Search - Stan Kenton :: Kenton Showcase

The Essence of Stan Kenton

John Pearson | Osterville, MA USA | 08/17/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This orchestra tried everything musically over the four decades we had to hear it live. You loved it--truly loved it--or you hated it.No in between. But for those of us who truly loved Stan and his music, the energy and art of Showcase is in our blood.It's a collection of brilliant scores by two of the world's richest and diverse writers. Bill Holman the swinger and Bill Russo the scluptor. The arrangements are performed by maybe the best musicians Kenton had ever assembled. If you own one Kenton album, it should be this one."

A study in contrasts

Richard J. Boivin | Hemet, Ca United States | 04/01/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"It's great to have this album on remastered CD., The sound is terrific. I wore out my first copy of this album 50 years ago as a teenager. Kenton got my classically trained ear into jazz and this album was a big part of it. Bill Russo wrote the kind of thing Kenton was really after, I believe, but Bill Holman's arrangements swing and show his genius too. These two composers are really a contrast in approaches to jazz. The liner notes say how the band members weren't too crazy about Russo's approach, but you can't deny the beauty of Russo's work even now, so many years later. Both men are giants and a giant gave them this opportunity to show their work. It's an album worth having."

Russo and Holman - the future of big bands and jazz orchestr

R. Viehdorfer | Arvada CO | 07/18/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This is, to my ear, an essential part of the Kenton library. These are recordings that advanced ideas uncommon in jazz at that time and presaged third stream, as coined by Schuller, and initially practiced, in this date and time, by the MJQ and other post-modernists, Kenton included (The Innovations Orchestra). Both composers are featured, with Russo being the more avant-garde; his compositions are complex, interesting, and compelling, avoiding the typical stiffness and, frankly, boredom of most previous attempts to sandwich modern classical music with modern jazz elements. Holman carves a different sculpture, embracing more aspects of the blues, as well as modern harmonics and structure, while not losing the essence of what a big band should be. It's interesting to note that Holman, along with Bob Brookmeyer, established much of what became the mold for modern big band arrangers, and worked with the likes of Terry Gibbs and Buddy Rich, among others, in the years to come. Specific performances to note on this release are too numerous to mention; however, I always gravitate to A Theme of Four Values, Thisbe, Bacante, Egdon Heath, Bags, Theme And Variations, and Kingfish. My 4 Star rating has more to do with the sound quality than the performances; they were recorded in 1953-54 and suffer the technical limitations of the time, mainly, mono sound and the inevitable compression. Included on this date are such stellar players as Lee Konitz, Maynard Ferguson, Stan Levy, Candido Camero, and Zoot Sims, as well as Russo and Holman in the sections. A joy to listen to is the wonderfully individual alto sound of Davey Schildkraut, who also played and recorded with Miles Davis. This is one of only two or three Kenton releases that I find essential to my library."