Adventures In Jazz
| Adventures In Jazz | ||||
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| Studio album by Stan Kenton | ||||
| Released | Adventures In Jazz - 1962 original LP - 1999 re-issue CD |
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| Recorded | - July 5, 1961 in Hollywood, CA at Capitol Records - September 26, 1961 at Manhattan Center in New York City (original LP) - December 11/12/14, 1961 in Hollywood, CA at Capitol Records (extra re-issued material on CD) |
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| Genre | Jazz, Big band, instrumental | |||
| Length | 35:32 (original LP) 53:11 (CD re-issue) |
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| Label | Capitol | |||
| Producer | -All original LP recordings by Lee Gillette -Re-issued CD by Michael Cuscuna |
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| Stan Kenton chronology | ||||
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Capitol ST-1796 (LP) Creative World ST-1010 (LP) Capitol Jazz 7243 5 21222 26 (CD) |
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
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Billboard Magazine November 17, 1962 |
 (Jazz LP's review strong sales potential) |
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Jazz Journal Magazine May, 1963 
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favorable |
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Down Beat Magazine January 31, 1962 |
 |
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Billboard Magazine Feb. 16, 1963 |
#3 New Action LPs (stereo) Strong sales |
| Allmusic |
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| All About Jazz | outstanding |
| Penguin Guide to Jazz |
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Adventures In Jazz is the Grammy Award winning album for the Best Jazz Performance - Large Group (Instrumental) category in 1963. The LP was recorded by Stan Kenton and his orchestra in late 1961 but not released until about a year later in November 1962. This would be Kenton's second Grammy honor in as many years with the first being Kenton's West Side Story winning the Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album in 1962. Adventures In Jazz was also nominated for Best Engineered recording (other than classical and novelty) for the 1963 Grammys. The 1999 CD re-issue of Adventures In Jazz is augmented with two alternate takes from the original recording sessions and one track from Kenton's release Sophisticated Approach.
The Kenton orchestra had been on a slow decline in sales and popularity in the late 1950s with having to compete with newer, popular music artists such as Elvis Presley, Bobby Darin or The Platters. The nadir of this decline was around 1958 and coincided with a recession that was affecting the entire country. There were far less big bands on the road and live music venues were hard to book for the Kenton orchestra. The band would end 1959 beaten up by poor attendance at concerts and having to rely far more on dance halls than real jazz concerts. The band would reform in 1960 with a new look and new sound; Adventures In Jazz would be one of the albums to be part of an upsurge in Kenton's popularity.
This set of record dates for the Kenton organization's Adventures In Jazz is a high point for what was known as the "mellophonium band," or as Kenton himself had coined the phrase "A New Era In Modern American Music." The group was able to turn a minimal profit and use those resources to record what would be the total of 11 albums in a three-year span. With touring going on 9 months out of the year it did not leave a whole lot of time to record; studio schedules were hectic. On the other hand, the band had been playing together so much on the road they were musically familiar and close-knit with one another. As a unit, the quality of the Kenton orchestra on the December 1961Adventures In Jazz LP tracks is outstanding even with being expanded to an orchestra the size of 22 musicians to include a mellophonium section. Kenton had tried to staff a musical group larger than this during the "Innovations in Modern Music" tour and recording sessions from 1950 with it ending in financial failure. Though not considered a "financial windfall," Adventures In Jazz and other "mellophonium band" projects were far more solvent compared to those of the aforementioned group from more than a decade earlier.
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Wikipedia