" data-original-title="" title="">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 be cerebral as well as visceral. And so he formed the Neophonic Orchestra to play the sort of forward-looking jazz he felt many listeners might welcome and appreciate. Results were mixed at best. While some listeners did respond well to the new sounds, many others including some critics were unimpressed or even unkind, and Kenton's efforts to sustain a concert orchestra, while artistically ambitious, were never financially viable.

Undaunted by the lukewarm reception, Kenton forged ahead, never abandoning the concept or his hope that audiences would sooner or later come to accept and admire his innovative point of view. Concert Kenton presents in five "acts" a concise overview of the Kenton orchestra's "progressive" side, complete with strings, mellophoniums, cello, tympani and shifting time signatures, in concerts from 1948 to 1975. Besides Kenton himself, the arrangers include