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Johnny Richards
Born:
Johnny Richards (born Juan Manuel Cascale) was an American jazz arranger and composer He was a pivotal arranger for some of the more adventurous performances by Stan Kenton's big band in the 1950s and early 1960, such as Cuban Fire! and Kenton's West Side Story.
Richards was born in Toluca, Mexico, to a Spanish father (Juan Cascales y Valero) and a Mexican mother (Maria Celia Arrue aka Marie Cascales), whose parents were Spanish immigrants to Mexico. He entered the United States on August 4, 1919 at Laredo, Texas, along with his mother, three brothers (also professional musicians) and sister:
Johnny Richards and Stan Kenton
Johnny Richards arranged several crackerjack albums for Stan Kenton. They include Cuban Fire!, tracks on Back to Balboa, Kenton's West Side Story and Adventures in Time. Even more exceptional are Richards's albums recorded as a leader, including Something Else, Wide Range, Walk Softly/Run Wild and Aqui Se Habla Español. With Kenton, Richards came a long way ...
Backgrounder: Johnny Richards' Walk Softly
As West Coast arrangers go, Johnny Richards was spectacular. Like Bill Holman and Shorty Rogers, he had an authentic feel for the Hollywood scene and how to blend glamor with art. To stir this mood, Richards made wonderful use of French horns and piccolos, and he always threw in a touch of Latin flavor. His arrangements ...
Backgrounder: Johnny Richards Something Else
One of my very favorite big band albums is Johnny Richards' Something Else. Recorded for Bethlehem in Los Angeles in August 1956, the album features Richards compositions and arrangements and a band that will make West Coast jazz fans gasp. Waltz Anyone featured Pete Candoli, Buddy Childers and Maynard Ferguson (tp); Stu Williamson (tp,v-tb); Tommy Pederson, ...
Tobias Hoffmann Jazz Orchestra: Conspiracy
by Jack Bowers
While listening to Conspiracy, German-born composer-arranger Tobias Hoffmann's second album, the thought arose that “Stan Kenton would have loved this." Like Kenton, Hoffmann is an explorer who approaches music from a cerebral point of view but never overlooks the need to swing and to keep an audience engaged by varying the tone, tempo and color of ...
Stan Kenton and His Orchestra: Concert on the Pacific
by Jack Bowers
The Stan Kenton Orchestra's Concert on the Pacific is actually a compendium of several concerts recorded between January and March 1958 at the Rendezvous Ballroom in Balboa, California—a series that almost emptied Kenton's wallet and caused him to pause and regroup a year or so later. While this was post-Rosolino/Sims/Konitz/Levey, the Kenton Orchestra was never without ...
Stan Kenton and His Orchestra: In a Lighter Vein
by Jack Bowers
Stan Kenton was a man of many moods, as was his intrepid and popular orchestra, which endured until his passing in August 1979 and whose renown is kept alive even today by the Stan Kenton Legacy Orchestra. Kenton dons his carefree hat on In a Lighter Vein, an assortment of straight-ahead themes from the orchestra's jazz ...
Stan Kenton and His Orchestra: Concert Kenton
by Jack Bowers
There's no question that Stan Kenton led one of the more successful and popular orchestras of the storied Big Band Era, winning various yearly polls while drawing large crowds to his jazz concerts and dance performances from coast to coast. But Kenton always wanted something more: to enlighten as well as entertain. Music, he felt, should ...
The Stan Kenton Orchestra / Trinity College: Concert Impressions
by Jack Bowers
Here's another splendid two-disc anthology from Tantara Productions showcasing music from the capacious Stan Kenton library, performed on Disc 1 by the Kenton Orchestra circa 1972-76 and on Disc 2 by the Trinity College Big Band, Alumni Band and Symphony Orchestra in 2004 and 2007. Tantara has now released more than twenty albums, all devoted to ...
Stan Kenton: A Kenton Trilogy, Part 2 / The Sound of Jazz
by Jack Bowers
The Sound of Jazz by the legendary Stan Kenton Orchestra follows Part 1 of a Kenton Trilogy, Dance Time, and hopefully precedes a third component yet to be named. Although Kenton has been gone for more than forty years (he died in August 1979), he has hardly been forgotten, with reissues of concert and studio sessions ...
