Jazz Professional               

The Interviews

 

STAN KENTON (4)

Explains why he keeps on travelling

Talking to Les Tomkins in 1975

The Stan Kenton Story
The interviews 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6

The reactions in Britain to the band were again very good. The whole idea of our music is to try to communicate with the people; if the thing comes off, and they enjoy it, naturally we feel rewarded. Yes, we have five or six different faces, but I don't think I'd like to mention anybody individually. I'm proud of all of 'em.

As for Roy Reynolds—I think he's one of the greatest saxophone players in the whole field of jazz. He was on baritone for quite a while, but his real love is tenor; now he's playing tenor, and he's much happier. But he's a happy guy, anyway. He's an excellent musician—we all love him.

We're touring all the time—we don't stop. We came back from Japan about three months ago. Before we came to Britain, we'd been playing our way around the United States; our first date on our return will be Pennsylvania, and we continue on. Strange as it seems, it was the very first time we'd been to Japan. What did I think of it? Well, I don't know what I thought I was going to see, but Japan is as modern as tomorrow. In some ways, I think Tokyo makes New York look like Albuquerque, New Mexico. It's a huge city; the modern developments and everything are very surprising. I was thrilled, really, with Japan. The public's response to us was excellent—they love jazz. We suffered a little bit there, because of the lack of record exposure. As we have in Europe in recent years—and throughout Great Britain, too. But we hope to have that straightened out completely in another few months.

We had a snag with our Creative World label. We had to close the office in Amsterdam, over problems that were arising there. In fact, we had to get into some legal matters, involving going to court and so forth, I'm sorry to say. But that's being straightened out, and as soon as it is, then it'll leave us free to make deals with other record companies.

The planning of the band's albums varies; some of them are created rather quickly, some are planned on for months—there's no set rule. I feel it's necessary that we have at least four albums a year released. This last one, "Fire, Fury And Fun", came out about six weeks ago, and we'll be doing a new one in another couple of months.

The idea to do the "Chicago" album was not really mine; it originated from Bob Curnow, who is the fellow that is running the artistic end of the Creative World. I'm proud of the album; it came off very well. We didn't play the material in the way the two groups played it; we played it in our own fashion. We would have defeated ourselves if we'd tried to play it like they do, because that's not our purpose. Our purpose was to salute Blood, Sweat And Tears and Chicago and what they've done to interest the fans, the young people in jazz music, because up until they came along think most of the young listeners were determined not to like the music, because they thought it was oldfashioned. Oh yes, we're also continuing to help in a practical way, the band and I, with our school clinics all the time.

You speak of the rigours of it—well, it's all music, we don't do anything else. And we usually have comfortable hotels and motels that we stay in, and the hops are usually within reason. We have a wonderful piece of equipment—a coach that takes us around the country. So it's not nearly as bad as a lot of people think; there's some really wonderful parts of it. The idea of being able to be in a different place each day, seeing different faces, playing to different people, and not having to go punch the same clock, in the same office each day—I think that appeals to most of us. We're free.

No, I'm not at all tired of touring. To me, it's the best way to work. If I had to stay in one place, I'd have to compromise the music so much I would lose interest in it. If I took a job conducting on a television show. or something of that nature, I wouldn't have the freedom—I'd be at the mercy of some producer. When we're travelling, I have complete freedom; we play the music the way we want to play it, and there's a great deal of satisfaction in it. Also, since we play concerts mostly, the working conditions are very good. And the pianos are much better than they used to be. In fact, in most places in the States the instruments are perfect.

Great pianos, great places to play. New halls have been built. Once in a while, we'll play in some little place where the acoustics might be bad, but that's not very often. And we rarely play any dances.

Oh; certainly, musically speaking, the tide continues to turn. When you see high schools with three and four jazz bands in them, you know something's going on. Then universities with ten and twelve bands. From all the young musicians that are playing jazz—you can see it happening.

Greater public awareness? No, jazz is still a minority music. It'll never be a mass music, because it's too sophisticated. In order to communicate with jazz music, you have to be gifted with a certain amount of perception—and the masses have no perception. So there'll always have to be music for the masses, and then music for the minority group of people who love jazz.

If you compromise, then you lose what following you do have. It's not up to me to play country 'n' western music and kids' music; I'd be completely out of character. And it seems like what radio and television all around the world today want to do is attract the attention of the greatest number of people they can. That, of course, means watering everything down to the eightyearold mind. Because anything of any sophistication the masses will just turn their back on. In fact, it's kind of a tragedy today—the asses are really running the world. And they shouldn't.

The use of electric aids is not to my liking. I don't believe in Fender basses, except for certain types of work. And I don't believe in amplified instruments, because I think it makes music synthetic: A musical instrument is an extension of a musician's body, and when there are too many components in between the musician and what's coming out of the instrument, there's a great risk of having cold, synthetic music.

Yes, we have flutes now. That's about the only woodwind we do use, other than the saxophone—and we have to be awfully careful about amplifying them. Not in the amplified sense; they're not hooked into any electronic equipment, but they must be near a microphone, so they can be heard. I love flutes. I never had much love for clarinets, but flutes I do love. It just gives the band another colour to work with.

As regards writers—we still have Hank Levy, Ken Hanna. Dave Devoe has been doing some writing. Bill Holman still gets in on the act occasionally. And, of course, more recently, Bob Curnow. Yes, he wrote the "National Anthems" album. Which was not a commercial success, I'm afraid. I don't know whether there just wasn't enough interest in it, or what. The most popular thing out of it is "God Save The Queen"; we played that a lot of times in the States for the people. As well done as it is, it just wasn't well received. It's hard to say what the public will accept or reject, you know.

But the fans of jazz aren't nearly as fickle as the fans of pop music; so we in jazz are much better off. And those of us that were playing jazz never did really have the financial problems that a lot of the dance bands had, just for that very reason—the fans of jazz are loyal fans.

Duke Ellington? I've already said the greatest things that could be said about Duke. I think when this whole period of history about music is written, everyone will agree that Duke Ellington was the giant among us all. And Duke had a very beautiful, full life. He came from a good family; he didn't starve like a lot of other musicians did. He didn't go through a lot of suffering. He was brilliant, charming, he had a brain, he had talent, and he was even made handsome—so no man can ask for more than that.

I wasn't too sad about Duke's death. Naturally, none of us can live for ever—but Duke had a real full life. He was truly royalty. Well, he could have lived a few more years, and possibly kept going, but as it is—everybody has to give up some time or other.

I think some more young bandleaders are going to come up—but it's not going to happen until radio changes. Radio still rejects jazz music. It used to be that when bands started, like Woody and myself and other bands that were based upon jazz, radio was a great deal more creative. It hadn't got into a format form of presentation. There's no creative radio any more—it's all just whatever they figure the top forty is. Whatever most of the people like most of the time, that's what they play, because they want to sell their commodities.

And in the countries where radio is government owned, they still feel morally obligated to satisfy the people's wants. So there's no place for any form of advance, to get started; it's extremely difficult. Television doesn't help, either—no. The only time they will ever use bands is usually when they get to satisfying the needs of nostalgia for the people. And nostalgia is the most commercial thing there is. As long as it's like that, it's going to be hard for new bands to get a start. I don't know if something positive can be done about this—but I hope so.

Copyright © 1975 Les Tomkins. All Rights Reserved