1964 · Album
Artistry In Voices and Brass
Recorded 1963 · Capitol Records · Arranger: Pete Rugolo
When Stan Kenton Added Voices to the Brass
Kenton and arranger Pete Rugolo took a risk: giving the orchestra's signature sound a vocal makeover.
In 1963, Stan Kenton and arranger Pete Rugolo sat down to revisit some of the orchestra's best-known pieces — the compositions that had built the Kenton sound over the years. The idea was straightforward but ambitious: take those arrangements, strip them back where needed, and rebuild them around an 18-member vocal chorus and the trombone section. New lyrics from Milt Raskin would give the familiar melodies fresh entry points for listeners. It's the kind of project that only works if everyone in the room shares the same vision, and this time, the results were mixed enough that you can hear the tension between what worked and what didn't.
When you listen to this album, you're hearing what happens when a bandleader decides his orchestra's greatest hits need to be reimagined. The brass that defined Kenton's identity is still there — it has to be — but it's sharing real estate with voices now, and voices operate under different rules than horns. They need clarity. They need room. That changes how an arranger writes, how a section breathes, what gets pushed to the front and what recedes. Rugolo was skilled enough to handle that shift, but skilled arrangers can't always prevent the complications that come with adding layers to music that was already well-defined.
AllMusic reviewer Lindsay Planer heard what many listeners probably felt: "the results are predictably mixed." Planer noted that the album proved "the old adages that sometimes newer isn't always better, and too many cooks do indeed spoil the proverbial sonic stew." This wasn't a failure exactly — it was an experiment that taught something about when to leave well enough alone. For fans of Kenton's original work, this is a curiosity, a what-if. For completists, it's required listening. For everyone else, the earlier Kenton records probably deserve your time first.
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