{"id":216,"date":"2007-02-01T21:42:51","date_gmt":"2007-02-02T02:42:51","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2008-09-18T09:44:57","modified_gmt":"2008-09-18T09:44:57","slug":"kentonite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/kentonite\/","title":{"rendered":"Kentonite"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"image_block\" style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/media\/users\/frankenslade\/kenton.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"\" width=\"216\" height=\"266\" \/><\/div>\n<p>From the late 1940s until, arguably, the early 1960s, music fans in search of &#8220;serious,&#8221; academically rigorous and technically exacting music &#8211; that was not of the classical idiom &#8211; frequently turned to big band leader <strong>Stan Kenton<\/strong>. Kenton&#8217;s band offered everything these brainy music listeners sought:  music engineered (and I choose that word very carefully) for maximum impact, a well-considered rationale for each and every composition, technically gifted soloists &#8211; really, <em>everything the brainiac-aesthete desired<\/em>.  <\/p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/AiJDUi3hdrQ?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>Today, nearly 30 years after Stan Kenton&#8217;s passing, his legacy remains, taking many forms. Though the likes of <strong>Rick Wakeman<\/strong> and Steve Howe may have fallen into relative disfavor, modern-day <strong>Kentonites<\/strong> find much to enjoy in the posthumous releases of <strong>Stevie Ray Vaughan<\/strong>, the latest <strong>Eno<\/strong> album, and &#8212; if approached from the right angle &#8212; The Arcade Fire, <strong>The Decemberists<\/strong>, Jason Falkner, Polyhonic Spree, and many more. That guy in college who rhapsodized over the animal sounds <strong>Adrian Belew<\/strong> could coax out of his battered Musicmaster?  Kentonite. The bass player in your band, who can&#8217;t talk about Sly and the Family Stone without going off on a tangent about how <strong>Larry Graham<\/strong> invented &#8220;poppin'&#8221; and &#8220;slappin'&#8221;? Kentonite. The Zappa freak who&#8217;s still trying to explain why you should care about Frank&#8217;s all-synclavier album, <em>Jazz From Hell<\/em>? Kentonite, all the way.<\/p>\n<p>And it&#8217;s easy to fall prey to Kentonite thinking. It makes you feel smarter than the average bear. It helps compartmentalize loose, wiggly rationalizations for liking unpopular things. In a place like <strong>Rock Town Hall<\/strong>, we&#8217;re expected to have reasons for liking things &#8211; and that&#8217;s why the charges of Kentonism fly so freely around these parts.<\/p>\n<p>So&#8230;are you a Kentonite? <em>Of course you are!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From the late 1940s until, arguably, the early 1960s, music fans in search of &#8220;serious,&#8221; academically rigorous and technically exacting music &#8211; that was not of the classical idiom &#8211; frequently turned to big band leader Stan Kenton. Kenton&#8217;s band offered everything these brainy music listeners sought: music engineered (and I choose that word very <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/kentonite\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}