All Music Guide
This CD contains one of the classic Stan Kenton albums, a six-part suite composed and arranged by Johnny Richards. The Kenton orchestra was expanded to 27 pieces for these dates including six percussionists, two French horns and six trumpets. With such soloists as tenor-great Lucky Thompson (on "Fuego Cubano,") trombonist Carl Fontana, altoist Lennie Niehaus, Bill Perkins on tenor and trumpeters Sam Noto and Vinnie Tanno, and plenty of raging ensembles, this is one of Stan Kenton's more memorable concept albums of the 1950s. Scott Yanow
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Barnes & Noble
In 1956, with the big-band era long dead but the mambo era at full bloom, Stan Kenton and his grandiose 22-piece orchestra, augmented by a five-man Latin percussion section, recorded the bursting-at-the-seams CUBAN FIRE: a six-part suite written and arranged by Johnny Richards. Sounding like the score for some unfilmed wide-screen epic, the album remains a Kenton high point. One of Kenton's best bands -- Lucky Thompson, Bill Perkins, Carl Fontana, Lennie Niehaus, and Mel Lewis are among the first-rate musicians -- play Richards's complex charts with brio, as the percussion section (dressed out with a sixth man on tympani for extra oomph) snaps, crackles, and pops. Lee Jeske |
