A Festival of Modern American Jazz

Kenton Band Shrills For Show
By Michael Levin

Stan Kenton’s konglomeration opened its 1954-’55 chowderhouse and stompin’ season in Carnegie Hall, playing 27 pieces of music to a good-sized audience at 8 :30 p.m. and an only fairish one at midnight on Oct. 11. Billed as a Festival of Modern American Jazz, the concert supplied pretty thin feeding.

Besides eight selections from the 20-member Kenton crew, a slowly warming audience heard Candido bongo one, conga another; Johnny Smith play three on guitar; Charlie Ventura do six, with three Mary Ann McCall vocals; Shorty Rogers’ Giants contribute four, and the Art Tatum trio top all the others with five tunes.

Band Disappoints

Disappointment of the concert? The Kenton band itself, offering an over-all sound that was almost shrill, with no feeling of section smack and some drumming by Mel Lewis that not only followed the band but also was too often too loud. Solos were undistinguished save for the alto chase portions manned by Lennie Niehaus and Charlie Mariano on Improvisation, and several other alto solos by Niehaus alone.

Smith played the inevitable Moonlight in Vermont and two other ballads in his usually fleet, detached manner, while Ventura’s group made very pleasant listening of Parlay, the greatest help being Dave McKenna’s piano. Mary Ann has been better on many occasions; this just wasn’t one of her nights.

Shorty Registers

The crowd justifiably liked Shorty Rogers’ group on the Basie-like Walked All Round [Walk, Don’t Run], while the Bob Cooper-scoring of Jazz Invention’s baritone sax, trumpet, and piano came off well, indeed. Nine minutes of Bud Powell’s Un Poco Moco [Un Poco Loco] killed the people, with Shelley Manne giving all concerned a thorough lesson in what can be done on a set of drums and bells, employing brushes, sticks, and bare hands.

The Shelled one may not be the quietest, most unobtrusively swinging drummer who ever happened, but he certainly is always interesting, always facile, always expert in what he does.

Hit Of Evening

Highest happiness for the crowd was created by the Tatum trio, with Slam Stewart (bass) and Everett Barksdale (guitar) hanging on for dear life. Art played nothing excessively new (Tenderly, Tea, Lorraine, and Body), hut he certainly managed to play it excessively. Indeed, the concert featured Artistry in Rhythm, but the question was which Art was the artist?

From the Kenton combo as this tour goes on, are needed better soloists and more scoring to slightly greater effect (most of their pieces ran little more than standard record length). From all concerned should come better programming. Following a group of combos with one final four-minute band selection hardly builds an evening to a climax.

Beg your pardon, Klimax.

---

Levin, Michael. “Kenton Band Shrills for Show.” Down Beat. 17 November 1954: 19.

Kenton Heads Jazz Stars In Oakland Arena Concert
By Theresa Loeb Cone

Devotees of jazz flocked to Oakland’s Arena Auditorium last night for the second Festival of Modern American Jazz presided over by pianist-bandleader Stan Kenton.

On the more that two-hour program such jazz great as Art Tatum, Charlie Ventura, Shorty Rogers, Shelly Manne, Johnny Smith, Candido and Mary Ann McCall gave generous samples of their specialties in the field.

YOUNG AND OLD

The audience itself was largely composed of music-lovers 21 and under, although to be sure we noticed a few grey heads in the crowd. A gentleman across the way from us, in fact, bore a startling resemblance to George Bernard Shaw, beard and all.

Kenton’s band is a loud one, a fact that was further emphasized by the auditorium’s size. Those saxaphones [sic], trombones, etc., filled every corner of the arena with sound, which occasionally was lowered to a sort of mournful wailing.

Especially well received among the performers was the brilliant work of Afro-Cuban drummer Candido on the bongo and conga drums. Drummer Manne also was accorded a great ovation although his playing did not have the brilliance of the Candido performance.

SHORTY TAKES OVER

Another great favorite was trumpeter Shorty Rogers at the head of a five-piece combo which won cheers and loud whistles for the playing of “Old Black Magic” and “Pennies From Heaven” [these tunes were played by Kenton’s band featuring Frank Rosolino, not Rogers’s band] Guitarist Johnny Smith’s version of “Moonlight in Vermont” and “I Remember April” also proved very popular with the listeners.

However, Art Tatum’s original piano styling as part of the Tatum trio (guitar and bass) proved the high spot of the show, as far as this reviewer is concerned. This is an opinion which obviously was not completely shared by the ardent hep-cats of the Eastbay seated all around me.

They apparently felt the session was “real crazy.” At that, it was.

---

Cone, Theresa Loeb. “Kenton Heads Jazz Stars in Oakland Arena Concert.” Oakland Tribune 20 Sep. 1954: 15.

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.

---

Southgate, Harvey. "Jazz Festival Stirs Audience at Eastman." Rochester Democrat and Chronicle 4 Nov. 1953: 12.

Stan Kenton Jazz Festival Raises Rafters at College
By Jack Bolt

Stan Kenton and his “Festival of Modern American Jazz” blew into Michigan State college auditorium Tuesday night, raising the rafters and shaking the fillings out of teeth. It was the familiar Kenton, with brasses screaming to extremes and woodwinds moaning low, the results somewhere in no-man’s territory—that country of sound sometimes described as music, and sometimes as madness. But it was still the noisy, enjoyable Kenton.

The program was a well balanced and varied one. Candido, a bongo and conga drummer, joined the Kenton crowd to present modern jazz in its most primitive form—a rhythmic, intense demonstration in percussion. Johnny Smith, guitarist, performed with finesse, strumming out some wonderful sounds with deft versatility.

Charlie Ventura and his quintet were well representative of modern jazz, performing pieces in which each artist could solo to advantage. His featured vocalist, Mary Ann McCall, sang a husky, be-bop blues, balancing nicely the throaty sax of Ventura.

The Shorty Rogers group, with Shelly Manne on drums, gave out with music indicative of contemporary music—something one might call “polished improvisation.” Shelly Manne, hunched shoulders and contorted face, was as much fun to watch as to hear.

The program was rounded out by Art Tatum and his trio, with their easy, foot-tapping rhythms. Tatum is understandably a genius of jazz, and the audience enjoyed his smooth, sophisticated piano. All in all, the “festival” was a success, with enough variety, and enough new sounds, to make it a satisfying experience.

—JACK BOLT

---

Bolt, Jack. "Stan Kenton Jazz Festival Raises Rafters at College." Lansing State Journal, October 6, 1954.