Stan Kenton — 50th Anniversary Celebration: Back To Balboa (5 CD, 1991/FLAC)

 STAN KENTON 50TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION - BACK TO BALBOA is a 5-CD set recorded during a four-day concert commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Stan Kenton Orchestra's debut at the Rendezvous Ballroom on Balboa Island, California. Discs 1 and 2 feature a band of Kenton alumni led by Kenton composer-arrangers Pete Rugolo, William Russo, Shorty Rogers, Bill Holman, Hank Levy, Buddy Childers, Lennie Niehaus and Marty Paich. Discs 3 and 4 feature Kenton sidemen and arrangers leading their own bands. Disc 5 includes four panel discussions of Kenton's band.

 

Stan Kenton discography [1950-2006]

Stan Kenton, byname of Stanley Newcomb Kenton, (born Feb. 19, 1912, Wichita, Kan., U.S.—died Aug. 25, 1979, Los Angeles), American jazz bandleader, pianist, and composer who commissioned and promoted the works of many modern composer-arrangers and thrust formal education and big-band jazz together into what became the stage (or concert) band movement of the 1960s and ’70s, involving thousands of high school and college musicians.

Kenton was responsible for the “progressive jazz” label that some mistake for all modern jazz and some use to identify all Kenton-linked jazz. Some critics place his music in the “cool jazz” category and, being based in California, many of his players—including Shorty Rogers, Bill Perkins, and Shelly Manne—were identified with West Coast jazz, a subcategory of cool jazz. 

Stan Kenton And His Orchestra - The Chronogical Classics 1940-1947 (5 CD/FLAC)

 

Stanley Newcomb Kenton (December 15, 1911 – August 25, 1979) was an American popular music and jazz artist. As a pianist, composer, arranger and band leader, he led an innovative and influential jazz orchestra for almost four decades. Though Kenton had several pop hits from the early 1940s into the 1960s, his music was always forward-looking. Kenton was also a pioneer in the field of jazz education, creating the Stan Kenton Jazz Camp in 1959 at Indiana University.

Stan Kenton - Complete Capitol Studio Recordings of Stan Kenton 1943-47 (7 CD, 1995/FLAC)

 Documenting Stan Kenton's always controversial but never sleepy music, the seven-CD Complete Capitol Studio Recordings of Stan Kenton 1943-47 features the orchestra at a time when it was reaching its greatest popularity, evolving from using the artist's charts into the Pete Rugolo era. In addition to some unreleased tracks, there are also several rare sessions included that were recorded at the time strictly for radio airplay. Most of Kenton's biggest hits ("Artistry in Rhythm," "Eager Beaver," "And Her Tears Flowed Like Wine," "Tampico," "Southern Scandal," "Artistry Jumps," "Intermission Riff," "Across the Alley From the Alamo," and "The Peanut Vendor") are here, as are many concert works. A classic reissue.