Word: mellophonium
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Touring the summer circuit, Kenton keeps his men in a state of near exhaustion that, strangely, seems to add to their cohesion and musical esprit. To the usual jazzed-up dissonances that are his musical trademark, Kenton this year has added the sound of the mellophonium, a kind of straightened French horn that he developed to fill in a range of sound that usually remains unexploited-somewhere between the trumpet and the trombone. Whipped by the rhythm section's artfully lagging beat, the buttery mellophonium sound satisfies the taste of as many as 5,000 a night...
...these days is rarer. This band is one of the best Kenton ever put together. The instrumentation is unique even for one of popular music's most tireless experimenters: no strings, generous contingents of trumpets, trombones, saxes, and an instrument of Kenton's own invention -the mellophonium, midway between trumpet and trombone. The result is as smooth as butter, whipped by Kenton's artfully lagging beat and caressing tone in ballads like Moonlight in Vermont...
| 1 |