Stan Kenton

It's no big thing to play the music of Duke Ellington. That's done all the time: in cabarets, concert halls, movies, Broadway theaters and anywhere jazz musicians assemble. Ellingtonia, a word coined by admirers who realized that no existing musical...

The New Year has just begun, but the jazz scene never settles down. Among the weekend's highlights: Rob Mazurek: The enterprising Chicago cornetist has produced remarkable work with his aptly named Exploding Star Orchestra, which conjures a...

Two back-to-back holiday-themed concerts will take place Dec. 8 and 9 at the Pasquerilla Performing Arts Center on the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown campus.  The first of two concerts, titled “Celebrate the Holidays,” will be presented by the...

It's time again for another Jazz Swing Dance, presented by Northern State University music students.  The fall edition of the Northern dance and music extravaganza will unfold Friday night at the Ward Plaza Hotel Grand Ballroom, 104 S. Main St.  The...

There are many palm trees in Huntington Beach, but few as meaningful as the pair of graceful and slender Mexican fan palms that scrape the sky just several blocks from the ocean on Eighth Street. Like the house they sway in front of, they date back to the...

The upcoming season at the Pasquerilla Performing Arts Center on the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown campus is full of music, theater and dance. The season, which runs from October through May, includes nearly two dozen shows for people of all...

What do Charo, Gallager (the watermelon-smashing comedian), Mohammed Bello Adoke (the Nigerian Minister of Health), Mario Cuomo, Henry Mancini, Bob Hope, Joe Namath, Willem Dafoe, Lynn Swan, Myron Cope, Franco Harris, the Kingston Trio, Woody Herman, Phil...

Pete Rugolo, an award-winning composer and arranger who came to prominence in the world of jazz as the chief arranger for Stan Kenton's post-World War II band and later wrote the themes for TV's "The Fugitive" and "Run for Your Life," has died. He was 95....

Russell Garcia, an arranger, composer and conductor who was an influential figure in the West Coast music scene during the 1950s and '60s and whose work in Hollywood included writing the score for the 1960 science-fiction classic "The Time Machine," has...

Jazz people like to brag that their idiom is "America's classical music." But if you catch some of them in a certain mood, you'll find that they long to merge their art with what much of the Western world calls "classical music" — the idiom that...

George David Weiss, a prolific songwriter who co-wrote "Can't Help Falling in Love," "What a Wonderful World," "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" and many other pop hits, has died. He was 89. Weiss, a former longtime president of the Songwriters Guild of America,...

After a hard day at play on the local soundstages, some of the world's greatest musicians like to go out and play some more — for live audiences. -------------------- FOR THE RECORD: L.A.-area big bands: An article in the Arts & Books section...