KEN HANNA

Not as well-known as the cartoon team of Hanna-Barbera, the team of Hanna and Kenton were responsible for a massive pile of big-band arrangements and recordings. Making his reputation in no small way by presenting and encouraging the progressive jazz works of young composers and arrangers, bandleader Stan Kenton featured Ken Hanna in his notoriously ear-bending trumpet section during the second half of the '40s. Kenton had already begun utilizing Hanna charts beginning in 1942, many of these pieces remaining favorites of the Kenton kit and kaboodle through the history of the popular band. A Baltimore lad, Hanna did his formal studies at the Peabody Institute, learning trombone as well as trumpet. Prior to the Second World War he had already begun gigging and jotting out arrangements for local bands, some of which he predictably led himself in order to get the music performed. Outside of the eventual Kenton connection, Hanna read more...