Four Freshmen Society Wisconsin
A JazzTimes Readers Poll
"Vocal Group of the Year"!

STAN KENTON – JOHNNY RICHARDS: A BRILLIANT JAZZ TEAM By Wayne Corey

(Wayne Corey is a Madison resident who serves on the board of directors of the Four Freshmen Society, an international jazz organization. These notes were written for inclusion in the program for the "Cuban Fire" concert series by the University of Wisconsin Big Band in November and December 2009.)

THREE DECADES AFTER HIS DEATH, Stan Kenton's musical legacy remains tied to two major works that stunned the music world with their brilliance.

Johnny Richards arranged both of them. Richards composed and wrote the charts for "Cuban Fire Suite" in 1956. Five years later Kenton's "West Side Story," Richards' take on Leonard Bernstein's stunning Broadway score, won the band a Grammy.

Kenton had featured Afro-Cuban rhythms almost since he organized his first band in 1941. But in the early 1950s he wanted his music to express the excitement and tension of Havana's throbbing night club scene. Johnny Richards was the composer for the task. Cuban Fire Suite was the vehicle.

Johnny Richards, born Juan Ricardo Cascales in Mexico, composed and arranged for the Kenton band from 1952-57 and again from 1961-64.

In the 1930s he had worked on motion picture scores, composed songs and sometimes led his own band. George T. Simon, a noted big band critic of the day, wrote that Richards' band "was never much of a commercial success" but played some of the most difficult charts of the era.

Ironically Richards, the genius who wrote complex melodies and arrangements, had his biggest commercial success when he wrote "Young at Heart," a huge albeit syrupy smash for Frank Sinatra in 1954.

Afro-Cuban rhythms were booming in popularity in the immediate post-war years. Richards, in the years leading up to his association with Kenton, arranged for major jazz figures, especially bebop pioneer Dizzy Gillespie. His association with Gillespie exposed Richards to those rhythms that were influencing many of the most progressive players and arrangers of that time.

STAN KENTON HAD HEARD Machito & his Afro Cubans in 1947 and, excited and inspired, recorded three Latin rhythm songs including "The Peanut Vendor" soon after.

It seems only natural, looking back over the decades, that Richards – who had been influenced by Latin rhythms all of his life – would hook up with Kenton, the leader who was taking big band jazz in an very Latin direction.

Kenton said that the idea of "Cuban Fire Suite" had been brewing for years. Kenton suggested that friends from South American tribes sent Richards recordings that brought the "Cuban Fire" project into sharper focus.

Richards, quoted in his biography, concurred.

"These records utilized instruments that hadn't yet been developed here. That was when I really got interested.....when I could analyze these things in the relative objectivity of my living room."

Did Richards do research in Cuba? Well, maybe. Producer Ted Daryll makes the only known written claim but some old associates insist Richards spent time in Cuba in the months before "Cuban Fire Suite" was created. He was looking for percussion instruments unknown in New York.

Richards' most in-depth research occurred closer to home, it appears. Kenton told an interviewer that Afro Cuban musicians thought the Kenton attempts at Latin rhythms were "synthetic." Kenton told Richards to "start hanging around with those guys…let's build something so great that they've never heard anything like it."

"Friends in New York took me to dances, weddings, festivals and quite literally introduced me to every aspect of the Latin American musical life available in New York. I spent those several weeks not writing a note of music, just listening and asking questions," Richards told his biographers.

SO APRIL OF 1956 found Johnny Richards alone in New York City writing the music and arrangements for "Cuban Fire Suite" as the Kenton band was touring Europe to rave reviews.

And while the Mexican-born Richards composed "Cuban Fire Suite" and the Kenton band toured, Fidel Castro was in exile in Mexico, plotting the revolution that would abruptly end Cuba's then-flourishing musical nightlife a few years later.

Stanley Newcomb Kenton was perhaps the most beloved and most controversial of all major leaders in the Big Band era.

His players loved his devotion to the music and his commitment to his musicians and arrangers. Kenton was noted for how well he paid and treated his musicians.

Ross Barbour, a founder of the Four Freshmen, wrote Kenton "was the greatest leader of men we ever met. The astute vision and creative originality of this man was a deeper inspiration than he would ever know."

Kenton discovered the Four Freshmen, encouraged them and led them to Capitol Records. Kenton's legacy as a musical genius is perhaps exceeded only by the enduring affection felt by those who worked with him. "He was a friend to all musicians...he was a father...a psychiatrist...he ate the same lousy food at a rest stop," said drummer Shelley Manne in his eulogy.

"Bombast" was a word that described most Kenton music. No one slept during a Kenton concert. "Every Kenton record sounds to me as though Stan signed on 300 men for the date and they were all on time," wrote author Eddie Condon.

But famed critic George T. Simon pointed out Kenton's players "not only believed in his music, they believed in him as a leader."

THE LIST OF ARRANGERS who worked with Kenton makes up a veritable "who's who" over three decades of jazz. In addition to The Man himself, Pete Rugolo, Gerry Mulligan, Bill Holman, Lennie Niehaus, Gene Roland, Bill Russo and Shorty Rogers were among the brilliant arrangers who did Kenton charts.

But Johnny Richards got the call to arrange what Kenton surely knew would be his greatest musical accomplishments, "Cuban Fire Suite" and Kenton's "West Side Story."

Ted Daryll, producer of the CD reissue of Cuban Fire, says: "It remains an extraordinary coupling of jazz orchestration/improvisation and the deeply felt rhythms of those near and distant cultures. Musicians aligned with the Latin jazz movement in this country continue to cite it as an influence and inspiration."

Noted big band critic Jeff Sultanoff calls "Cuban Fire" "…perhaps Kenton's masterpiece. Stan was determined to record a suite that would combine a big band jazz approach with authentic Cuban rhythms and song forms." He succeeded. The masterpiece endures.

("Stan Kenton: Clearwater 72" album cover shown above. Album available from Hitchcock Media. Johnny Richards image from LA Jazz Institute