Stan Kenton
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Stanley Newcomb Kenton (December 15, - August 25, ) led a highly innovative, influential, and often controversial American jazz orchestra. In later years he was widely active as an educator.
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 he formed his own band, which developed into one of the best-known West Coast ensembles of the Forties.
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 bandleader
Stan Kenton: Article 1
In May, , the John Costello band had to make a last–minute cancellation of its summer engagement at the Rendezvous Ballroom in Balboa Beach, California. The band had been selected to play the season after a series of auditions and when the owners heard the news, in desperation they turned to another band which had also auditioned, been found impressive, but turned down.
Thus, in a typically theatrical setting Stan Kenton presented the inauspicious debut of the fourteen piece band which he had dreamed into reality the preceding fall. Here were thirteen fledgling musicians centred around a pianist who felt that he lacked the strong personality to lead and sell a band.
The fourteen men have grown into forty in the course of the years, and the modest leader has become the most admired, most believed–in spokesman jazz has ever known.
American jazz magazines carried reviews of that band in , but that was not the first mention of Stan Kenton in their pages. That came four years before in an in–person review of the Gus Arnheim band, when Kenton was the pianist–arranger. The reviewer, George T. Simon of Metronome, commented : "Stanley Kenton plays not only good
Born Stanley Newcomb Kenton on December 15, , in Wichita, KN; died August 25, , in Hollywood, CA; married three times; three children; several grandchildren.
In , 17 years after the bandleader's death, Scott Yanow of the All-Music Guide to Jazz stated, "There have been few jazz musicians as consistently controversial as Stan Kenton." Some critics have claimed that Kenton expanded the horizons of jazz music, while others considered him pretentious and more interested in overwhelming listeners with volume and power than with creating works of musical substance. He managed to sustain a number of large-scale bands during his more than 35 years of active performing, despite his willingness to stray from proven formulas. "The economics of maintaining a big band for nearly 40 years without pandering to fashion indicated Stan Kenton's great organizational skills, as well as great artistic conviction," noted the Harmony Illustrated Encyclopedia of Jazz.
Kenton continually experimented with the big band format, dissolving his bands and reforming new ones that attempted to set new standards in jazz music. Throughout his career he had a knack for recognizing and nurturing new talent, and
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