Artistry In Voices and Brass

Anyone who has followed the music of the Kenton Orchestra over the years knows that only about half the library is given over to hard-driving jazz scores. Kenton himself has written and arranged a wealth of material in the more romantic vein, and many of these instrumental selections have taken their place among Stan's greatest hits in the popular field, and have even been choreographed by the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and the Sadler's Wells Ballet Company.

Now, "Artistry in Voices and Brass" presents some of Stan's finest romantic music in a new lyrical approach…new romantic ballads that present yet another stunning example of Kenton's skill in creating and sustaining infinite levels of beauty.

Working with a vocal group is nothing new for Kenton. In 1946 he made a series of commercially-successful records with The Pastels, whose style of working with dissonances and close voicings remains one of the most imitated.

It is also significant that the material Kenton and his arrangers wrote for Anita O'Day, June Christy, Chris Connor, Ann Richards and more recently Jean Turner, set a precedent by allowing the vocalist unlimited freedom to create a story line of her own. She could soar through a variety of moods and be assured the band would always be there to guide her home.

The compositions written for this album by Stan, Bill Russo (Solitaire) and Pete Rugolo, his collaborator of eighteen years and arranger of this album, sparkle with Milt Raskin's haunting lyrics. During preliminary meetings with Rugolo and Raskin, Stan decided that rather than use the Orchestra, a better cause might be served if the themes were scored for eighteen voices (4 sopranos, 4 altos, 4 tenors, 4 baritones and 2 basses) augmented by five trombones and a rhythm section. "Pete and I felt," said Kenton, "that by treating original material with the proper lyrics we could give credence to our theory that modern music is endowed with as many levels of romantic love as a Rodgers and Hart ballad. Lyrics, we knew, would add a new dimension to thematic material which had been written expressly for an orchestra and not a vocal group.

"For years Rugolo and I had sought someone whose musical turn of mind was such that he could write lyrics for the themes associated with the band. Both of us had been approached by a number of lyricists who felt their material complemented our scores, but invariably their ideas completely missed the musical point we were trying to emphasize.

"Then last winter, about ten days before the band left for a tour of Great Britain, Milt Raskin showed me lyrics he had written for eleven of our compositions. I was quite excited about the things Milt had done and a week later —after Pete had an opportunity to write the arrangements—we recorded this album with some of the finest, most disciplined voices in Hollywood."

Raskin, one of the West Coast's most gifted musicians and lyricists, supplies the perfect complement to Kenton and Rugolo's material. His poetical appraisal of Kenton's dominant and counter themes in Concerto to End All Concertos, and his crystallization of the rollicking joy woven throughout Sunset Tower confirm just two of the reasons why Stan waited so long to find "someone whose ideas were delightfully free of musical cliches."

—Noel Wedder