Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Desert Island Discs
Presented by Roy Plomley
One of the great names of jazz who has excited more controversy and argument than any other figure in popular music.
Eight records
I think it's absolutely necessary that I have something by Bartalk.
When It's Sleepy Time Down South
I must have something there that represents an effort or an example of what the father of all jazz can do.
It's like a modern painting. On first hearing, you did not absorb it all.
I think of all the men that have led big bands and jazz, Duke possibly should be presented with the the crown.
Nancy (with the Laughing Face)
I'm taking with me strictly for sentimental reasons.
I can think of no better music to do it by than, of course, Iber's Ports of Call.
I think he has one of the cleanest, freshest sounds on record.
This is something that I'm sure that any time I felt a little low, I could play and I would gain a smile.
The keepsakes
The book
H.L. Overstreet
I've read one book somehow that has excited me more than any of the others, and that is a book by H.L. Overstreet called The Mature Mind. ... it's a book that sort of takes away all the sham of life and gets right down to the bare facts. And I think that it is a book that I could read time and time again. And each time I would read it, I'd find something new and a different message.
The luxury
Not recorded.
In conversation
Presenter asks
Your tour has been a triumphal progress with people hanging from the rafters. Is that so?
Well, right, it's been pretty exciting and a very warm thing.
Presenter asks
When did you first have the idea that music was going to be your vocation?
Well, my mother exposed me to music when I was about 10 years old, but it was a very fast exposure. I would rather be outside playing. She tried again when I was 12 years old, but it seemed in vain. Finally, when I was about 14 years old, I suddenly became obsessed with the idea of wanting to learn how to play the piano, and I then started dreaming about making my life a professional life in music.
Presenter asks
Was there any one musician that was an inspiration to you?
Well, at a very early age, I discovered that I was interested in jazz more than in classical music. And I met an older man in music, a piano player, that said, I think that you should be set in the right direction right now. He said, Do not confuse yourself by listening to a lot of jazz music other than that of Louis Armstrong and Earl Hines. He says, Louis Armstrong, I think, is going to be the father of all jazz because he's the one that is doing the most genuine creative music. I started listening to Louis Armstrong…
The recording
Timestamps play the recording from that turn
Speaker 1
BBC Sounds, Music, Radio Podcasts. Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast. For rights reasons, the music is shorter than on the original broadcast. The presenter is Roy Plomley. I hope you enjoy listening.
Presenter
How do you do, ladies and gentlemen?
Presenter
I'm happy to welcome ashore onto our desert island this week a very famous visitor from the United States and one of the great names of jazz.
Presenter
He's probably excited more controversy and argument than any other figure in the world of popular music. It's Stan Kenton.
Presenter
Well, Stan, welcome ashore. Your records have proceeded due to this desert island on quite a number of occasions.
Presenter
Thank you, Roy.
Presenter
Well, this tour of yours is drawing to a close now. It's not so much a tour as a triumphal progress, I gather, with people just about hanging from the rafters in every hall you play in. Is that so? Well, right, it's been pretty exciting and a very warm thing.
Presenter
You, of course, yours is the first American band to play here since 1934, isn't it? Now, that's what they tell me. I think Cab Calloway was the last of the American bands to be here, so it's been quite a responsibility to come over here for the first in such a long while. Yes, this is a sort of trade agreement now. You're playing here, and R. Ted Heath has gone over to the States, is that right? Yes, he's now touring the States for his first visit. I say, I guess it's about the same number of years since a British band has been to America. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1
Uh
Presenter
And I hope this swap system is going to continue, is it? Roy, I have my fingers crossed too, as well as a lot of other musicians. I hope so. I think Louis Armstrong now being here and Freddie Randall in the States, at least that's the second step. Good. Well, we're taking you away from the early burley of the concert tour and dumping you on this desert island. Did you find it a very difficult job to choose just eight records for your exile? I find it very difficult because you've limited me a great deal, Roy, when you say I'm going to go to a desert island. I can take eight recorded compositions with me and a little else. So this has been a very important thing, me picking this music that I'm going to have with me. What's the first one you've got on the pile there? Well, for the first one, I think it's absolutely necessary that I have something by Bartalk. And one of the most popular things of his is the concerto for orchestra. And.
Speaker 1
One of the balls.
Presenter
I've chosen at the moment the rendition. It is conducted by Edward Van Bainham. Yes. Which part of the work would you like to hear? Well, Roy, I'd be very happy to hear any section you'll allow me.
Stan Kenton
Uh
Presenter
Sam, let's go right back to the beginning. Let's tell us something about your family background. Were there any musicians in the family?
Presenter
Well, none with the exception of my mother, Roy. She was a piano teacher, and she was teaching piano at the time I started studying.
Presenter
When did you first have the idea that music was going to be your vocation? Well, my mother exposed me to music when I was about 10 years old, but it was a very fast exposure. I would rather be outside playing. She tried again when I was 12 years old, but it seemed in vain.
Presenter
Finally, when I was about 14 years old, I suddenly became obsessed with the idea of wanting to learn how to play the piano, and I then started dreaming about making my life a professional life in music. What were your first jobs?
Presenter
Well, I see the very first job I had, I was about 16 years old, I had a job in the south side of Los Angeles, California, in a kind of a sandwich place, just a small eating place playing piano, and my salary for the evening was 50 cents. And if I could satisfy some of the customers by playing some of their requests, the manager assured me that they would give me something. Did they? I think I came home with 50 cents.
Presenter
Mm.
Presenter
Going back to those early days, playing the piano, and I presume you went on to lots of other places after the sandwich bar. Yes. Was there any one musician that?
Presenter
was an inspiration too.
Presenter
Well, at a very early age, I discovered that I was interested in jazz more than in classical music. And I met an older man in music, a piano player, that said, I think that you should be set in the right direction right now. He said, Do not confuse yourself by listening to a lot of jazz music other than that of Louis Armstrong and Earl Hines. He says, Louis Armstrong, I think, is going to be the father of all jazz because he's the one that is.
Presenter
Is doing the most genuine creative music. I started listening to Louis Armstrong, and for that reason, I think, Roy, on a desert island.
Presenter
I, like a lot of other jazz musician, must have something there that represents an effort or an example of what the father of all jazz can do. That would be Louis Armstrong. And if sorry, with you, I'd like to pick his Sleepy Time Donna Soph.
Stan Kenton
The family moonshiner
Stan Kenton
On the fields below.
Stan Kenton
Now folks are pruning and sounding love You didn't tell me
Stan Kenton
Because I know, yeah.
Stan Kenton
When it's sleepy, time downside.
Presenter
When did you get the idea that you must have a band of your own, Stan?
Presenter
Roy, I think that after I'd played around in Southern California, around Hollywood and Los Angeles for a number of years working in clubs, the studios and radio stations, there was such a hunger to play a certain kind of music that
Presenter
somehow the opportunity didn't present itself, so I decided that
Presenter
If I was going to be able to play that music, I'd best try to organize my own band. I think that was really the reason the band was organized. You started straight away to put your new ideas into operation with the band. You didn't just build a commercial band and then start to experiment slowly. No, I had some ideas in the beginning days of the band. I thought that the saxophones weren't being used properly. I had another idea for the trombones and, of course, phrasings and so forth. I really had something that I thought was fresh at the time. Well, now your band has gone through a number of phases, which are known as the growing pains, the progressive phase, the innovations phase, when you had the string section. Do you feel that you're now getting more or less to what you're searching for, or are you still just scratching the surface of what you're after?
Presenter
Well, I don't know how deep we are into the service or whether we're scratching it or not, but I know, Roy, that there are a lot of challenges in the future. And even though the band has been together for a long time, it seems like the future to me is just as important now as it was in the beginning days. It progresses all the time.
Presenter
Of course, like all pioneers, you've had a lot of criticism from people who say that, well, your music isn't soothing music, which they seem to want all music to be.
Presenter
Well
Presenter
Roy, you know, I actually believe that some people believe music should be just a thing that's there if you want to listen to it. And if you don't want to listen to it, you don't have to pay any attention to it. But I know that music like ours, not only like ours, but there's a lot of music just like it in the classical world, in the contemporary modern world of the classical music scene. Some music you cannot disregard. It's too pointed and it is too strong. It demands too much of your attention. We in the musical world call that music more absolute music. It's music that you can't, it's not functional. You can't eat by it and it's not good for atmosphere. It's music for music's sake. Are you going to take any of your own records to the island?
Presenter
Well, I'd like very much to take this next one with me to the desert island for one particular reason. That is this, that this is one of the outstanding things that we've done with a string section. And it somehow provokes a lot of fantasy inasmuch as every time you listen to this composition, you can hear more. It's like a modern painting. On first hearing, you did not absorb it all. And I don't think that you ever can absorb it all because there's too much going on. I think it'd be very necessary that I have this composition with me because at times when I want to look deeper into my inner self and find something else, this is the music I would choose. It's a composition called The House of Strings.
Presenter
Well, that certainly isn't jazz music, Serne. As jazz isn't ordinarily understood, is it? No, it isn't. There's no swinging drummer, and there's no improvised solo.
Presenter
Over here, of course, you're just playing concert performances. Can you do that all the time in the States, or do you play for dancing as well? No, Roy, we find in the States, and I believe it's pretty much the same throughout Great Britain, concerts are limited to seasons. We, for instance, in the States have about three months of concerts a year. Then the rest of the time we spend in ballrooms, playing dance music or in jazz clubs. Yes. Do you have to play more commercially for dancing?
Presenter
Well, it's a it's a fact that if you played some of the jazz things we play in concerts for people to dance to in a ballroom, I'm sure there'd be some kind of a emotional collapse on the audience's part because after all, if you're going to dance to music, you have to be able to hear the beat and it's got to be obvious and a lot of people dance to a melody, so it has to be functional.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Presenter
Of course, for your concepts, you do some very valuable work in commissioning works.
Presenter
Especially written for you. Oh, yes. We have really two libraries, Roy: one that we use in concerts and one we use in ballrooms.
Presenter
Do you find now that the British fans are as knowledgeable about jazz as your fans in the States? I would have to say definitely, yes. That was one of the things that amazed me so much when we came to Great Britain. I felt that possibly there would be a little bit of a lag, but there isn't at all, Roy. They seem to know just exactly what has happened in the States up till yesterday. Good. Well, let's have another disc, Dan.
Presenter
Well, you know, I think that uh
Presenter
It would be very necessary on my desert island if I took something of Duke Ellington's along, because I think of all the men that have led big bands and jazz, Duke possibly should be presented with the the crown. He's uh
Presenter
Certainly magnificent at creating moods. And here's one example. This, too, is like the composition ahead of it.
Presenter
Each time you listen to it, you hear and feel something else. This is a composition of his from Black, Brown, and Beige. This is called The Blues.
Presenter
Uh
Presenter
I took a choo-choo choo-choo fast as I could take.
Stan Kenton
Got you, gotcha.
Stan Kenton
I came a long, long, long, long way to take you in my arms.
Stan Kenton
And now it's your
Presenter
First move to prove that you bid
Presenter
Duke Ellington's The Blues.
Presenter
When you finish your tour here, Stan, in a few days' time, what are your plans? Are you going back to the States?
Presenter
No, not yet, Roy. We go to Europe. Our first concert over there is in Scandinavia, in Oslo. We'll be there for about an equal number of dates to those here in Great Britain.
Presenter
We have about five weeks of consciousness and then we returned to New York. It must be a a very exhausting life playing one night stands from city to city.
Presenter
Well, I don't think so because you have to remember, Roy, all we do is play one-night stands and go from city to city, eat a bit here and sleep a bit there. I imagine that if we started saying, well, now we're in this wonderful country or this wonderful place, I wish we had time to go do this, and we start becoming disappointed and feeling a lot of self-pity, why, then I imagine we'd feel exhausted, but not under the circumstances. You're a very relaxed man. I think that helps a lot. Well, Roy, I've never been told that in my life before, so I'm going to cherish that remark very much. I'm glad I look that way because there's certainly a lot of butterflies going on inside. No sign of it.
Presenter
So what what would you like to hear next?
Presenter
Well, I've always said uh that I think that I have uh
Presenter
the smallest amount of sentimentality and nostalgia of any person I I know. But here I am in choosing these records from my desert island. Here's something that I'm taking with me strictly for sentimental reasons.
Presenter
And I think when it comes to creating sentimental music, Frank Sinatra probably has no superior. And if you like, if you don't mind, I should say I'd like to take his version of Nancy.
Stan Kenton
If I don't see her each day
Presenter
I miss her.
Presenter
Gee, what a thrill Each time I kiss her.
Presenter
Believe me, I've got a case.
Presenter
Or Nancy.
Presenter
With a laughing face
Presenter
Roy, on a desert island there will certainly be afternoons when I shall sit on the beach and look out across that water and dream and gaze, and I can think of no better music to do it by than, of course, Iber's Ports of Call. Yes. Which particular port? Well, right now I am looking toward Rome.
Presenter
Well, now, Stan, we come to the $64,000 question. What sort of castaway are you going to be on this island? Would you be able to look after yourself? Could you build a shelter to live in? Well, let's see, Roy, there are no hotels on this desert island. Nothing at all, just you. And there are no restaurants? Nothing. Well, what does that mean? What do I have to do? You have to build a hut.
Presenter
Build a hat.
Presenter
Well, I suppose I'll have to build it out of anything I can find. I don't know how to build a hut, but I certainly know that I'll have to build one. Yeah, you'd better. Can you uh fish or trap or anything of that sort? No, I'm the world's worst fisherman. I've never been on a hunting trip, but I have to do both of those. Well, I want to live, Roy. Yes, so I'd better learn how. Can you cook?
Presenter
No, not at all. But if I have to live, if I have to cook to live, I'll say I'd better learn how to cook. You'd better learn how to cook. I'm going to be a pretty busy man these first weeks. This number seven, what's that going to be?
Presenter
Well, for disc number seven, I think it's absolutely necessary that I take with me something fresh and something new, something that does not represent a lot of battle scars of a long career in music.
Presenter
I have chosen the voice of Danny Purchase to go along with me, a fellow here from Great Britain. I think he has one of the cleanest, freshest sounds on record. May I have his record of We All Need Love.
Presenter
And after Danny Purchase comes number eight, and this is your last one, Stan. What have you chosen for your last one? Well, I've chosen something that's got to be with me. This record I consider one of the masterpieces, and so does the commercial world of music, considered a money-making masterpiece. This is something that I'm sure that any time I felt a little low, I could play and I would gain a smile.
Presenter
This is Tennessee earnings sixteen tons.
Speaker 3
I was born one morning when the sun didn't shine. I picked up my shovel and I walked to the mine. I loaded sixteen tons, a number nine coal, and the straw boss said, well, bless my soul. You load sixteen tons. What do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt. Saint Peter, don't you call me, cause I can go. I owe my soul to the company store.
Presenter
Well, there we are, Stan. There's your eight records, for better or for worse. Now you've got one more choice to make for the desert island. That's your luxury object. You can take with you, as well as your records, one luxury. What would you like?
Presenter
Well, let's see, Roy, you've made it obvious to me that I can't take a practical luxury, something that I could wear or use to keep myself alive. Well, you could take something to wear if you want to.
Speaker 1
Alive
Presenter
I may take something to wear. Well, let me see.
Presenter
I think if I could take something to wear, I'd take a pair of shoes. No, shoes wouldn't last a long time. They'd wear out fast. I'll get along without them at the beginning.
Presenter
I don't know. I don't have anything that I would take of sentimental value with me. I just somehow never become attached to any little pictures or items that would appeal to my sentimentality. But if you'll allow me a book, I'd appreciate it, Roy. What book would you like? Well, out of all the books that I've read, and I'm not trying to say I've read a lot of books because I'm a very bad literature connoisseur, I've read one book somehow that has excited me more than any of the others, and that is a book by H.L. Overstreet called The Mature Mind. What's it about? What is it? Well, it's a book that sort of takes away all the sham of life and gets right down to the bare facts. And I think that it is a book that I could read time and time again. And each time I would read it, I'd find something new and a different message. Well, you'll have plenty of time on the island to think it all out. Well, I think I'll take this book with me then. Many thanks, Dan Kenneth, for letting your choice of desert island discs. And I hope we'll see you over here on many more visits.
Presenter
With you and your band, and they'll all be as successful as this one. Well, Roy, thank you very much.
Presenter
Goodbye, everyone. Let me say goodbye too.
Presenter asks
When did you get the idea that you must have a band of your own?
Roy, I think that after I'd played around in Southern California, around Hollywood and Los Angeles for a number of years working in clubs, the studios and radio stations, there was such a hunger to play a certain kind of music that somehow the opportunity didn't present itself, so I decided that if I was going to be able to play that music, I'd best try to organize my own band. I think that was really the reason the band was organized.
Presenter asks
Your music has faced criticism for not being soothing. How do you respond to that?
Roy, you know, I actually believe that some people believe music should be just a thing that's there if you want to listen to it. And if you don't want to listen to it, you don't have to pay any attention to it. But I know that music like ours, not only like ours, but there's a lot of music just like it in the classical world, in the contemporary modern world of the classical music scene. Some music you cannot disregard. It's too pointed and it is too strong. It demands too much of your attention. We in the musical world call that music more absolute music. It's music that you can't, it's not functional. You can't eat by it and it's not good for atmosphere. It's music for music's sake.
Presenter asks
Would you be able to look after yourself on the island? Could you build a shelter?
Well, I suppose I'll have to build it out of anything I can find. I don't know how to build a hut, but I certainly know that I'll have to build one. … No, I'm the world's worst fisherman. I've never been on a hunting trip, but I have to do both of those. Well, I want to live, Roy. Yes, so I'd better learn how. … No, not at all. But if I have to live, if I have to cook to live, I'll say I'd better learn how to cook.
“Some music you cannot disregard. It's too pointed and it is too strong. It demands too much of your attention.”
“I've always said that I think that I have the smallest amount of sentimentality and nostalgia of any person I know. But here I am in choosing these records from my desert island. Here's something that I'm taking with me strictly for sentimental reasons.”
“I don't know how to build a hut, but I certainly know that I'll have to build one.”
“If I have to live, if I have to cook to live, I'll say I'd better learn how to cook.”
“This record I consider one of the masterpieces, and so does the commercial world of music, considered a money-making masterpiece. This is something that I'm sure that any time I felt a little low, I could play and I would gain a smile.”