Bobby Lamb, the moving spirit behind a series of Dublin concerts celebrating the work of Stan Kenton, talks to Ray Comiskey.
When the innovative American bandleader, Stan Kenton, toured Europe in the 1950s, fallout from a who-blinks-first row between the musicians' union in Britain and its Stateside counterpart prevented him playing in England, and he came to Dublin instead. So did his British fans.
Half a century on, his music will be heard live in Dublin once again and the fans, older and probably more affluent now, are coming from places as far away as Sydney to revisit what was once thought of as the future of jazz. If the serious, fastidious bandleader is long departed to conduct celestial massed ranks of brass, reeds and strings, the appeal of the musical juggernauts he created endures.
Not only will some of the orchestra's original scores, by the likes of Pete Rugolo, Johnny Richards and Shorty Rogers - names guaranteed to resonate with Kenton aficionados - be played, but also two Kenton alumni will be here; Los Angeles-based trumpeter Buddy Childers and trombonist, composer and arranger Bobby Lamb from Cork, one to play, the other to conduct.
Lamb, who also played at the highest level in the jazz orchestras of Charlie Barnet and Woody Herman in 1950s America, is the moving spirit behind the project. It is thanks to his links with RTÉ that the concerts are happening. A massive quid pro quo to him for his work for them over the past few years involves not only the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, but also a big band of 15 brass, five reeds and rhythm, with guest soloists in Childers, Belgian trombonist Marc Godefroid, British trumpeter and flugelhorn player Gerard Presencer, and Spanish alto saxophonist Perico Sambeat. Together they will put flesh on the musical bones of scores not played in public for almost 50 years.
But why, of all things, Kenton?
The trombonist, who has written symphonic works and whose interest in "all sorts of music" has developed in more than two decades of teaching at London's Trinity College of Music, is very specific.
"Of all the big bands that ever existed, Kenton's was the band that came closest to any kind of symphonic form," Lamb says. "For example, when you heard the trombones play it was a wonderful choral trombone section. No other band had that; that was a real, distinctive part of Kenton.
"So you couldn't get into the Kenton band initially unless you were a good basic player. Being a jazz player at that time wouldn't be enough - you had to have the chops \. Maynard Ferguson, Buddy Childers, all those guys, had to have very, very good basic chops; not just be great soloists. So the band could then sound something different."
It was done with little or no amplification. "I'm not putting down anyone at all in what I'm going to say, but a lot of bands now need a microphone up the bell of the instrument, in their ear, up their nose, anywhere at all you can mention it, to try to get a sound across. Whereas when these guys were around that wasn't necessary. They relied on sound projection. So that's what led me back to Kenton."
The Woody Herman Band, with which he played for two and a half years, had an "up in your face, at 'em excitement and nervous energy". Herman would have considered Kenton's approach rather heavy, he says.
"Kenton went for a different kind of thing," Lamb adds. "And I find that you can get symphonic players who can make the transition to Kenton's music far easier than you can, say, to Woody's band, or Basie's, or Ellington's. It's a whole different attitude."
He put the theory into practice successfully at Trinity when he wanted to start a college band. "Even though it's the most difficult, I would start off, using the classical players within the college, in a Kenton type of thing, because of the fugues, the chorales, the different approach to music. Expecting a young bunch of kids to start playing Ellington straight off without the experience - very difficult."
Kenton's music went through many phases. Prodded by Buddy Childers, among others, he even had a propulsively swinging outfit at one stage; the critics were happier about it than the leader was.
Lamb, however, is concentrating on two eras, that of the Innovations In Modern Music orchestra, a 43-piece outfit with strings, that Kenton led at the start of the 1950s, featuring quasi-classical arrangements by the likes of Pete Rugolo, and the mid-1960s 28-piece Neophonic Orchestra.
In Dublin a big band, similar to the Neophonic Orchestra, with five trumpets, five trombones, five French horns, five reeds, plus rhythm, will play the Cuban Fire suite, which composer/arranger Johnny Richards wrote for Kenton's late-1950s outfit. That was the band which used a mellophonium section, not unlike the French horns which will take their place in the orchestral spectrum.
"The principal arranger for the Innovations orchestra was Pete Rugolo," says Lamb. "So we've managed to get hold of half a dozen of his most outstanding scores, like Lonesome Road, Salute, that kind of thing, one or two by Bill Russo, and I've done quite a bit myself."
There will be features for the guests. Sambeat, for instance, will play on Art Pepper, written by Shorty Rogers for the late, great eponymous altoist. "I'm delighted with it," adds Lamb, "because it's for full orchestra and I didn't have to add anything."
Lamb has composed a piece to allow Childers and fellow-trumpeter Presencer to slog it out together. "I've done a new piece called Cuchulainn and it's an outrageous up-tempo thing, so they can cut each other up, an old-fashioned battle."
They will also have their own features. "On one night Gerard Presencer will have the main big ballad piece. I've written a special thing for him called Valentine Blue. Now that's a big piece. You can't do two big pieces of the same texture on the same concert. It just wouldn't work; one would die.
"So on the second night I will take that piece out and put the second movement of the trumpet jazz concerto for Buddy to play. So then you get the chance to hear two of the world's best soloists playing in their own particular environment with nobody in the way."
With all the work involved - Lamb, incidentally, hopes to have the rehearsals open to anyone interested - what does he say to the question of why so many resources should go into music that's 50 years old?
"Do you want the short answer or the long answer?" he responds. "Well, I suppose I'll give the long answer. That would mean you would have to ask the symphony orchestra the same question. Why 99.99 per cent of the music that they present is more than 100 years old? And the music that we're using here needs to be heard, because apart from a one-off time, say for a few weeks in the 1950s where it was exposed, it has not been seen or heard of since. And, really, it's unfair that so much work and effort and creativity could go into creating this kind of musical scenario that to leave it die forever is just not on.
"I think that Europe deserves to hear this kind of music. It's modern music. It's not something that's been dug up, really. It's something that has been around for a long time. It just needs to see the light of day."
Cuban Fire, the concerts of Kenton music, will be at the Helix next Friday and Saturday