Stan Kenton & His BB Jazz Orchestra

[Valenti]

I love Stan Kenton, especially his in hi-fi album. What I love about his stuff is the strong melodies, the big band sound, and it doesn't alienate the listener with too much soloing, and the occasional tune has some nice vocals by the likes of June Christy. So who else is similar to Stan Kenton?

[Larry Kart]

Boyd Raeburn:

http://www.hepjazz.com/bios/boydr.html

One possible problem, because you mentioned "Kenton in Hi-Fi," is that Raeburn's band was from the pre-LP era and thus its recordings are 78s, radio transcriptions, or airchecks. Sound quality, then, will be akin to early Kenton, not Kenton's latter-day Capitol recordings, which were often pretty spectacular sonically. Raeburn had two fine vocalists, Ginny Powell (eventually his wife) and the great David Allyn.