Talk to a
baseball
fan about Stan the Man and he'll know you're referring to Stan Musical.
But mention Stan the Man to any jazz buff or big band enthusiast
outside
St. Louis and he'll know you're talking about Stan Kenton. Six and a
half
feet of him. Six and a half feet of nervous, exhausting energy
that
once produced some of the most aggravating, some of the most
impressive,
some of the most depressive, some of the most exciting, some of the
most
boring and certainly some of the most controversial sounds, music
and/or
noise ever to emanate from any big band.
A
friend of mine,
an arranger named Ralph Yaw, had tipped me off on the Kenton band when
it was still an unknown infant. In March of 1941 he had written in a
letter
from Los Angeles:
'Been
meaning to write ever since getting here, but you know how it is.
'The
reason is
in connection with a band I'm working with. This band is something
quite
special and different. Stanley Kenton is the leader and I am working
with
him. We do the arranging and I think we have cooked something new in
style.
'However,
I will
not take time to describe it, but only say that a swell new treatment
of
saxes and couple of other style tricks do it. The saxes are treated in
my mind in the right way for the first time. It really scares me.'
The
band debuted a few months later -- Memorial Day -- in Balboa Beach,
where
seven years before young Stanley Kenton had been playing piano in
Everett
Hoaglund's then swinging band. When I arrived in LA in the summer of
1941,
one of the first things I did was to look up the Kenton band. I found
it
in the KHJ radio studio, where it was doing a live broadcast, which the
announcer kept telling his listeners was actually emanating from Balboa
Beach! Several nights later I drove out to Balboa to spend the first of
several evenings listening to the band and to gather material for the
first
major review, a well deserved rave -- for the most part
"Within
the Stan
Kenton band," the review noted, "nestles one of the greatest
combinations
of rhythm, harmony and melody that's ever been assembled by one
leader."
Then, after crediting Kenton for most of the band's good points,
including
his arrangements, while extolling several of the young musicians,
especially
bassist Howard Rumsey, lead trumpeter Frank Beach and alto saxist Jack
Ordean, I faulted the band for 'continual blasting. It's great to
screech
with complete abandon," the review said, "but you've got to screech at
the right time." It also suggested that Stan "curb his gesticulative
enthusiasm"
and in general recommended "greater restraint."
One
thing I found
out immediately: "there's nothing more vociferous than a Kenton fan.
The
mail started coming in at once, faulting me for faulting the band. Stan
himself, I understood later, also objected to my criticism, and our
relationship
became tenuous, with only slight variations ever after. I must admit
once
and for all that I have never become a complete Kenton band convert,
for
no matter how great his bands have been musically, their emotional
impact
has for me too often been blunted by an air of self-consciousness,
sometimes
combined with pompousness, and too often an inability to swing freely.
Never, though, have I failed to admire Stan Kenton for his courage, his
tenacity, his sincerity, his thoughtfulness and his complete belief
that
what he is doing was absolutely right.
Kenton's
unbending
approach always made him quite susceptible to some rather caustic
criticism.
Thus in 1941, in his first radio review of the band, Barry Ulanov
admitted
that it had "that combination of heavy voicings and staccato phrasings
down pat. But there's no reason why so formidable an organization must
always sound like a moving man grunting under the weight of a concert
grand."
The
Kenton style was indeed heavy and ponderous, especially on ballads.
Some
people, including some critics, insisted that Kenton's projected the
swinging
approach of the Jimmie Lunceford band. Both, they pointed out, played
heavily
accented music. I think this evaluation misses one basic difference:
the
Lunceford band always played and sounded relaxed, rolling along easily
with the beat instead of fighting and trying to push it ahead, as
Kenton's
did. One band moved like a fleet halfback, the other like a
muscle-bound
lineman.
In his
'Treasury
of Jazz' Eddie Condon wrote that "every Kenton record sounds to me as
though
Stan signed on three hundred men for the date and they were all on
time.
Music of his school, in my opinion, ought only to be played close to
elephants
and listened to only by clowns." But, Condon admitted, "It's a real
accomplishment
to take that many men and make them sound ruly."
Kenton's
musicians
have sounded "ruly" because they not only believed in his music, but
also
believed in him as a leader. Few leaders have been accorded as much
love
and respect as Kenton achieved, not only because of his dedication and
his talent, but also because of the consideration he accorded his
musicians.
Shelly
Manne,
who for several years handled probably the most difficult assignment of
all musicians in the Kenton band, that of trying to swing it from the
drums,
emoted words of high praise several years after he had departed the
group,
words that undoubtedly express the feelings of many other men who
played
for Kenton. Said Shelly: "He was so personal, always one of the fellows
and yet nobody ever lost any respect for him. If the guys needed money,
Stan would lend it to them. Everybody really wanted to work for what he
was working. And the spirit of the band was wonderful. It was such a
clean
atmosphere. You always felt that you were working for something that
mattered
instead of just jamming 'Tea for Tea' or 'Perdido.'
"The
way Stan
encouraged everybody was so wonderful, too. He was always encouraging
young
arrangers. If a guy joined the band, he'd never judge him on first
appearances,
the way most leaders do. He'd let him play for a while until he settled
down. Then Stan would make up his mind.
"And
he was so
wonderful with the public, too. He never fluffed anybody off."
But
Stan wasn't
without his faults. During his early days especially he showed great
stubbornness,
often refusing to face certain harsh realities and insisting upon doing
only what he, in his idealistic way, believed he should do, regardless
of what anybody else thought or felt.
This
attitude,
of course, tied in directly with certain obstinacy that he admitted to
as a youth when his mother wanted him to learn piano and he insisted on
playing ball instead. It took a lengthy visit from two cousins who
played
jazz at his house to convince him that music was after all what he
really
wanted to do.
Like
any good
man, Kenton was quite willing to admit his mistakes. In 1947, after he
had reorganized, he told me, during a lengthy interview what he thought
had been wrong with his last band. "It was much too stiff," he said.
"Some
people with lots of nervous energy could feel what we were doing, but
nobody
else could. Our music seemed out of tune with the people; we just had
no
common pulse. I guess I just had the wrong goddam feel for music."
Kenton,
who once threatened to quit the music business to become a
psychiatrist,
may have been unduly hard on himself, for his band had made a fantastic
number of converts, many of them through his popular recordings, which
began in late 1941 with "Adios," and "Taboo" and "Gambler's Blues," the
last a rehash of "St. James Infirmary" on which Stan "sang." Even more
popular were his 1943 recordings of his theme, "Artistry in Rhythm,"
and
"Eager Beaver," one of his most swinging sides. New, more experienced,
not completely Kenton-indoctrinated personnel had dispelled much of the
band's stiffness by then; only three men remained from the unit that
had
been formed just a little over two years earlier.
But
the band's
swingingest sides were still to come. In the spring of 1944, Anita
O'Day
joined Kenton and during the same period Dave Matthews and Stan Getz
came
in on tenor saxes, with Dave also writing some of the arrangements. In
May, with Anita singing, the band recorded one of its most famous and
infectious-sounding
sides, "And Her Tears Flowed Like Wine," and a swinging "Are You Livin'
Old Man?"
Anita
stayed with
the band for less than a year. She was followed by a cute blonde whose
singing resembled Anita's, though it lacked both Anita's sparkle and
intonation.
This was June Christy, bright, friendly and very well-liked by her
compatriots,
who recorded such commercial sides as "Tampico" and "Willow Weep For
Me.'
A young tenor saxist, Bob Cooper, also joined Kenton around this time;
later he and June were married.
As the
war ended
and more musicians became available, the Kenton music improved even
more.
So did it's popularity. It scored a big ht at the Sherman Hotel in
Chicago,
the first really great reception it had received in a major room
outside
Los Angeles. In September the band returned to New York and registered
just ass impressively at the Paramount Theater and at the Pennsylvania
Hotel, where Barry Ulanov reviewed it. "Stan had been wandering
musically,"
he noted, "playing more and more ballads, going in for more and more
production
numbers, and, consequently, playing less and less of the kind of
galvanic
jazz which was first associated with his name. The wandering years are
over,. Stan is back to the kind of jazz he knows, feels and is best
able
to play . and his band swings more subtly now and, as a result,
connects."
Eddie
Safranski
had joined the band by then on bass, and his playing made a big
difference.
Vido Musso and his tenor sax were also there, and they played important
roles on one of the band's biggest hits, "Artistry Jumps." And soon
came
more stellar musicians, lie trombonist Kai Winding, drummer Shelly
Manne
and arranger Pete Rugolo, pushing the Kenton band toward musical
heights
it had never been able to attain previously.
Rugolo,
serious,
bespectacled and highly imaginative, made the biggest difference. Not
only
did he write distinctive arrangements, giving the band an ever clearer
identity, but he also took a good deal of the load off Stan, with whom
he became very friendly, establishing a relationship similar to that of
Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn.
In
January, 1946,
Kenton was declared Band of the Year by the editors of "Look' magazine.
Twelve months later, "Metronome's' editors, who had never been complete
Kenton converts, accorded the band the same honor.
In the
same issue
they ran an article headed "Bands Busting Up Big' and listed eight top
dance orchestras (Stan's not included) that had decided to disband
during
the preceding months.
But
Stan wasn't
discouraged. Perhaps the era of the big bands that played for dancing
and
strictly for the public may have ended, but Stan's wasn't one of those
bands. He continued to have faith in his more specialized, modern
approach.
"Soon there'll be no more 'in the middle' bands," he predicted at the
time,
"no more of those that try to play something new for a few minutes and
then settle back into the old way because it's commercial. The pace is
much too fast for that sort of
thing . . .Quite frankly, I think that if
the commercial bands try to compete with the more modern bands, they'll
wind up making asses of themselves."
Stan
often came
on strong like that. He was thoroughly convinced that what he and his
men
were doing was the right and perhaps the only thing, and he spoke out
all
over the country for what he believed in. Spoke out and spoke on and on
and on. I can't recall any bandleader who ever did a greater selling
job
for his music than Stan Kenton did. He was a press agent's delight, a
constant
joy to his equally voluble, omnipresent PR man, Milton Karle. He was
forever
visiting disc jockeys, dropping in at record shops and granting
interviews
anywhere, anytime with anyone who would listen to his impassioned
diatribes.
His highly contagious and often overpowering enthusiasm frequently
carried
him away too, as he rambled on about his music, his philosophy and
various
other subjects. Many of his interviews turned into monologues as the
sentences
poured out, seemingly without any punctuation except exclamation
points,
which he'd drop in all over the place.
He
knew he had a selling job do to, and he relished it. "If you ask ten
people
on the street," he pointed out, "if they have ever heard of Stan
Kenton,
only a couple of them will say 'yes.' We have to try to get the other
eight.
And the only way I can see to do that is to make myself a personality
and
take my band along."
The
big bands
as a group may have started to fade away in 1947. But not Stan
Kenton's.
He kept building bigger and more complex units, which played bigger and
more complex works. He veered more and more from the dance band field
and
began concentrating almost exclusively on concerts, bringing greater
satisfaction
not only to himself but to those who came to listen but seldom to dance.
There
were times
when he was successful; there were times when he failed. But always he
kept up that indomitable spirit. Perhaps his enthusiasm was not as
intense
and as pervasive as before. Perhaps he listened more as the monologues
ebbed and the dialogues flowed.
In the
sixties,
he and I participated in a dialogue. Looking back at his music,
especially
his ballads, he said, "There was just too much tension, but I'm rid of
that now . . . At my age (he was nearing fifty) I've finally found out
what is and what isn't important. I used to try to prove every point.
Now
I'm concentrating on those that really mean something to me."
Concentrate
Stan
did, as hard as he possibly could, for almost two decades more. His
spirit
never flagged, as he kept trying to prove all the musical and
philosophical
points that mattered to him. The pace was literally killing. In 1977,
after
an engagement, he fell in a parking lot and suffered a severe skull
fracture
that required a lengthy hospitalization. Upon his release, he was
warned
to slow down. He never heeded that warning, and on August 17, 1979, he
suffered a terrible stroke. He lingered for just eight days more, and
one
of the big band's greatest innovators was gone.
