Live (1951)

AMG Review of Live (1951)

Scott Yanow
All Music Guide

This collector's CD is a bit unusual for it features Stan Kenton's Innovations Orchestra without its string section. Actually the big band mostly sticks to its repertoire of the 1940s on these radio broadcasts, playing fairly straightahead charts that give such players as trumpeters Maynard Ferguson and Shorty Rogers, altoists Art Pepper and Bud Shank, tenor-saxophonist Bob Cooper and trombonist Milt Bernhart an opportunity to be featured. Fans of Stan Kenton's earlier groups will find these updated and often re-arranged versions of such songs as "Peanut Vendor," "Eager Beaver," "Southern Scandal," "Intermission Riff" and "Round Robin" quite interesting.