kenton has to be seen in regard to his " seat in history, " like everyone else. I heard Bartok's Concerto For Orchestra the other day. It's been a favorite of mine for years, but this time it sounded dated. Bartok dated? Can it be!? When I first heard Kenton around 1951, I didn't know about Maynard. When he walked in front of the band and started playing, my hair stood up! It was revolutionary! The band was revolutionary! I had never heard anything like it before. Now, 56 years later, I'm not so impressed when I listen to the old records! They're... well, they're old. By the way, no one plays Kenton's compositions that I know of. Of course, there's no band THAT big any more!. But, even so. You never hear any of his tunes, many of which could be played by a trio. When the Rendezvous Ballroom burned down in Balboa, CA, where Kenton had begun his career and then returned again around 1958, all that was left standing were two brick columns that had been the doorway. Someone had written in chalk on one of them: " Goodbye. We loved you." I think that's how I feel about Kenton, too.
Gary Hogan <GaryHogan@webtv.net> wrote: : By the way, no one plays Kenton's compositions that I know of.
Although I consider myself a huge Kenton fan, I also am not about to pretend that his influence was any more than indirect. As far as people playing his compositions, one must remember that even his own band played mostly compositions written by other composers. Kenton wrote "And Her Tears Flowed Like Wine" which was recorded by many singers, and "Eager Beaver" is heard now and then. The list gets a little more interesting if you consider pieces written by others, for the Kenton band. But any Kenton fan, in a moment of honesty, would have to agree with you.
However, Kenton did have arguably more significant influence in other ways. He brought a number of major voices to jazz (a trait Miles Davis is often complimented for doing), such as Art Pepper, Frank Rosalino, Tim Hagans, Laurindo Almeida, Shelly Manne, June Christy, Bud Shank, Maynard Ferguson, and of course many many more. He showed that jazz could achieve the sort of huge thrills achieved by symphony orchestras, while remaining as jazz. The way he incorporated latin rhythms into jazz pretty much stands today. College jazz bands today probably sound more like Kenton's band than like any other big band... so there is no doubt that the Kenton style continues to influence yet another generation of developing jazz musicians... and it is in the colleges that one can continue to hear his bands' arrangements being performed.
One venue where his compositions still dominate, are in marching bands and drumcorps. His are probably the most commonly-played arrangements in that venue. Ask any drumcorps fan if they've ever heard "Giant Steps" or "Confirmation", and they'll say "huh?". But ask them if they've heard "Artistry in Rhythm", "Malaga", or "La Suerte de los Tontos", "Concerto to End all Concertos", etc. and the answer is likely to be - of course!
Sightreading 5 November 2007 14:49:59 [ permanent link ]
Tone wrote:
Other than the writing/arranging for latter day big bands
(all 3 of them) it's hard to say what influence he might have had
other than as a jumping off point for some fairly well known
instrumentalists.
I don't know. I think his influence has proved durable, in various measure, on most of the white bandleaders and arrangers who followed him; I like to talk about a "Kenton function" working along this line. Don Ellis' experimental bands owed more than a little to Kenton's various phases; and I even hear a bit of it in something apparently so distant as Dave Holland's Big Band. A passion for moving and clashing of big masses of sound, for a kind of shiny sound surface, for an overall sonic aggression of the listener.
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