Stan Kenton Quotations

I don't think you can replaces great themes. But I think people do want to hear fresh arrangements of them. They don't want to hear them played the same way all the time.

Some of the wise boys who say my music is loud, blatant and that's all should see the faces of the kids who have driven a hundred miles through the snow to see the band... to stand in front of the bandstand in an ecstasy all their own.

Country and Western music? It's contrived calculated, commercial music. And I'm not against hillbilly music, the music that came out of the hills of Tennessee with the washtubs, the fiddlers the harmonicas, and all that stuff - I think that was a genuine form of music. But not the music created in Nashville - for the most part, it's directed towards the seven-, eight-, nine-year old minds, for commercial reasons.

Drew would run through a brick wall for (Temples). When he asked him to put his hand down, he didn't hesitate. I think it's the reason why he's playing college football, because he put his hand down.

Nostalgia's the most commercial commodity there is today; I believe it's true all over the world.

If you ask any 10 people on the street if they have ever heard of Stan Kenton," he once said, "only a couple of them will say, 'yes.' We have to try to get the other 8. And the only way I can see to do it is to make myself a personality and take my band along.

Nostalgia ain't what it used to be.

Whenever you play dance music, it serves a function. It becomes a utility; you have to worry about the tempos and what you're going to play for people. But when you're playing for listening, you're free.

When you get to the top, don't forget to send the elevator down for the next guy.