A Certain Turmoil

A year ago last December, "progressive" Jazzman Stan Kenton decided to quit. His band was making almost as much money as it was noise, but Stan, who regarded himself as strictly a concert man, didn't like some of-the places he had to play, especially the dance halls. And he wasn't sure, he added, that he was "contributing." He toyed with the idea that he might contribute more by becoming a psychiatrist. "I guess I talked up a storm about the thing," he says. "Everybody thought that was going to be the next move." But it would have meant a long grind through pre-med courses and medical school," and Stan was already 37. Last week his latest move, right back to what he started from, was the loudest thing in Los Angeles.

To the frenetic mob, mostly teenagers, that overflowed Los Angeles' 2,670-seat Philharmonic Auditorium to hear him, Bandman Kenton nervously explained what he was up to; he wanted listeners to write their confidential reactions to his "innovations in modern music for 1950" on the cards that had been handed out. But, he warned, "If you start looking for melody, you won't find any . . . We get a"great thing out of concocting sound." He went on rapidly to add: "It's sound concoction." With that he whirled around to let them have it.

The first belt of sound from the brasses pinned them to their chairs. Lanky Stan Kenton flapped his arms like a scarecrow in a hurricane as the 38-piece band blasted out a "montage" of the jazzed-up dissonances that Kentonites have slavered over since 1941: Artistry in Percussion, Opus in Pastels, Artistry Jumps. Every once in a while he gave them a breather: blonde June Christy came onstage and cooed Get Happy, Lonesome Road and I'll Remember April. Most of the time it was a bewildering battle between the violins, violas and cellos on one side and the bursting brasses on the other. Kenton himself admitted that there was room for improvement. Said he afterward: "The greatest criticism we had was for the fact that the brass section, when it spoke, it spoke so loud that the string section which it interrupted was so completely dominated that it all sounded disconnected--as if they were playing two different pieces."

He was sure he was on the right track with,his main idea. "It's a funny thing," he said. "People hear music and they don't know what the hell they like about it, but it creates a certain turmoil, a certain insecurity, certain things that are with us today."

Earnest, ever-posing Stan Kenton was set to take his turmoil on a tour of 77 U.S. and Canadian cities, beginning this week.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.