With his penchant for bombast, it was quite a challenge for Stan Kenton to take on the romantic and ballad end of the standards repertoire, but that is what he attempts on two of the four LPs included here, The Ballad Style of Stan Kenton and Romantic Approach.

His own arrangements tend to feature the melody picked out by one finger of his right hand against a cushion of brass and reeds, as he does here on ‘A Sunday Kind of Love’ or ‘More Than You Know’, before the massed ranks swell into a Hollywood closing credits-style blast, with everyone blowing loud and lustily. There’s some more interesting harmonic writing on Standards In Silhouette, arranged by Bill Mathieu, who makes much of the brass section on ‘The Thrill Is Gone’ and creates a well crafted trombone-led chart on ‘I Get Along Without You Very Well’ that also features some fine soloing from Charlie Mariano.

But the high point is the Sophisticated Approach album arranged by Lennie Niehaus. There’s more economy in the writing here, so that even though the band has swelled to 24 pieces with the addition of a mellophone section, it generally feels less otiose than Kenton’s own charts. Niehaus also brings some of the tempi up from funereal to medium slow, which is a welcome change. Kenton’s recordings can be marred by the lumbering size of his bands and the tendency to remind us just how many musicians he employed, but this closing album of the set keeps the giant crescendos in check, for the most part, and a track such as ‘It Might As Well Be Spring’ is a fine combination of subtle orchestral writing and some genuine jazz solos.