Prom 71 tribute to stan kenton

[Guest]

Looks interesting - I guess that Claire Martin will dep for June Christy. Will the BBC Big Band do Wagner?

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

the prospect of the "BBC" Big band [it ain't it just kept the name] doing the Kenton thing is dismaying .... i find their recent performances cludgy and unswinging, they may benefit from the Kenton book but his band didn't swing much either ..... be a great knees up i guess ... more hippodrome than hip

[Serial_Apologist]

the prospect of the "BBC" Big band [it ain't it just kept the name] doing the Kenton thing is dismaying .... i find their recent performances cludgy and unswinging, they may benefit from the Kenton book but his band didn't swing much either ..... be a great knees up i guess ... more hippodrome than hip

English is great, isn't it, when it allows one to improvise a word like cludgy into existence. Yesterday I came across "clag" on a weather site, as describing the formless grey kind of stratus that we now have here, obscuring important detail. hence, "claggy". Or should that be "Cleggie"?

We had Kenton as COTW a few years ago, if my memory serves me right - or was it a series of jazz programmes? - anyway, I found it pretty heavy going - me of all people! - so will be giving this Prom a definite miss.

S-A

[MarkG]

This Prom seems to have produced two separate threads.

Do the MBers think such jazz 'tributes' or recreations are musically meaningful?

I like SK's music but not sure about the BBC BB going note-for-note through the arrangements with CM standing for June Christy et al.

I'll probably give it a listen anyway.

[BBMmk2]

Surely, with Jazz,you just cannot recreate something that has happened before. It's different everytime?

[Serial_Apologist]

Surely, with Jazz,you just cannot recreate something that has happened before. It's different everytime?

Depends on how the re-creations are done, who will be taking solos, how re-interpretive it is possible to be with Kenton.

[barber olly]

Surely, with Jazz,you just cannot recreate something that has happened before. It's different everytime?

Interesting, are jazz and classical music two poles or a continuum. At one end of the scale don't mess around with the classics and at the other don't try to copy jazz. With smaller jazz ensembles I guess it is different everytime, with big bands there is often large tranches of note following, otherwise it probably wouldn't work. The different every time bits may come with the solos. The likes of Kenton and Billy May in the 50s and 60s did some interesting messing about with the classics but my guess is that BBCBB will not dabble in them at the Proms.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

This Prom seems to have produced two separate threads.

It's actually two branches of the same thread, posted originally on the Jazz board, but copied into the "Proms Concerts" as it's relevant there too.

[Tenor Freak]

Meh. I'm STILL waiting for a Prom which features the music of Mingus and Russell, hell even Kenny Wheeler before it's too late if you catch my drift.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

nah he will be dead afore then Tenor F

[Serial_Apologist]

A few years ago, Kenny Wheeler was granted joint billing in a COTW on himself, Gil Evans and... Mingus, was it? Ian Carr did the presentation. I cannot think of a more worthy figurehead of jazz in this country than Kenny to be given a Prom: it would also be a wonderful opportunity to offer a window onto the many and great musicians who have worked with him on his projects over the past near half century.

[Quarky]

Meh. I'm STILL waiting for a Prom which features the music of Mingus and Russell, hell even Kenny Wheeler before it's too late if you catch my drift.

Well yes, I would much rather hear Charlie Mingus or Kenny Wheeler than Stan Kenton.

But we are at the Proms, which I guess is primarily symphonic music for the white middle class. And perhaps Stan fits more easily with that grouping than Charlie Mingus, and others with greater jazz credentials.

Prompted by Alpensinfonie, I have been listening some of Stan's performances in London and elsewhere in the 70's, and they are really quite good. Of course Stan's trade mark is a shrieking trumpet section at full blast, which is not my cup of tea. But I can't get Intermission Riff out of my head: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oax-u-X0G8E

[Serial_Apologist]

There is one Kenton track, which I recorded off a Jazz Record Requests programme many years ago and always find very beautiful and haunting. I have no date or personnel for it, though it sounds very 1967-ish. It is called "Quintile".

EDIT: Just Googled - it is on "Adventures in Time" (1962)

S-A

[burning dog]

Mingus arranged for the BBC Big Band...

How about this one?

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

Mingus arranged for the BBC Big Band...

what an absolutely appalling idea ...

especially when there is this