"Sincere Sounds"

The big brassy jazz bands had become a luxury that people were unwilling to pay for. In empty nightclubs and ballrooms their tricky arrangements were being heard mostly by the waiters, who were appreciative but unprofitable listeners. In the past eight weeks, Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Harry James, Les Brown and Jack Teagarden decided to disband. Gene Krupa and Jimmy Dorsey cut salaries. This week Woody Herman gave up too.

The "Herman herd" came to a stop just one year after it won the 1945 band-of-the-year poll by the jazz magazine Metronome. Last week Metronome counted up its 1946 votes and awarded its prize to a band still new to the big time: Stan Kenton's. He finished far ahead of Duke Ellington.

Stan Kenton is a toothy, tall (6 ft. 4 1/2 in.) piano player who likes to talk about the "sincere sounds" his band makes. He had found that there were still plenty of jobs for young bands which were not fussy about one-night stands and didn't charge too much.

No More Eggs. Kenton organized his band five years ago in Hollywood, and rode along in the brassy wakes of Woody Herman and Lionel Hampton. Said he: "We created a lot of nervous energy but it wasn't what people felt. I decided to change our style."

Kenton's bandsmen began making more noise than any except perhaps Herman's. Kenton arrangements included trumpet and saxophone battles, with each section standing up to play its inning. Kenton beat out grandiose piano phrases against an elaborately embroidered bass. He called it "artistry in rhythm."

Kenton is a gladhander who seeks out local disc jockeys when he hits a new town, is up early in the morning to be accommodating to autograph seekers. Said he: "We can't lay any more eggs. Now we play a pulsating melodic throb. People's ears today are in tune to great harmonic things. Our music has to be built into institutional proportions. The band has to become a household word." --

Metronome's prize girl singer of the year is June Christy, 21, a onetime amateur-night winner from Decatur, Ill. She got more votes than Dinah Shore or Jo Stafford. June sings with Stan Kenton's band in the same husky moan as her Kenton predecessor, Anita O'Day. Says she: "I've been hoarse ever since I can remember and Anita has too. Anita has bad breath control and so do I. It makes both of us sing a little flat."

Best small band: the King Cole Trio, which nine years ago was playing California cocktail bars for $25 a week apiece. Now, largely because of the casual "singing of Nat (King) Cole, son of a Negro Baptist minister, the trio earns $5,000 a week, for such songs as Straighten Up and Fly Right ("Cool down, papa, don't you blow your top") and Get Your Kicks on Route 66.

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