Kenton Swings the Hair Generation
A big band tackling Broadway's counterculture anthem — brash, orchestrated, and oddly earnest about it.
The first thing you hear is brass — lots of it — arranged with Kenton's characteristic precision and weight. This is not the intimate Hair of the theater; this is Hair fed through a twenty-piece ensemble, punched up with saxophones and trombones that hit you in waves. Kenton takes the rock musical's tunes and gives them the full big band treatment, which means they land heavier, more measured, less bouncy than you'd expect. There's something genuinely strange about hearing "Let the Sunshine In" delivered with this much orchestral muscle. It shouldn't work, and yet the sheer commitment to the arrangement — the way every section locks in, the harmonic colors Kenton pulls from his brass — makes it weirdly compelling.
This was Kenton's final Capitol record after a quarter-century with the label, and you can hear both his mastery and his determination to stay relevant. By 1969, rock and soul were dominating; a bandleader tackling Hair was either brave or desperate, depending on your view. Kenton chose to meet the material head-on rather than apologize for it. The orchestrations are elaborate without being condescending — he's not mocking the show, he's translating it. Tracks move between tempos and moods; some swing properly, others lean into the album's slightly dated arrangement sensibilities.
This isn't an essential Kenton record, and it won't change your life. But it's a fascinating document of a bandleader at a crossroads, trying to find common ground between big band tradition and late-sixties youth culture. Worth hearing if you're curious about Kenton beyond his most celebrated sessions, or if you want to know what happens when orchestral discipline meets countercultural material.
