Unlike Jake and Elwood, Kenton's ambitions involved much more than just raising $5,000 to save an orphanage. He was setting out to change the world of jazz as we know it. He even had a fancy new name for it: "Progressive Jazz." He had an equally fancy name for his new, retooled band: the "Innovations In Modern Music Orchestra." No doubt about it - this was no longer the advanced, modernistic dance band of the mid 1940s. This was a band that was loudly declaring its place at the forefront of not just modern jazz, but modern music in general.
The most noticeable change in this band was its personnel. In addition to the standard big band configuration, the Innovations Orchestra contained a 16 piece string section, French horns, and an auxiliary woodwind section in addition to the standard saxophones, adding up to form a 39-piece behemoth. The band provided all sorts of new arranging challenges, which were accepted not only by Kenton veteran Pete Rugolo, but also younger arrangers such as Bill Russo, Shorty Rogers, Bill Holman and Bob Graettinger. In addition to the skilled staff writers, this band featured a number of Kenton's most notable soloists, including trumpeters Rogers and Maynard Ferguson, saxophonists Art Pepper, Bud Shank and Bob Cooper, guitarist Laurindo Almeida, and drummer Shelly Manne. Unsurprisingly, things proved to be hideously unviable from a monetary standpoint (Kenton ended up nearly $125,000 in debt a mere 4 months in), and Kenton abandoned the project by the start of 1951 in favor of a smaller (by comparison) 19 piece band.
Despite cutting out the string section, the early 1950s represented a continued period of growth and experimentation on Kenton's behalf. The mission remained the same, at least in part because of the return of several key members of the Innovations Orchestra (both instrumentalists and writers). In addition to these veterans, this ever-so-slightly scaled-down version of the band attracted a number of new key contributors, including trumpeters Conte Candoli and Sam Noto, trombonist Frank Rosolino, saxophonists Lee Konitz, Zoot Sims and Bill Perkins, guitarist Sal Salvador, drummer Mel Lewis, and arrangers Gerry Mulligan, Johnny Richards and Lennie Niehaus.
The 1950s could be considered the decade when the Kenton sound had finally settled in. Its emphasis on an earth-shattering brass section is, for obvious reasons, the most distinguishable characteristic of Kenton's bands during this period, but of equal note is the typically pacified sounds of the woodwind section, as evidenced by the presence of such cool-school icons as Konitz and Sims. It was also during this decade that Kenton began to openly embrace and explore Afro-Cuban music. Building on a hit version of "The Peanut Vendor" that incorporated Afro-Cuban rhythms, perhaps the standout example of this period of Kenton's music was 1956's Cuban Fire Suite, composed by Richards (more on his contributions later).
By the end of the 1950s, big bands in general were severely waning in popularity, and Kenton's was no different. Just like in the earliest days of his organization, however, Kenton was not to be deterred; rather than roll over and play dead, he shifted into yet another attack phase. Starting in 1960, Kenton expanded his orchestra once more to include a section of mellophoniums, a strange hybrid trumpet/French horn that Kenton himself played a role in inventing. The biggest issue with these weird-looking marching band staples was that they were nearly impossible to keep in tune. Nevertheless, Kenton was able to keep this version of his band (dubbed, appropriately enough, the Mellophonium Orchestra) for about 3 years, producing a couple Grammy-winning projects along the way (a 1961 reworking of "West Side Story" and 1962's "Adventures In Jazz.")
Later in his career, Kenton became intensely devoted to the world of music education. He ran a series of "jazz workshops" that featured a number of his sidemen as coaches for young musicians. He scheduled a number of his concerts at colleges, largely due to his desire to work with the emerging collegiate jazz scene as well as scope out potentially promising young talent (much like his fellow long-running bandleader Woody Herman, Kenton's bands in the 1970s would be comprised largely of players fresh out of school). Kenton would notably donate his entire library to the University of North Texas, the first college to offer a degree in jazz studies and which to this day continues to be a prominent "factory" of young musical talent. His charts were subsequently allowed to be published and distributed to high schools and colleges all across the country. Although his band was no longer the national icon that it had been in the 1950s, Kenton was still working hard at spreading his grandiose visions of what music should be, picking up a cadre of youthful admirers along the way.
Stan Kenton's final public performance came in August of 1978. Having already suffered a fractured skull a year earlier, he was felled by a stroke on August 25th, 1979. His legacy is continued on through this day through both the young bands who continue to perform his charts, as well as a legacy band led by trumpeter and former sideman Mike Vax.
This is part of a series on the life and music of Stan Kenton. In the next post, I will give a brief overview of Kenton's musical vision, what it represented, and how it worked in practice.
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