Post #261620 by saxotica on Thu, Oct 19, 2006 11:51 AM

There's a famous story related in the book "Jazz Anecdotes" where Stan Kenton is on the bus talking to his band saying something to the effect of "we've got to find a new way, something different that we're not doing..." One of his horn players says "Well Stan, we could try....swinging." Now that's from a guy that was actually IN the band. There's another story where an arranger says something like "Stan Kenton raises his baton and 20 trumpet players scream and 20 violins play and I can tell exactly what he's doing but Duke Ellington raises a finger, three horns make a sound and I have no idea what just happened." But I will give that "Live at the Tropicana" a shot. Maybe all the Kenton I've heard is the pompous stuff. He just strikes me as being the white bread of jazz, lowest common denominator stuff for the suburbanites who were afraid of the real stuff.

[ Edited by: saxotica 2006-10-19 12:03 ]