I wore out the LP many, many years ago and then thankfully it came out in CD format - Kenton captures all the wistful poignancy in every song - no other big band ever captured the wonderful, throaty sounds of his sax section - every big band, rehearsal band on the West Coast owes Stan BIG TIME!
Of all the popular music styles and sub-genres of the late '60s and early '70s, "horn rock" is perhaps the only one that hasn't been revived and revered by subsequent generations. A perhaps inevitable offshoot of mid-'60s "blue eyed soul" acts like Tom Jones, The Righteous Brothers and Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels, the "horn rock" movement began in earnest in 1967 when Chicago pop group The Buckinghams, under the direction of producer James William… more »
A few years ago, Italian saxophonist Daniele D'Agaro was visiting Chicago, and a critic friend put on a fairly obscure record to stump him. D'Agaro listened for about three seconds, said: "Lucky." Good ears. He knows the distinctive sound of Lucky Thompson after he started hanging out in Paris and playing sumptuous tenor saxophone ballads recalling old idol Don Byas's Parisian sides. On "Solitude" and "We'll Be Together Again," from Lucky in Paris 1959, his tenor's… more »
