Stan Kenton - The Complete MacGregor Transcriptions Vol.1-5

With this release Naxos Jazz gets its hands on some of the earliest recordings of the Stan Kenton band, an ear-opening collection of MacGregor radio transcriptions made around the time that he was recording for Decca. These, mind you, date well before the series of path-breaking Capitol recordings that made the band famous — and they show the Kenton sound already partially in place, the trademark staccato sax section punctuating the line, the brasses just starting to blast. Even at this point, you cannot mistake this band for anyone’‘s else’‘s, even in the more commercially motivated tunes.

Balboa Bash, Vol.1, 1941
Released on Naxos Jazz Legends 8120517, 2002

Interestingly, only a handful of the nine Decca titles appear here, leaving room for a lot of material that went undocumented by the major labels. There are also a few previews of Kenton-penned recordings to come: the Kenton theme “Artistry in Rhythm” (which he pilfered from Ravel’‘s “Daphnis and Chloe”); the jumping “Harlem Folk Dance,” and the sublime “Opus in Pastels” (here, it’‘s faster and more staccato in phrasing than the great 1946 Capitol recording). Chico Alvarez’‘s trumpet can be heard in several solo spots, and Howard Rumsey’‘s scatted loosey-goosey bass solo feature, “A Setting in Motion” (which Decca recorded under the title “Concerto for Doghouse”); is a kick. Some of the MacGregors had appeared on LP as early as 1953, yet this systematic release should easily supersede all earlier efforts, with clean, listenable transfers.
Tracks: 
01 Opening Theme (Artistry in Rhythm) 
02 Two Guitars
03 Blues in Asia Minor
04 You Alone
05 Deep River
06 A Setting in Motion  
07 Balboa Bash
08 Don’‘t Want That Woman Around
09 Reed Rapture
10 Safari
11 Harlem Folk Dance
12 La Cumparsita
13 Night
14 Two Moods
15 Smokey
16 Too Soon
17 Opus in Pastels
18 Moon Mist
19 Elegie
20 A Little Jive Is Good for You
21 El Choclo
22 Night Life
23 Old Black Joe
24 Tribute to a Flatted Fifth
25 I Haven’‘t the Heart
26 Closing Theme (Artistry in Rhythm)

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Etude for Saxophones, Vol.2, 1941-1942
Released on Naxos Jazz Legends 8120518, 2002

Volume two of Naxos Jazz’‘s systematic reissue of the MacGregor radio transcriptions of Stan Kenton’‘s early Balboa Band takes listeners past Pearl Harbor into January 1942. At this early date, Kenton is still balancing the desires of the dancers with his urge to push big band writing forward, although the commercial side of the Kenton band book — more ballads, more pale vocals — plays a bigger role in this collection than in volume one. The selections here are almost totally unrepresented in Kenton’‘s Decca/Capitol discography, including such unlikely detours as “Marvin’‘s Mumble,” with a central section brazenly modeled after “Sing Sing Sing” or a jumping, mildly Kenton-ized treatment of “Arkansaw Traveler.” As a composer, Kenton is beginning to reach the limitations of his patented close-blended, staccato saxophone choir; he and his future corps of arrangers would soon expand out of that box. The wild enthusiasm of the young, sunbathed southern California audience, perched there on the West Coast just before the Japanese planes struck across the Pacific, generates gobs of bright-eyed, prewar nostalgia. Again, the transfers are clean and undistorted, and this time the personnel is listed, whereas in volume one it was not.
Tracks:
01 Opening Theme (Artistry in Rhythm) 
02 Memphis Lament
03 Trumpet Symphonette
04 Love Turns Winter to Spring
05 Marvin’‘s Mumble
06 Arkansas Traveler
07 Summer Idyll
08 Congo Clambake
09 Etude for Saxophones
10 Let Her Go
11 It Seems to Me
12 Tempo Di Joe
13 Cloud Across the Moon
14 Mine
15 Half a Heart
16 Prelude to Nothing
17 Stop Your Teasin’’ 
18 If I Had Love  
19 Take Sixteen
20 Hold Back the Dawn
21 Shufflin’’ the Chords
22 Quit Your Shovin’’ 
23 No Tears
24 Blue Flare
25 Closing Theme (Artistry in Rhythm) 

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Stan Kenton - Reed Rapture, Vol.3, 1941-1943
Released on Naxos Jazz Legends 8120684, 2003
 
Most people are unaware that Stan Kenton’s Band started out as a pretty conventional dance orchestra and only slowly developed into the concert band we all know and love. These tracks are interesting, because the features that made the Kenton Band different, are just starting to develop and in what was only a two-year period significant progress was already made. Shortly after this period the band made the first of the famous Capitol sessions, which brought the band worldwide recognition. Some of the facets of this earlier band were retained, the reeds continued to play sophisticated soli passages, but the Capitol sax section adopted an altogether cooler sound.

Very few of the band members made it through this period, only trombonist Harry Forbes, tenor man Red Dorris, baritone player Bob Gioga and Kenton himself. The band also changed in structure, the 1943 session had 5 trumpets against 3 in 1941, a bass bone was added and Art Pepper a jazz giant of the future had joined the saxophone section.

Stan Kenton himself always seemed to be more interested in producing a band with a new and different sound, than he was in swing, thank goodness that he employed musicians who wanted to swing, otherwise it could have been a dull affair! Don’‘t have the impression that the 1941 band was not an interesting one, but it was similar to most of the other bands of the period. The sentimental vocal dept. in particular was in every band. Low Bridge could have been from any of the big bands around at the time. Even Take the ‘A’ Train is the Billy Strayhorn arrangement originally written for the Ellington band. Blues in F Minor starts to hint at the Kenton bands of the future as does Take It From the Oven, although there is more than a touch of Basie here. It is when we get to Eager Beaver that we start to here the shape of things to come.

For anyone interested in knowing how the Kenton band developed into one of the most exciting of all big band, will be fascinated by this series of transcriptions. Like every Naxos the sound quality is excellent.

Tracks:
01 Theme: Artistry in Rhythm
02 Popocatapetl
03 Cancel the Flowers
04 Underneath the Stars
05 Low Bridge
06 Would It Have Made Any Difference to You
07 Take the ‘A’ Train
08 Flamingo
09 Blues In F Minor
10 Take It From the Oven
11 Taboo
12 Adios
13 This Love of Mine
14 The Nango
15 Gambler’s Blues
16 Lamento Gitano
17 Reed Rapture
18 Concerto for Doghouse
19 El Choclo
20 Eager Beaver
21 Shoo Shoo Baby
22 Liza

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Stan Kenton - Eager Beaver, Vol.4, 1944
Released on Naxos Jazz Legends 8120703, 2003

When one thinks of Stan Kenton, it is of his Progressive Jazz Band of 1945-48, his very ambitious Innovations Orchestra (1950-51); his swinging all-star bands of the 1950s and the Mellophonium Orchestra of the early 1960s.  However the ensembles that are featured on his MacGregor Transcriptions are of an earlier vintage, allowing listeners to hear the Stan Kenton Orchestra as it was developing its own sound and musical philosophy.

Actually Stan Kenton formed his musical philosophy early on.  He was born 15 December 1911 in Wichita, Kansas.  Inspired by Earl Hines’ piano playing, Kenton was a percussive and expressive player but never was on the level of his idol. His innovations would be in his ideas and vision rather than his musicianship.  Kenton spent the 1930s in Los Angeles, working with a variety of dance bands including Everett Hoagland in 1934, Russ Plummer and Gus Arnheim, recording with the latter in 1937.  After doing some studio work and appearing in a pit orchestra at Earl Carroll’s Theatre, in 1940 Kenton started leading a rehearsal band of his own.

Kenton wrote most of the arrangements for the original orchestra.  During the summer of 1941, his big band played five nights a week at the Rendezvous Ballroom in Balboa near Los Angeles.  It was during this historic engagement that Kenton built up a large and enthusiastic local following, and began recording radio transcriptions for the MacGregor company.  The band also recorded nine titles for Decca during 1941-42.

However once the stint at the Rendezvous Ballroom ended, the orchestra was not an instant success, struggling for over two years.  Kenton and his men toured the East Coast for eighteen months during 1942-43 without much success.  Back in Los Angeles in June 1943, Kenton signed to have his orchestra become the house band for Bob Hope’s radio series.  It looked like a big break initially but ended up being an unhappy association with Kenton stuck playing a straight man to Hope and his orchestra not getting to play all that much.  In the spring of 1944 Kenton gave his notice and his orchestra left the show in June.  Les Brown, whose temperament and less ambitious goals were better suited to playing second fiddle, would eventually be Kenton’s permanent replacement.

On 18 November 1943, Stan Kenton made his first recordings for the Capitol label and the four songs recorded that day include his theme “Artistry In Rhythm” and “Eager Beaver” which became his first hit.  Although it would take until 1945 before Kenton’s orchestra finally became a moneymaker, the Capitol association (which lasted until 1968) gave him hope for the future.

This is the fourth of five CDs that reissue all of Kenton’s MacGregor radio transcriptions, performances recorded in the studio and available to be played on the radio but not for sale to the general public during the era.  The first sixteen selections date from 15 May 1944, a time when Kenton was finishing up his stint with the Bob Hope show.  The personnel of the big band includes a few notables, particularly the still-active trumpeter Buddy Childers, Dave Matthews (equally skilled on tenor and as an arranger); drummer Jesse Price (only with Kenton a brief time); a seventeen-year-old tenor-saxophonist named Stan Getz (who like Childers unfortunately gets no solo space) and singers Gene Howard and Anita O’Day.  O’Day, who had been with Gene Krupa’s big band until it broke up, had one hit with Kenton (“And Her Tears Flowed Like Wine”) and was generally featured on swinging numbers while Howard sang ballads.  They added commercial elements that made some of Kenton’s musical dreams possible and permitted him to keep his orchestra together even as he pursued his eventual goal of leading a concert jazz orchestra rather than a dance band.

This CD begins with a spirited version of Kenton’s initial hit, Eager Beaver.  Gene Howard sings pretty straight on I’ll Remember April before Anita O’Day is featured on the novelty rhythm piece Ride On; Karl George has the brief trumpet solo on the latter.  Russian Lullaby, one of several arrangements contributed by Joe Rizzo (an important if rarely acknowledged force in the early Kenton band); has spots for trumpeter John Carroll and Dave Matthews on tenor.  Rizzo’s reworking of Debussy’s Clair de lune is haunting and retains the character of the classical piece.  The unique Kenton ensemble sound is well featured on Build It Up And Tear It Down before O’Day’s takes her vocal.  Gene Howard’s warm and heavy voice is showcased on Moon Song.  I Know That You Know is a rarity in Kenton’s discography, a brief swing “killer diller” that cooks.  Matthews’ thick-toned tenor and trumpeter George get their chances to be heard.

Pete Rugolo would be Kenton’s main arranger during the second half of the 1940s, taking his ideas and extending them into more esoteric areas.  Opus A Dollar Three Eighty is one of his earlier efforts for Kenton.  More conventional is Gene Howard’s feature of the standard Under A Blanket Of Blue.  One of O’Day’s better showcases with the band, I Lost My Sugar In Salt Lake City originally featured her predecessor, Dolly Mitchell.  Rizzo’s chart turns Tchaikovsky’s None But The Lonely Heart into progressive dance music.  O’Day sings the wartime swing piece You Betcha.  While trumpeter John Carroll is heard on that piece, Karl George is featured (along with altoist Eddie Meyers) on The Hour Of Parting.  A year before June Christy had a hit with “Tampico” and three before Kenton was a pioneer in Afro-Cuban jazz, his orchestra hinted at sounds from south of the border on In A Little Spanish Town (with Anita O’Day) and Begin The Beguine.

The last four selections on this fourth volume are from December 1944.  By then the orchestra had left the Bob Hope show and returned to Los Angeles where they appeared in the film short Artistry In Rhythm.  The band’s personnel had changed a bit with the number of musicians growing from seventeen to eighteen with the addition of a fifth trumpeter and only nine of the players from the May orchestra still present plus the two singers.  Anita O’Day on Blues uses lyrics from some of her favorite blues songs including “St. Louis Blues” and “Fine And Mellow.”  Carroll and tenor-saxophonist Emmett Carls are featured on a swinging version of Tico Tico, O’Day returns for Special Delivery and altoist Boots Mussulli’s Conversin’ With The Brain concludes the program with a jumping original.

Stan Kenton celebrated his 33rd birthday on 15 December 1944 and his career as an innovator was still just getting started.  The MacGregor transcriptions fill an important gap in his early years.

Tracks:
01 Eager Beaver
02 I’‘ll Remember April
03 Ride On
04 Russian Lullaby
05 Clair De Lune
06 Build It Up And Tear It Down
07 Moon Song
08 I Know That You Know
09 Opus A Dollar Three Eighty
10 Under A Blanket Of Blue
11 I Last My Sugar In Salt Lake City
12 None But The Lonely Heart
13 You Betcha
14 Hour Of Parting
15 In A Little Spanish Town
16 Begin The Beguine
17 Blues
18 Tico Tico
19 Special Delivery
20 Conversin’’ With The Brain

@ 320 kbps, premium

Stan Kenton - Painted Rhythm, Vol.5, 1944-1945
Released on Naxos Jazz Legends 120714, 2003

These transcriptions were originally recorded for playing on the radio, but they give a fascinating insight into the development of the Kenton Band immediately prior to the Capital years, which made the band into a national treasure. Although the band was primarily a dance band at this time, certain Kenton trademarks like the heavy brass and excellent jazz solos were finding their way into his arrangements. Boots Mussulli plays some fine solos demonstrating how under rated he was as a musician. On tracks 1 to 12 an unknown young tenor sax player called Stan Getz is included in the saxophone section, he solos on track 11, it could well be his first recording session! On tracks 13 to 21 two other famous tenor saxists play, Vido Musso and Bob Cooper.

Vocals are to be heard from Anita O’Day, June Christy and a ballad singer named Gene Howard. It is interesting to note that a number of the musicians heard here moved into the Capital Band, Lead Trumpet Buddy Childers, Boots Mussulli, Vido Musso, Bob Cooper and bassist Eddie Safranski, along with vocalist June Christy.

The last track of the first session Artistry in Rhythm stayed in the Kenton Library throughout his life and was always a concert ‘show stopper’. Oddly enough, this is true of the last track of the second session Painted Rhythm.

The sleeve notes by Scott Yanow are very informative, a lot better than many on expensive releases! Just a minor point however, there is no vocal on track 21, Painted Rhythm! The band sounds remarkably like the Basie Band on Fine, Fine Deal, a blues with June Christy taking the vocal. June Christy’s voice was ideal for the Kenton Band, she married tenor man Bob Cooper and both were featured with the band for some years. She is heard here on tracks 13, 16, & 19, she is a unique singer with an immediately identifiable voice.

This is a very welcome the release and it is easy to see how the great Stan Kenton orchestra developed from here, the band already had some star soloists, some excellent arrangements and a really tight polished sound. The Naxos team has done another great job with regard to sound quality. In all, a very enjoyable release.

Tracks:
01 Pizzicato
02 Our Waltz
03 Tabby the Cat
04 The Man I Love
05 Stars in My Eyes
06 Sergeant’s Mess
07 And the Tears Flowed Like Wine
08 Blue Skies
09 I’m Going Mad for a Pad
10 Blow Jack
11 She’s Funny That Way
12 Artistry in Rhythm
13 My Guy’s Come Back
14 It’s Never Too Late to Pray
15 Elegie
16 Got a Jenny
17 Summertime
18 Baby Won’t You Please Come Home
19 Fine, Fine Deal
20 More Than You Know
21 Painted Rhythm.

@ 320 kbps, premium

This is such a great musical community! I just can’t thank everyone responsible (enough) for all that you’ve given us!

I’ve wanted this Box Set for ages!!

Wow!  Great…just great!!!

Dear jazzyman,
Thank you so much for your excellent sharings!
I will try to keep these memories to the people who loves to listen jazz.
Take care my friend..