Journey Into Capricorn

Birnbaum, Larry. "Record Review. Journey to Capricorn." Down Beat 5 May 1977: 24.

JOURNEY TO CAPRICORN—Creative World ST 1077: Too Shy To Say; Pegasus; Granada Smoothie; 90° Celsius; Journey To Capricorn; Celebration Suite.

Personnel Kenton, piano; Terry Layne, Roy Reynolds, Dave Sova, Greg Metcalf, Alan Yankee, Bill Fritz, reeds; Jay Sollenberger, Dave Kennedy, Steve Campos. Joe Casano, Tim Hagans, trumpets; Dick Shearer, Mike Egan, Jeff Vusitalo, Allan Morrissey, Douglas Purviance, trombones; John Worster, acoustic and electric bass; Gary Hobbs, drums, Ramon Lopez, Latin percussion.

★ ★ ★ ★

As his latest album attests, Stan Kenton at 65 is still going strong. Having just recently passed that milestone post, the while-thatched band leader maintains a whirlwind schedule of concert and club dates, frequently performing at shopping malls and community centers before audiences seldom exposed to jazz. Indeed, Kenton has made his mark as much through education as performance; his band has spawned as many college instructors as renowned players. Since 1966 Stan has annually conducted hundreds of clinics and workshops throughout the country and his band of recent years has been a showcase for young talent. Here his present youthful ensemble manages to preserve the classic Kenton sound in up-to-date arrangements by Mark Taylor, Alan Yankee and the redoubtable Hank Levy. Contemporary material by Stevie Wonder and Chick Corea is adapted with remarkable compatibility to the overall band concept.

Wonder's Too Shy To Say opens with Ken­ton himself in fine pianistic fettle as the band proceeds to make the tune its own. The same swinging feeling permeates the entire session, combining all the hallmarks of the Kenton legacy—Latin rhythms, driving traps, progressive harmonies, sharp dynamics, sonorous horns and strong solo work—in a festive, mostly uptempo blend. The culmination is an extended treatment of Corea's Celebration Suite; the affinities between the musics of old master and young are manifestly evident and bespeak the continuity of the progressive tradition to the present day. Not the least of the album's virtues is the clarity of the recording, courtesy once again of Kenton's own Creative World label.—Birnbaum.

Newman, Peter C. "Record Review: Kenton '76 / Journey to Capricorn / Live in Europe." High Fidelity Apr. 1977: 145.

Kenton '76. Robert Curnow, producer. Creative World ST 1076. $6.50.

Stan Kenton: Journey to Capricorn. Stan Kenton, executive producer. Creative World ST ST 1077, $6.50.

Stan Kenton—Live in Europe. Ray Few, producer Decca/London SP 44276, $6.98. Tape: SP5 442 76, SP8 44276, $7.95.

These three albums are testimony to Kenton’s unflagging musical integrity. At sixty-five, he is the Billy Graham of jazz, proselytizing from his chartered bus at one-night stands beneath the floodlights. On “Kenton ’76,” he turns Sondheim’s Send in the Clowns into an evocative musical statement about the values of our society and My Funny Valentine into a pseudo-symphonic tone poem. ‘"Journey to Capricorn” includes Hank Levy’s Time for a Change, Decoupage, and Journey to Capricorn. Here the band band skids along in velvet virtuosity punctuated by yelps of passion from Tim Hagan’s trumpet and Terry Lane’s saxophone. In Pegasus, Levy combines 6/8 and 3 /4 time signatures to lift the Kenton sound to its ultimate potential. Only in Bill Holman's Tiburon (“Kenton ’76”) and Alan Yankee's arrangement of Chick Corea’s Celebration Suite (“Journey”) does the orchestra sound disoriented and uncertain of its territory.

The best of the albums is “Stan Kenton—Live in Europe,” recorded at an Amsterdam concert in the fall of 1976. The band sounds relaxed and free, its swirl of tonal colors adding new dimensions to such standards as I’m Glad There Is You and My Old Flame. Dick Shearer’s solo on Love for Sale clearly establishes him as one of the best jazz trombonists in captivity. The band leans heavily on Maurice Ravel for the Bolero-like extravaganza, Fire and Ice, but quickly redeems itself with Tattooed Lady, an Alan Yankee original that documents tonal progressions lacking in much of rock. A magnificent version of Billy Strayhorn’s haunting Lush Life completes the set.

This is vintage Kenton. But unlike his early, pretentious efforts, these recordings reflect the joy of a man who has not only survived, but grown. Stan Kenton a his best is now playing music as purely pleasurable as any. PETER C. NEWMAN

"Record Review: Journey to Capricorn." Jazz Journal International Aug. 1977: 35.