Word: kenton
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Explosions in a Cellar. For four weeks, patrons of New York's Paramount Theater have been pinned against its back wall by Stan Kenton's klaxon-loud "progressive" blasts. Dizzy Gillespie, the high cockalorum of bop, was getting top billing at the rival Strand Theater. At 52nd and Broadway, the intersection of commercial acumen and "art" in popular music, the Clique Club opened its doors and let the mob in. Buddy Rich, a Tommy Dorsey alumnus and bop fellow traveler, shot spectacular explosions from his drums, and a velvet-skinned Negro named Sarah Vaughan squeezed her toothpaste-smooth...
...composers (like Harvard's Walter Piston) have taken pride in being told that their music was "stravinskyesque." Aaron Copland, best of native U.S. composers, believes that Stravinsky's continuing hold on composers "is without parallel since Wagner's day." Even Bebopper Dizzy Gillespie, and Stan Kenton, daddy of "progressive jazz," who think they have invented a new kind of music, concede generously that Stravinsky "uses some of the same sounds and rhythmical devices." The fact is that Stravinsky and jazz have learned from each other...
...psychological effect Mr. Kenton's music has had on his listeners and his continued record-breaking attendance marks are undeniable proofs that present progressive-minded people are eagerly looking for something fresh and invigorating in music. If Mr. Kenton's "progressive jazz" can substitute for, or even alter, the present uninteresting, uninspiring style of obsolete music, more power...
...Louie [Armstrong] might exclaim, I "jumped salty" when I read that one. Mr. Stan Kenton has more gall than the Hollywood hams...
Nothing small about Mr. Kenton though. ... He harangued the one man who would stir this writer's emotions, and (I hope) a few others who detest Boy Scout Brass and the rest of this cacophony they euphemistically term "music...