Might I suggest the 16-track, hour-long City of Glass compilation, which features all of the Kenton/Robert Graettinger recording sessions? It gives a sharper look into this unique collaboration, while also including several of the Orchestra’s best tunes (“Thermopylae,” “Incident in Jazz,” “Everything Happens to Me”). The City of Glass Community Note includes chapter-by-chapter summary and analysis, character list, theme list, historical context, author biography and quizzes written by community members like you. In 1991, the Toyama Institute of Glass Art opened to train talented glass. The fact that it comes so (relatively) early in jazz history makes all the difference. the city of Toyama has made glass a theme in its community development. Nevertheless, the “City of Glass” suite is one of the most overt avant-garde recordings in jazz history. The ideas behind the music are far more rewarding than the sounds produced, which is never a good sign-academia gone wrong. However, the polyphonic atonality and jarring chromaticism is often difficult to parse. Erin came to Salt Lake with her family when she was 7 years old, and after losing her father to cancer at age 13, Erin graduated from Alta High School and enrolled at the University of Utah. Considering the time (early 1950s…) and place (…in Hollywood, CA…) and context (…when modernist jazz was still in its infantile stages), this music is decades ahead of its time. Mendenhall is the 36th mayor of Salt Lake City. That’s not to say City of Glass isn’t good and/or groundbreaking. If it wasn’t for the horns and occasional drums, this would fit right in with Second Viennese School dogma. City of Glass-a classical suite in four movements-is harsh and dissonant, with only traces of bop and/or swing. Auster’s New York Trilogy, is a meta-literary novel, and its pleasures are largely found in the twisty language and tricksy twining of themes. Kenton’s 1950 LP, Innovations in Modern Music, was a bit more fun, you could say. This is far from jazz, and even further from big band. With dashes of Charles Ives and, gasp, Elliot Carter thrown in for good measure. This is big band Alban Berg, nothing more and nothing less.

City of glass theme