JAZZ NOTES : Celebrating the Case for Stan Kenton

Stan Kenton, the renowned bandleader-composer-xarranger who died in 1979 at age 67, was one of jazz’s most controversial figures.

His music--characteristically brash, bold and dramatic--eschewed the foot-tapping swing feeling associated with most mainstream jazz, yet it was consistently popular from the early ‘40s through the late ‘60s. It could be said that many people then thought jazz was Stan Kenton, and vice versa.

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Kenton’s first performance on May 30, 1941, at the Balboa Pavilion in Newport Beach, radio station KLON-FM is sponsoring “Back to Balboa.”

The four-day event takes place May 30 through June 2 at the Hyatt Newporter Resort and includes 15 concerts, 10 panel discussions and appearances by more than 50 Kenton alumni musicians and composers.

The focus of the celebration is threefold: a showcasing of musicians or composers who had been with Kenton--such as Bill Holman, Maynard Ferguson and Buddy Childers--playing in their current styles; an analysis of Kenton via panel discussions that will cover his entire body of work; and performance of classic Kenton material played by an alumni orchestra.

“I wanted to have a something unique that was as musically complete as possible,” said KLON concert productions manager Ken Poston, who is coordinating the event for the station.

A restless experimenter, Kenton--a native of Wichita, Kan., who made Los Angeles his base for virtually all his career--abhorred pandering to current tastes.

His various orchestral incarnations, dubbed with such weighty names as Progressive Jazz and Innovations in Modern Music, consistently performed such difficult, dissonant works as Bob Graettinger’s “City of Glass.” Yet he almost always included lightweight pop pieces in his repertoire, along with such Kenton evergreens as “Artistry in Rhythm” and “Peanut Vendor.”

Kenton’s orchestras were spawning grounds not only for players, but for composers, and scores of artists--from Anita O’Day and June Christy to Shorty Rogers and Art Pepper.

Kenton was also instrumental in launching jazz education in colleges and high schools via his National Stage Band Camps, two-week summer programs that began at the University of Indiana and Michigan State University in 1959.

Ticket information: (213) 430-6960.

Rim Shots: Jeff and John Clayton play a free concert Sunday at noon at Back at the Beach in Santa Monica as part of the third annual “Rhapsody on Wheels,” a bike ride and contest that benefits the nonprofit New American Orchestra.

Information: (818) 905-1091