Stan Kenton: This Is an Orchestra!

32. The End of an Era (1979)

295 32. The End of an Era (1979) An indication of the severity of Kenton’s plight is that almost overnight he switched from parading his problems in public to secluding himself in his own home. Word on the grapevine in early 1979 included several reports concerning a new tour to begin in April, suggesting Stan remained as keen as ever to re-form the band, with only his health acting as a deterrent. Then in March came the bombshell that all bets were off, with even the summer Clinics cancelled. There would be no new band until 1980, because according to the Willard Alexander office, “Stan didn’t feel up to it, and whenever he comes back he wants to do it first class.”1 It was at this point that Audree Coke emerged as a major player. Undoubtedly the most important person to Stanley during the last years of his life, she had re-entered Stan’s world at a time when he increasingly needed a woman’s support, and now she alone took on the responsibility of caring for him at his time of greatest need. Without Audree’s business acumen the Creative World organization would have long since foundered, but at the same time she also became a center of contention that lasts to this day. Certainly true is the fact that Audree was as strongminded and determined as Stanley himself, and in turn provoked strong reactions. (I use the past tense, because she is now an elderly lady who has largely retired from an active role in public affairs.) Initial criticism was that Audree was preventing Stan from seeing his friends and intimates, and certainly it seemed to many that she shielded Kenton from the public gaze like a she-tiger protecting her cubs. Even close associates like Pete Rugolo and Jim Amlotte were denied access, as was Down Beat writer John McDonough, who nevertheless penned an article that appeared in print June 7, 1979, though John’s prognosis that Kenton was “about 98% recovered” was wildly optimistic. Audree admits, “Many people thought I was being over-protective towards Stanley. It was terrible. People said I was hiding him, which couldn’t have been 296 Stan Kenton: This Is an Orchestra! further from the truth. He was living in his own home, in the way he had chosen. I wasn’t protecting him. People would call at the office and they would want to see Stanley, and I would say, ‘I’ll tell him.’ But when I’d get home and told Stanley so-and-so would like to see him, Stanley would say, ‘No!’ It was his choice, it wasn’t mine—but the woman always gets the blame in a case like this. They felt I was running his life, and I had hidden him away somewhere up there in the hills, and they couldn’t get to him—which is exactly the way Stanley wanted it!” Stan was most certainly not a prisoner, and the “old” Kenton would have made damn sure he got about, met people, talked music. Though of a totally different kind than the affection he felt for Audree, Stan’s love of his musicians and his music was equally valid and real for a major part of his life. A proud man who did not seek sympathy or consolation, it must have been Stan’s own decision to shut himself away, and that must have been caused by his deteriorating health, an awareness that he lacked the same grasp and mastery as hitherto, and the fear he would fail to recognize even close acquaintances. Audree resumes: “When the band broke up in August ’78 we’d intended to take a break. Stanley was very tired, and he realized he wasn’t functioning as well as he should. Stanley and I had lived together for many years. We were quite discreet about this, and it was not generally known, but we had bought a lovely house together in 1975, situated on a high hill in Hollywood , and that was where we were going to settle down. “There was no sudden deterioration in Stanley’s health that caused him to call off the tour that we started to set up in ’79. He simply changed his mind. He decided it wasn’t a good idea, and he wasn’t ready to do that. Stanley himself was extremely tired, and he had finally admitted to himself that he didn’t feel...