Adventures in Blues

Nine superbly written Gene Roland arrangements, colorfully narrated by Stan Kenton's big band, explore—a chapter at a time—one of the most romantic and powerful volumes in the Kenton library.

When his Orchestra made its debut on the big band scene in 1941 ·at the Rendezvous Ballroom in Balboa, California, Stan Kenton created with his library of thirty-five arrangements a fiercely-original and pervasive sound. Since then the creative resources of no less than twenty orchestrators, writing at various stages in the band's history, have helped Stan increase the library to well over' 4500 scores.

ADVENTURES IN BLUES dramatizes the excitement and assiduous originality Kenton has for the past two decades demanded be infused into the band’s library. Each of Gene Roland's minor-keyed compositions, from the wailing Night At The Gold Nugget to the pensive Dragonwyck, not only runs the gamut of all the emotions synonymous with the blues, but also emphasizes Stan's comment that "the band’s music must symbolize a civilization in motion, and help fulfill the creative challenges of the Twentieth Century.”

Roland's long tenure with the Orchestra, since 1944, as a sideman and orchestrator has had an impressive influence in helping construct the musical architecture of the band. In 1946 he suggested that the complement of trombones be increased from four to five. The addition of Bart Varsalona's bass trombone gave the section a resonant, more cohesive sound and had a marked effect on the writing done, not only for Kenton’s trombones, but brass sections in general.

In Omaha, Nebraska, Roland urged Stan to add a fifth trumpet to the section so that the clean, stabbing sound of the trumpets could be orchestrated with new dimensions against the dusky patterns of the trombones and reeds.

In 1960, seven months before Kenton added the mellophoniums to the Orchestra, Roland toured for five months with the eighteen-piece band playing solo horn, pretesting the range and intonation of the mellophonium so that when the time came to write for a full section, most of the technical and orchestrational problems were ironed out.

ADVENTURES IN BLUES is, then, two stories in one: Roland's provocative nine-chapter volume of the blues, and his nineteen-year association with Stan as friend, musician, arranger, composer and innovator.

Side One

REUBEN’S BLUES
The trombones tied to Bob Fitzpatrick's big, round lead note earnestly advance toward Roland's brittle soprano sax solo. This assertive, vivid composition emphasizes the wonderfuL shoulder-shaking sound of Kenton's trombones, tempered in the shimmering wake of horns and trumpets.

DRAGONWYCK
Roland's sax in its search for a time long lost, sensitively preludes Marv Stamm's explicit narrative. Spilling end-over-end with tightly controlled statements, the Orchestra, held to close quarter by a whipping sax chord, relinquishes further exploration to Baltazar's alto and Roland's still-searching soprano.

BLUE GHOST
Stan's piano, floating close to Marv Starnm's muted trumpet, deftly illustrates the band's probing portrait of a young girl in a blue dress who, although she never failed to appear whenever the Orchestra played in Ohio, always slipped quietly away before anyone could learn her name.

EXIT STAGE LEFT
Muscular exclamations from the sax section, punctuated by horns and trombones, open the way for Roland’s punching horn and Baltazar's insistent alto. The Orchestra plunging valiantly ahead, bites off huge chunks or notes and disperses them to the horns and saxes. The horns, in their haste to merge the various counter melodies into one final, brief statement, force everyone to exit stage right.

Side Two

NIGHT AT THE GOLD NUGGET
Roland wrote this arrangement in honor of Don Mupo, whose night dub in Oakland, California, is decorated with huge photo murals of the Kenton Orchestra and nightly vibrates with the recorded sound of the library. After a declarative opening by the saxes, Roland kicks off with ten fingers of soprano sax, followed by a belting horn solo. Interspersed throughout by a rafter-ringing ensemble chorus, Roland's high-altitude horn forcefully affirms that a Night At The Gold Nugget is a night long-remembered.

FORMULA SK-32
There is no set formula involved in writing the blues for Stanley Kenton's band, other than to remember that there are 32 bars to a chorus. Roland tries to keep this in mind as his crackling horn tosses off sparks, igniting fiery ensemble work.

APHRODISIA
Marv Stamm’s caressing muted trumpet lights the way for Roland's melancholy horn lines. Although his solo is more reminiscent of a love just passed in lieu of a love to come, Roland is nonetheless emphatically affected by the tender memory it evokes.

FITZ
This tribute to Bob Fitzpatrick opens with a percussive chorus from his own section. Homs and saxes rotating back and forth bow in deference as he commences to develop a sinewy, impeccably-clean solo. Conceded to be the strongest sounding trombonist in music, Fitz drives the point home as he grandly punctuates the trumpet's final statements.

THE BLUES STORY
Dee Barton's buoyant trombone, rolling restlessly against shifting ensemble lines, builds to storm proportions as he describes the blues. Roland, anxious to continue the account, emphasizes with consummate skill-first with sax, then horn-the scope, impact and variation the blues can take, especially in such a robust and defiant framework.

—Noel Wedder

*In 1962, because of its historical significance, Kenton's library was sent to North Texas State University in order that it could be made available for research and preserved for posterity. Every arrangement, excluding the material unavoidably lost during twenty-two years of concert and dance dates and the current material, is now safely stored in North Texas State's music library.

ADVENTURES IN BLUES - Capitol 1985: Reuben's Blues; Dragonwyck; Blue Ghost; Exit Stage Left; Night at the Gold Nugget; Formula SK-32; Aphrodisia; Fitz; The Blues Story.

Personnel: Dalton Smith, Marv Stamm, Bob Behrendt, Bob Rolfe, Norman Baltazar, trumpets; Bob Fitzpatrick, Dee Barton, Newell (Bud) Parker, Dave Wheeler, Jim Amlotte, trombones; Dwight Carver, Keith LaMotte, Ray Starling, Carl Saunders, Gene Roland, mellophoniums; Gabe Baltazar, Buddy Arnold, Paul Renzi, Allan Beutler, Joel Kaye, Roland, reeds; Kenton, piano; Pat Senatore, bass; Jerry McKenzie, drums.

Rating: ★ ★ ★

Kenton takes a back seat on this date to his long-time sideman, Gene Roland. Roland has written all the arrangements and is the chief soloist, his boss appearing prominently only on Ghost. The label credits the arranger with the composition of all the tunes, too, though the lead-off tune is actually a steal of that old folk song Reuben, Reuben.

Reuben illustrates the primary flaw of this recording: the rigidity and predictability of the music, as if every phrase were slide-ruled carefully beforehand and, aside from the solos, not a single note left to chance. For instance, Roland uses the device on Reuben of a two-beat tattoo to punctuate the end of the first eight bars of the melody. It is very effective at first, but the novelty wears thin after six times, and the formula is always the same: eight bars, boom-boom, then four bars out. Roland's soprano saxophone interlude is the only break in the orchestral scoring. More generally, the pieces do not have much of a blues feeling.

Yet the music is pretty, in the best sense of the word. If Roland does not allow much room for individual freedom, he has nevertheless written some lovely melodies whose moods his arrangements sustain with great effectiveness.

Aphrodisia, Dragonwyck, and Ghost are particularly rich performances. Ghost features a Kenton solo that is startlingly suggestive of Dave Brubeck, reminiscent especially of Brubeck's work on Audrey and Makin' Time of a few years back. To continue what is perhaps a strained analogy, Roland himself sounds like a soprano Paul Desmond, even to some of his phrasing. He, like Desmond, plays with a distinctive liquid lyricism.

Despite Roland's contemporary approach to his own instrument, his orchestral thinking seems rooted essentially in the 1940s (note particularly Stage Left, Formula, Fitz). The sound of the instruments is, of course, in the modern mode, but the section voicings seem to stem mainly from the postwar era.

Three other soloists make brief appearances: trumpeter Stamm and trombonists Barton and Fitzpatrick, to whom Roland dedicated Fitz. All acquit themselves well. (D.N.)

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Nelsen, Don. “Record Review. Adventures in Blues (Capitol).” Down Beat 31, no. 2 (1964-01-16): 30.

"Record Review. Adventures in Blues." Billboard 16 Nov. 1963: 9.

ADVENTURES IN BLUES
Stan Kenton. Capitol T 1985 (M): ST 1985 (S)

A Kenton jazz venture into the blues. featuring nine of orchestrator Gene Roland’s compositions. Roland, a Kenton stalwart for 19 years, also sits in on this set with his soprano sax. The performances emphasize the interplay of stabbing trumpets with vibrant massed trombones. Package will be a must for kenton fans and all jazz lovers.