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Born December 15, 1911 in Wichita, Kansas, Stanley Newcomb Kenton grew up in Los Angeles, California. Sometime around the age of 8, his mother, Stella, a traditionally-trained musician noticed her son's irrepressible aptitude for the piano and ....

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... of the day; Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Arnold Schonberg and Igor Stravinsky, all of whom he later celebrated in many of his own classically-inspired compositions: 'Theme For Sunday,' 'Sunset Tower,' 'Concerto To End All Concertos.' Upon graduation from Bell High School he worked during the day as a rehearsal pianist in dance halls and theaters. At night he paid his dues in a succession of after-hours bars, clip joints and five dollar-a-night speakeasies prevalent throughout the depression-era southwest until he was able to assemble his own 14-piece orchestra in June of 1941. A dominant characteristic of this relatively small Kenton Orc ...