Kenton Wagner

Modern Wagnerian themes, complemented by classically-sensitive Stan Kenton arrangements, create for you an expressive musical experience and emphasize why Wagner and Kenton belong to every age.


Stan Kenton's interest in classical music began during a chance meeting with French composer Maurice Ravel when Stan was only nineteen. Kenton was sitting in a crowded dance hall on Chicago's north-side, listening to clarinetist Jimmy Noone, when a waiter seated Ravel at his table.

"I was so absorbed in following what Noone’s combo was doing," said Stan, "that at least ten minutes went by before either of us spoke. Although I was familiar with Ravel's music I had no idea of what he looked like. As far as I was concerned the elderly, distinguished gentleman to my left was just another fan of Jimmy's.

"After we introduced ourselves Ravel explained that he was in the United States making notes for a symphony based on ‘this jazzy new music which is sweeping the world.’

"I asked him what possible inspiration jazz could hold for a composer of his stature.

" 'Mr. Kenton,’ he said softly, ‘music is a dynamic language. A language which grows by building upon a thousand ideas and a dozen concepts. As a composer you must listen to all the sounds surrounding you so that you can develop your own musical philosophy. For only by exploring, seeking and searching for constructive ways to extend the horizon of musical literature will you be able to progress.

‘Always listen; always analyze; so that your compositions will be vigorously creative and representative of the world you live and write in. Do this and music; will become your creative fantasy’."

In 1940 after more than eight years of study Kenton began composing and arranging for his own orchestra. "Everytime I'd sit at the piano and begin writing," said Stan, "I’d think about all the things Ravel and I discussed that night. In fact, he was the stimulus for two of the things I later wrote for the Artistry in Rhythm Orchestra. I think if he had lived he would have enjoyed analyzing the structure of Artistry in Bolero and Fantasy"

Over the next ten years Stan and chief arranger Pete Rugolo became convinced that the only way to make their modern music survive was to experiment with the complex ideas of the classical school and to fuse them along new thematic and harmonic lines. "If I had stuck to the original music that Pete and I wrote for the Artistry in Rhythm Orchestra," said Stan, "I’d probably be the richest man in music today. But I'd also be the most bored!"

In addition to jazz and dance arrangements, Kenton and Rugolo added concert scores to the library which we re inspired by the writings of Ravel, Debussy, Hindemith, Stravinsky and Schonberg. By 1949, Kenton's intense urge to communicate musically on as many levels as possible again caused him to re-evaluate his creative perspective.

Even though his music had been accepted as one of the most provocative art forms of the twentieth century, he still sought new methods for breaking down the harmonic barriers which had crippled contemporary music for so many years. If his music was to speak of textures, tempos and contrasts characteristic of the age, then the range of the Orchestra would have to be expanded.

In January of 1950, Kenton assembled a forty-piece orchestra which included violins, cellos, woodwinds, brass and tympani, and commissioned a new library to be written. The Innovations in Modern Music Orchestra not only allowed him to present a classical approach to jazz, but proved a big band could remain in existence even though it had dramatically shifted musical direction. Critics throughout the world unanimously agreed that Kenton's neo-classic concert scores had intelligently begun to bridge the gap between jazz and classical music. And yet, although the thematic material Kenton wrote for the Innovation's Orchestra made a lasting contribution to modern music, he relentlessly followed his artistic conscience and kept accumulating knowledge in order to project new ideas. By 1964, the scope, subtlety, and brooding brilliance of his music emphasized the sharpness and accuracy of his reminiscences of the contemporary scene.

Last winter while preparing a lecture on the influences classical music had had on his own writing he began sketching out on the piano an arrangement of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, as it might sound if Wagner had scored it for the Kenton Orchestra. The more he analyzed Wagner's music the more convinced he became that the Kenton Orchestra should record the music of Germany’s revolutionary 19th century composer.

So it was that Stan wrote these venturesome arrangements that reflect with precision the detail of Wagner's superbly constructed themes. Without obscuring a single line of Wagner's work, he has emphasized their mutual appreciation of rich, iconoclastic harmonies and striking instrumental blends.

By artistically splashing tonal and rhythmic color over Wagner's intricately-sensitive dominant and counter themes, Stan has exemplified how closely their ideas complement each other—Wagner’s thought-provoking narratives, strengthened by Kenton's colorful commentary, build and burst with twentieth-century clarity and conviction.

The musical adventure Richard Wilhelm Wagner began in Bavaria one hundred years ago continues to be just as exciting as ever. Thanks to Stan Kenton’s philosophy that music, in order to survive and flourish, must at all times be in constant search of challenging new horizons, the Kenton/Wagner album evolves as a creative milestone in modern music.

— Noel Wedder

SPOTLIGHT REVIEW
Stan Kenton
KENTON/WAGNER—Capitol 2217: Ride of the Valkyries; Siegfried’s Funeral March from Goetterdaemmerung; Prelude to Act I of Lohengrin; Prelude to Act Ill of Lohengrin; Prelude to Tristan and Isolde; Love-Death from Tristan and Isolde; Wedding March from Lohengrin; Pilgrims’ Chorus from Tannhaeuser.

Personnel: Unidentified orchestra, Kenton, conductor, piano, arranger.

Rating: ★ ½

Kenton’s Neophonic Orchestra (presumably very similar in personnel to the ensemble heard here) has been serving a function of value during the last three months by acting as a clearing house for new performances of new works. Some have succeeded musically, and others have seemed to be of less significance; but at least they were given a hearing, and some stimulating, often exciting music was presented to a large and receptive audience.

Secondarily, the orchestra has been presenting reshapings of earlier works. The writers in these instances have included Pete Rugolo, two of whose pieces associated with earlier Kenton ventures were reintroduced; and two or three other alumni returning to the fold. To this list must now be added the name of a composer not previously represented in any Kenton library, that of Richard Wagner (1813-1883), whose works have been arranged by Kenton himself.

This clearly represented a challenge, and if one judges the results in terms of musical skill, he can be said to have succeeded.

These sides include, at several points, some of the most intricate, technically adroit, and expertly orchestrated work Kenton has ever done. What is open to question is the a priori assumption on his part that a project of this nature had some inherent validity.

The reaction to the sound of Wagner’s music a century later falls somewhat short of universal or unanimous satisfaction. For all its masterly ingenuity, it seems too often to Jack a basic warmth; very often one finds this transmitted in the Kenton reshapings of some of Wagner’s best-known works.

The Valkyries starts with a promising introductory touch by the leader and unison figures that augur a significant mood, but as soon as the theme itself enters, everything seems to fall apart. In terms of intensity, the track starts at the top and tries to escalate its way from here.

Kenton plays a long, ominous introduction to the Funeral March, which turns out to be a colorful orchestration with very few essential qualities that are not of the Wagner era—if one excepts the occasional accented use of a flatted third in a couple of unison-reed runs.

The Act I Prelude has a touch of pizzicato bass behind the music-box piano. At last one hears some tempo, but there is a lackluster quality to some of the reed work. The performance builds, how- ever, with considerable melodramatic effect, into an old-line Kenton finale.

The Act Ill Prelude opens brightly and makes extensive use of bongos for excitement. The possibilities that may have been latent in Kenton’s over-all concept are hinted at here, but the trouble lies in the theme itself, or rather in what time bas done to it. A melody that once was bold and heroic now suggests silent-movie music and a scene in which the heroine is being dragged to the railroad track by her hair. Time can do this to almost any music; it has done it already to a great deal of early jazz.

The Tristan and Isolde tracks are impressive illustrations of Kenton’s skill, particularly in his voicings and shadings for brass.

The Prelude bas a short passage of solo trombone, playing straight melody—the nearest thing to improvisation in the whole album. The Love-Death mounts to a staggering volume but has touches of early Kenton in some moments of reed writing.

The gloomy Wedding March is not the sort of treatment I would select for my daughter’s nuptials unless she contemplated a quick divorce.

The closing Pilgrims’ Chorus uses bongos again and is dynamically furious, with an effective finale reminiscent of 1950 Kenton.

To sum up, Kenton has achieved a tour de force here. The performance is as expert as the playing. What falls short of success is the original conception. There is a plodding, Germanically pompous sound to much of Wagner’s work that seems to be at odds with the kind of renovation Kenton seems to have had in mind.

Since Kenton’s name has been indelibly associated with jazz, inevitably a comparison comes to mind. A few years ago Duke Ellington recorded an album of Tschaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite and a full side of Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite. The themes were used in most cases as a base for the expression of individual styles—not just the writing styles of Ellington and Billy Strayhorn but the blowing styles of the sidemen. No violence was done to the composers’ works, because the use of a new idiom necessitated a new frame of reference in evaluating the results.

In the case of Kenton/ Wagner no such attempt has been made.

There is very little that could be called jazz, by any standards, anywhere in the album, and virtually no improvisation As a result, much of what is heard seems to fall into a no-man’s land from which the literal disciplines of the original Wagner concert music and the essential improvisatory freedom of jazz are both absent.

A more meaningful end might have been accomplished either by going all the way in a new direction, as Ellington did, or by leaving everything just as it was in the first place. There is not much that is “neophonic” about Wagner per se and not enough that is neophonic about what happens to Wagner throughout these often arid sides.

One star for good intentions, another half-star for good performance. Let Kenton return to playing Kenton. (L.G.F.)

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This unique album is a surprising artistic success. Stan Kenton and a large studio orchestra filled with many of his alumni perform his adaptations of eight themes from the classical works of Richard Wagner. Somehow Kenton turns Wagner's music into jazz, capturing the intense emotion, pomposity and drama with daring ideas. Not for all tastes, this LP was one of Stan Kenton's last innovative recordings. —Scott Yanow