Claire Martin - BBC Proms - Live Review - The Guardian

Jazz hasn't featured much in the Proms this year, but by staging a centenary tribute to Stan Kenton's big-band music of the 1940s and 50s, the organisers were unleashing enough roaring noise to stand in for half a dozen other gigs. Kenton died in 1979, but his prolific output, sophisticated scores and futuristic vision of a genre-bending "progressive music" still excite fans. The BBC Big Band, led by Jiggs Whigham with the classy Claire Martin on vocals, did Kenton's memory proud, fanning his legendary infernos while letting the embers of his mood-music glow.

Kenton's 1940s signature theme, Artistry in Rhythm, opened with high brass fanfares alternating with lustrous low chords, before giving way to breezy swing. Kenton arranger Bill Holman's equally capricious version of Stompin' at the Savoy preceded Martin's arrival on a free-swinging A Lot of Livin' to Do - which she wound up on a pristine high note, as if sending a warning message to the trumpets.

Trumpeter Martin Shaw unfolded a meditation of long, softly flaring notes on Portrait of a Count; Martin's flawless swing steered Jeepers Creepers; and the characteristic Kenton sound of swelling percussion and anthemic climaxes resolved an initially fragile voice-and-piano version of My Old Flame. The cross-genre Concerto to End All Concertos mixed the reflective feel of its original 40s version with a nimble double-bass break turning into a fast walk that brought the band stomping back. Brass phrases heatedly chased each other at the climax of the Iberian Malagueña, then Martin's rich mid-range caressed the Peggy Lee classic Black Coffee. For the finale, the Latin blockbuster El Congo Valiente, the combined thunder of drumkit, congas and timpanis raised the roof in an appropriately Kentonesque manner.