By the age of 16, Kenton was already playing a regular solo piano gig at a local hamburger eatery for 50 cents a night plus tips; during that time he had his own performing group named "The Bell-Tones".

Producer George Avakian took notice of Kenton during this time while he worked as the pianist and Assistant Musical Director at the Earl Carroll Theatre Restaurant in Hollywood.

Although there were no "name" musicians in his first band (with the possible exception of bassist Howard Rumsey and trumpeter Chico Alvarez), Kenton spent the summer of 1941 playing regularly before an audience at the Rendezvous Ballroom on the Balboa Peninsula at Newport Beach, CA.

Its Decca recordings were not big sellers and a stint as Bob Hope's backup radio band during the 1943–44 season was an unhappy experience; Les Brown permanently took Kenton's place.

[citation needed] When composer/arranger Pete Rugolo joined the Stan Kenton Orchestra as staff arranger in late 1945 he brought with him his love of jazz, Stravinsky and Bartók.

The resulting instrumentation, utilizing significant amounts of brass, was described as a "wall of sound" (a term later coined independently by Andrew Loog Oldham for Phil Spector's production methods).

The addition of a full-time bongo player and a Brazilian guitarist in the band enabled Kenton's cadre of composers to explore Afro-Latin rhythms to far greater possibilities.

[citation needed] The Progressive Jazz period lasted 14 months, beginning on September 24, 1947, when the Stan Kenton Orchestra played a concert at the Rendezvous Ballroom.

The rhythm section included returnees Eddie Safranski (bass) and Shelly Manne (drums), both destined to win first place Down Beat awards.

[citation needed] Kids are going haywire over the sheer noise of this band...There is a danger of an entire generation growing up with the idea that jazz and the atom bomb are essentially the same natural phenomenon.Four of the five trumpet players returned: Buddy Childers, Ray Wetzel, Chico Alvarez, and Ken Hanna.

[citation needed] Kai Winding, star trombonist of the Artistry in Rhythm band, would not be a part of the Progressive Jazz era, except for a few dates on which he subbed.

They had extended stays at New York's Paramount Theatre and Hotel Commodore, Philadelphia's Click, Detroit's Eastwood Gardens, Radio City Theater in Minneapolis, and the Rendezvous Ballroom, a special place in Kenton's musical life.

(equivalent to $12.68 million in 2023) Rout contrasted this with the relative lack of critical and public recognition for another leading jazz artist: "Dizzy Gillespie as the premiere bopper could not be transformed into coin of the realm.

[citation needed] After a year's hiatus, in 1950 Kenton assembled the large 39-piece Innovations in Modern Music Orchestra that included 16 strings, a woodwind section, and two French horns.

Name jazz musicians such as Maynard Ferguson, Shorty Rogers, Milt Bernhart, John Graas, Art Pepper, Bud Shank, Bob Cooper, Laurindo Almeida, Shelly Manne, and June Christy were part of these musical ensembles.

Young, talented players and outstanding jazz soloists such as Maynard Ferguson, Lee Konitz, Conte Candoli, Sal Salvador, and Frank Rosolino made strong contributions to the level of the 1952–53 band.

The music composed and arranged during this time was far more tailor-made to contemporary jazz tastes; the 1953 album New Concepts of Artistry in Rhythm is noted as one of the high points in Kenton's career as band leader.

By this time producer Lee Gillette worked well in concert with Kenton to create a balanced set of recordings that were both commercially viable and cutting edge musically.

[2] Kenton in Hi-Fi's wide popularity and sales benefited from the fact it was his greatest hits of ten years earlier re-recorded in stereo with a contemporary, much higher level band.

suite and LP stands as a watershed set of compositions for Johnny Richards' career and an outstanding commercial/artistic achievement for the Kenton orchestra, and a singular landmark in large ensemble Latin jazz recordings.

One of the great triumphs of the Standards in Silhouette album is the mature writing, the combination of the room used, a live group with very few overdubs, and the recording being in full stereo fidelity (and later remastered to digital).

Mathieu adds: "Stan and producer Lee Gillette were absolutely right: the band sounds alive and awake (which is not easy when recording many hours of slow-tempo music in a studio), and most importantly, the players could hear themselves well in the live room.

As a viable jazz artist who was trying to keep a loyal but dwindling following, Kenton turned to arrangers such as Hank Levy and Bob Curnow to write material that appealed to a younger audience.

[2] The first releases for the Creative World label were live concerts and Kenton had the control he wanted over content but lacked substantial resources to engineer, mix, and promote what Capitol underwrote in the past.

I was managing (Stan's) record company with NO experience in business, writing music like mad, living in a new place and culture (Los Angeles was another world), traveling a LOT (out with the band at least 1 week a month) and trying to keep it together at home.

Many alumni associated with Kenton from this era became educators (Mike Vax, John Von Ohlen, Chuck Carter, Lisa Hittle, and Richard Torres), and a few went on to take their musical careers to the next level,[clarification needed] such as Peter Erskine, Douglas Purviance, and Tim Hagans.

[citation needed] Kenton was a significant figure on the American musical scene and made an indelible mark on the arranged type of big band jazz.

The "Kenton Style" continues to permeate big bands at the high school and collegiate level, and the framework he designed for the "jazz clinic" is still widely in use today.

The full list of notable jazz players, studio musicians, et al. who served a stint is in itself impressive, as is the consistency of the group as a going concern from 1941 right until the decade of Kenton's death in 1979.

[59] Of particular note are Madison Scouts championship-winning performance of Malaguena in 1988, Suncoast Sound's 1986 repertoire based on Adventures in Time, and Blue Devils Drum and Bugle Corps 1992 suite from Cuban Fire.