When Stan Kenton assembled his 39-piece Innovations in Modern Music Orchestra in 1950, the band was heavy on stars and light on music. Listeners found compositions like Halls of Brass and House of Strings ponderous and pretentious. By the end of 1951, instrumentalists such as Shorty Rogers, Bob Cooper, Bud Shank and Art Pepper had had enough and began l…
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to JazzWax to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.