A Festival of Modern American Jazz

Unfestive Crowd Aids Kenton Festival of Jazz

New York—Stan Kenton’s current concert package is helping to prove two important points. First, that if you don’t offer “go-go-go” music you don’t have to contend with a “go-go-go” audience. Second, that a musically-honest show can be a success at the boxoffice.

This “Festival Of Modern American Jazz,” which skipped New York but which we caught at the Mosque theater in Newark, N.J., justified its title on an admirably dignified level. Dreamed up by Cress Courtney in collaboration with Stan, it kept the Kenton band onstage for the entire show except for Erroll Garner’s stint. There wasn’t a single lull, the pacing was almost faultless, and the music was about as consistently interesting as anything that’s been presented in jazz concert format since the early days of Duke Ellington’s annual soirees.

Other Respects

The Ellington era was recalled in other respects, for Stan’s commentaries were in the best of taste, neither too ponderous nor too humorous; and the 3,000 people present had clearly come to listen rather than to tear upholstery or climb chandeliers. To complete the picture, the staging was smooth and, mirabile dictu, the p.a. system didn’t break down once.

The Kenton band numbers came in groups of two or three throughout the show, spelled by the specialties, which started with Candido and proceeded with Slim Gaillard, Stan Getz, Erroll Garner, Dizzy Gillespie, and June Christy.

The band itself, which has impressed this listener more and more in recent months as the swingingest crew Stan has ever presented, offered a colorful series of showcase numbers featuring the soloists. Bob Burgess did justice to Bill Russo’s Solitaire, Lee Konitz was well accoutered with a new Bill Holman piece, In Lighter Vein. Zoot Sims, Frank Rosolino and Conte Candoli were similarly presented. Sal Salvador’s guitar on Sweets and Dave Schildkraut’s alto on the Mulligan opener, Young Blood, were surprise highlights.

Good Settings

No less impressive was the manner in which Russo and Holman provided settings for the guests. Even Slim Gaillard’s comedy interlude on guitar, piano, bass, drums, and bongos was neatly orchestrated. Stan’ Getz, though bothered by reed squeaks, was most impressive on a Holman score based on Out of Nowhere changes.

Dizzy, introduced by Stan as a great trumpet player, would have done better to justify it immediately with the Johnny Richards arrangement of On the Alamo (which he used as his second piece) instead of walking onstage and singing Ooh Shoobee Doobee. But despite all the shaking of tonsils and derriere, Dizzy impressed with some authoritative blowing on Mantecca [sic], for which he was teamed with Candido, and with which he came close to stopping the show.

The roguish Mr. Garner was his usual piquant, picaresque self in a delightful set backed by Wyatt Ruther’s bass and Fats Heard’s drums.

The balance sheet shows approximately 100 minutes of viable music out of 120, a percentage almost unheard of in contemporary concert packages. Messrs. Kenton and Courtney deserve three muted cheers for their efforts; muted because, like the well-behaved audience they attracted, we, too, don’t want to interrupt the music.

-len

Jazz Festival Stirs Audience at Eastman
By Harvey Southgate

Out the window went most of the accepted notions of musical form and harmony last night as the Stan Kenton players took over the Eastman Theater for a festival of Modern American Jazz. An audience of nearly capacity size cheered everything on the long program, clamored for more at the end.

Anyone who thinks of jazz as “being on its way” must revise the estimate in the face of a program like that offered last night. It has arrived as a new form of musical expression, found its own field, and if it has not broken completely with the old standards of melody and tunefulness, it has left them pretty well wrenched. Even the music of George Gershwin, which seemed like a daring innovation a generation or so ago, sounds almost old fashioned beside the new jazz idiom of today, with its emphasis almost entirely on dissonance, sensuous beat and odd dance rhythms. Jazz of this sort is here, probably to stay, and a very large number of people find in it something that appeals strongly to them. And it is, unquestionably, an all-American contribution.

Technically, the musicians assembled by Mr. Kenton have an amazing skill. No matter what the instrument maybe—trumpet, saxophone, trombone—the agility shown in the strange musical figures of jazz never fails. Arpeggios, thirds, sevenths, ninths, or what you will, are performed with virtuostic [sic] ease. To this reviewer the most truly musical part of the program was the piano playing of Erroll Garner, with subdued string bass and drum background. This was not only agile playing, it was syncopation in its purest form and with enough suggestion of melody, based on popular songs, to have a definite appeal.

June Christy, popular songster and maker of records, also gave a melodic turn to the program with her husky-voiced singing of old and new numbers, including a brand new one, “Something Cool,” that brought down the house. For those who like song stylists of the present mode, Miss Christy is a very personable and talented dish.

Mr. Kenton himself, at the piano and as master of ceremonies, was much in the picture, and shared the applause with the soloists, including Dizzy Gillespie, phenomenal trumpet player; Slim Gaillard, musical comedian; Stan Getz, another exceptional trumpet [sic], and Candido, uncanny master of the bongo, a kind of drum that is struck with the bare hands. Exceptional players of saxophone, trombone and drums also stood out.