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Stan kenton's latin jazz connections
Latin Beat Magazine, May, 1999 by Max Salazar
On February 13, 1947, Pete Rugalo's composition of the tune Machito was recorded at Los Angeles. It has been reported that Kenton and Rugalo were overwhelmed with the Machito sound and wanted to honor the Cuban vocalist-bandleader. For the following years, Kenton disbanded each year just to rest an exhausted orchestra whose bus traveled thousands of miles to perform one-nighters. On January 16, 1953, June Christy left the Kenton organization and recommended Chris Connors as her replacement. The September, 1953 issue of England's Melody Maker magazine reported, "Stan Kenton is taking Europe by storm...reports from our correspondence all over the continent speak of packed houses and wild enthusiasm at every concert."
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In April, 1955, Stan Kenton and orchestra began its first of ten weeks on CBS TV as a replacement for Edward R. Murrow's Person To Person show. The show, Kenton's Music 55, was seen nationwide. By the time 1960 rolled around, club dates became scarce. The new sound of Rock 'n' Roll had taken its toll and made it difficult for Pop music orchestras to land dates. On April 19, 1963, Intermisson Riff was Latinized when Frank Guerrero sat in on conga.
For the following 14 years, the Kenton Orchestra per-formed concerts and held music clinics at colleges. On May 22, 1977, the Kenton Orchestra was in Reading, Pennsylvania. At 8 p.m. the 65 year-old bandleader was found unconscious lying on the floor of the Abraham Lincoln Motor Inn. He underwent neurosurgery for a skull fracture with a blood clot on the brain. On July 8, 1977, Kenton was released from the hospital and headed toward Los Angeles. Two years later at the age of 67, he died of a cerebrovascular stroke at a Hollywood Hospital. Throughout the 727-page tome of Kenton's life, a great number of sidemen eulogized him with the sincerest forms of praise. One said, "no bandleader has ever done more to expose sidemen than Kenton." Trumpeter Chico Alvarez said, "In 1949, while leaving Ohio fora Detroit date, I decided to drive by car. There was an accident in which I suffered a broken ankle and a cracked rib. Stan came to the hospital, paid my bill, picked me up like a baby and carried me out to the bus. Stan was like a loving father to all of us." During a conversation with Machito in the late '70s, he said he felt indebted to Kenton for the re-cording of Machito, it was exposure to his (Kenton's) world of jazz. Frank Sinatra, an admirer of Kenton said, "Stan Kenton is the most significant figure of the modern jazz age. His fight to popularize modern jazz won him a legion of followers, but this was not an easy road. He is a symbol of a vibrant world that finds its voice in jazz." There are many more positive statements uttered by musicians, but the one which adequately describes him is drummer Shelly Manne's moving tribute that appeared in the magazine Overture, Musician's Local 47, Los Angeles.
The following is a condensed version of Manne's Eulogy:
"He was a friend to all musicians...he was a father...a psychiatrist...he ate the same lousy food at a rest stop...he taught me responsibility...he was understanding to wives on the road...he treated all equal...he invented charisma...he was an explorer...he was loved by all...he will never be forgotten...and we will miss him."
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