Customer Reviews

City of Glass: Stan Kenton Plays Bob Graettinger

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I can't help amazement at the neglect of The City of Glass and This Modern World. Where Gershwin was blending (admittedly pretty) tunes from jazz and the classical musical styles of the '20s and becoming popular, Kenton did exactly the same with the classical styles of the '50s via composers such as Graettinger. Unfortunately, the serially inspired compositional techniques of the '50s did not produce tunes that are easy to whistle or swoon over after a glass or two of wine. However, these works are highly developed. One doesn't have to go far into any of the movements to realise how much has been done with the thematic material at hand.

About 'classical' musical styles of the fifties, I'd given up on Webern and Schoenberg and the few who followed that route, but surrendered to Kenton/Graettinger/Russo (et al) with ease. The works have a vibrance, a life, a turbulence and dissonance that so reflected the fifties as a cultural epoch, especially in the States which became the seat of artistic innovation at that time.

I have never ceased to be amazed at how Kenton managed to create these works at all. Admittedly, he had true virtuosi like Maynard Ferguson and Johnny Graas (and many others), but the act of keeping the expanded innovations orchestra in control must have given him a real headache. But he did it. And I still sit there spellbound as I did on my first hearing (via 10-inch LPs). These works aren't for the faint-hearted. But they are for anyone who wants to experience the limits to which Kenton pushed music. They will probably appeal more to "classical" enthusiasts focused on 50s/60s Americana than jazz afficionados. It's almost an afterthought to add that Capitol's engineers have made gorgeous transfers of these recordings.

This is an important and neglected album of Bob Graettinger tunes and arrangements by the greatest big band of all time. Weird? Yes, but incredibley rewarding. Stan Kenton was always on the forefront of jazz, discovering future stars, challenging the status quo and experimenting musically in a style of jazz that has traditionally been rather conservative. No one else would have paid any attention to Graettinger, especially in the 1940's and 1950's, but Kenton, to his credit, gave him a chance and the music he left us is inspirational.

I first heard this album as a college student. After one listening, back on the shelf it went. Then I pulled it back out 20 years later and heard an entirely different album; interesting and colorful, but still a little hard on the ears.

Last night, 31 years after hearing it for the first time, I pulled it out again. Wow! I am amazed at the depth of the writing and performing. If your Kenton tastes are limited to "Malaguena" or "Here's That Rainy Day" or "Chiapas", then this recording's not for you. But if you want to go out on a limb and experience something totally different, take the risk and give it a try...but make sure you go in with an open mind.

I was in music school when this rcording when it first came out and was totally blown away. It's strange that Stan Kenton didn't even rate a sideline in Ken Burns' anthology of Jazz.
JJS

It has been almost 50 yrs since I heard CITY OF GLASS. Time alone has not hurt this album any. It is as fresh and rewarding as its first release.

I'm not sure what when on in Bob Greattinger's head when he wrote this music, but it is very haunting. Some of this stuff could be used in soundtrack of a Sci-Fi movie.

I can see how some of the musicians who played on these tracks said that their teeth hurt, after playing through this masterpiece. Talk about dissonance.

I used to put this album on on Halloween, when people came over to my place. They always freaked-out when listening to the City Of Glass movements. It got so bad that some of my friends told me to shut off the music, because it was so weird. I loved it, and still do to this day. Bob Graettinger was a freaky genius; in his own spaced-out way.

Bob Graettinger's music has never ceased fascinating me. Words can't describe Graettinger's universe. Only a man of Kenton's stature could conduct such a phenomenal work.

I had the privilage of meeting Mr. Kenton back in 1979 when he was on tour. What a band! Man, what a sensational band, and what a performance! Still, unequaled to this day. Since then, I've come to the conclusion about Kenton's albums and CDs, and it goes like this - one can't have enough of them, as there has never been anything like his interpretation, his arranging, and his leadership of the big band. What a vision. Nothing like Kenton. This is another great Kenton album, and I'm not just saying that because my mom named me after him. Tim Kenton Grimes

I think this is one of the most fantastic (the dictionary definition of "fantastic") pieces of music I have heard in a long time, maybe ever. But as stimulating as it is, it just makes me angry. There's a great composer and arranger, with the leader of one of the great modern orchestras of the last fifty years. The orchestra is at their best and the producers have put together a clean, error-free, balanced recording. So why does it upset me? Well, because if I had those resources, I'd use them to make a powerful, melodic, captivating work of jazz music, instead of this garbage. For heaven's sake, it's sixty three minutes long and all of about four minutes of it actually is something I would listen to. The rest is a test in patience, atonality, dissonance, and distortion, woven over a vaguely orchestral mesh of experiments in minimalism, random sound, and a smattering of swing. I listened, really really listened, to this thing for about eight hours over a period of two days, at the end of which I was stressed out and tormented. There is a sixteen bar phrase in "You Go To My Head" that is literally some of the most beautiful music I have ever heard, and no sooner is it there, than it goes away and is replaced with junk again. The liner notes say something about this being made while Stravinsky, Schonberg, and Bartok were in vogue but that "none of his music sounds even remotely like any of these composers". Well, to me (who will never be confused with an expert on those composers but who knows his classical music), that is exactly what this sounds like. And as influential as those composers were on jazz, their music isn't jazz. The fact that Kenton and Graettinger managed to wedge City of Glass into that category is one of the great episodes of hoodwinking in jazz history.

No doubt this is a ground breaking, seminal work. No doubt the world of jazz is different, and better, because of this recording. But ultimately, an opportunity to make something that would have been listened to more than 99% of other recordings in history was squandered. It really is a shame. Nonetheless, I recognize the wonder of this work and give is two and a half stars - right in the middle of the rating scale. It just could have been so much more.

Notwithstanding the opinion of at least one major jazz "critic" who has the audacity to list this as the only thing Kenton did that he deems essential, it isn't worth the time or the money. Just as Igor Stravinsky's Ebony Concerto, written for the Woody Herman Herd, was a dud, so this is. If one is interested in exploring ways that Kenton was able to advance the ideas embodied in modern jazz without losing the essential structure of the blues, one would be better off purchasing Kenton Showcase: The Music of Bill Russo and Bill Holman. The Innovations Orchestra would also be a better choice, in this reviewer's opinion. For anyone who has felt the depth of emotion and power embodied in Kenton's jazz library, this isn't even in the same category. Unless you just enjoy being bored to tears by a semi-classical precursor to what became known as Third Stream, avoid this and buy something that you can actually listen to rather than just keep on the shelf to be admired.