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1950s Articles Dancing Entertainment Film, Television & Music

Live At Lagoon, 1957!

Only a handful of concerts at Lagoon’s Patio Gardens were recorded and made available, and of those few, most are Stan Kenton concerts. The earliest of which is this three-volume series on compact disc from the nights of the 16th & 17th of August in 1957. It was released in 1992 by the Magic label of England.

Each show was about an hour and a half long, but the set list was fairly different each night (see Info For Collectors below). A 30-minute portion of the first concert was broadcast live on KSL Radio and hosted by Rolfe Peterson, who peppered it with his infamous dry humor. This portion, with Peterson’s introductions and comments, are included on the first volume.

Clips from the radio broadcast portion.

These impressive performances are available today thanks to recording engineer Wally Heider who made hundreds of mobile recordings like these around the country. In later years, Heider started his own studio in San Francisco that was used by many well-known bands of the 1960s & ’70s such as Jefferson Airplane, Santana, The Grateful Dead and Creedence Clearwater Revival, to name a few.

Hear both full concerts in the playlists below:

FIRST NIGHT
SECOND NIGHT
INFO FOR COLLECTORS

You can buy Volume One, Volume Two and Volume Three on Discogs. I wouldn’t recommend buying from Amazon as some sellers will send you cheaply-made bootleg copies instead of originals as advertised.

Because the two concerts are split up onto three separately-sold CDs, the tracks were re-arranged to give a more cohesive experience for those who might not be able to obtain all three. Here’s the actual set lists for each night as originally performed, according to the liner notes:

FIRST NIGHT, 16 AUG 1956
1The OpenerCD 1, track 1
2Walking ShoesCD 1, track 2
3Remember YouCD 1, track 3
4Theme And VariationsCD 1, track 4
5I’m Glad There Is YouCD 1, track 5
6I Should CareCD 1, track 6
7The Big ChaseCD 1, track 7
8Artistry In RhythmCD 1, track 8
9Spring Is HereCD 1, track 9
10My IdealCD 1, track 10
11Love LettersCD 1, track 11
12Sophisticated LadyCD 1, track 12
13The Way You Look TonightCD 1, track 13
14When Your Lover Has GoneCD 1, track 14
15Intermission RiffCD 1, track 15
16Love For SaleCD 2, track 17
17Artistry In Rhythm (End)CD 1, track 16
18Opus In ChartreuseCD 1, track 17
19TenderlyCD 2, track 2
20I Get Along Without You Very WellCD 2, track 1
21Memories Of YouCD 2, track 3
22I Married An AngelCD 2, track 4
23Day By DayCD 2, track 5
24I See Your Face Before MeCD 2, track 6
25So In LoveCD 2, track 7
26Artistry In RhythmCD 2, track 8
SECOND NIGHT, 17 AUG 1956
1I’m Glad There Is YouCD 2, track 9
2My IdealCD 2, track 10
3Spring Is HereCD 2, track 11
4Street Of DreamsCD 2, track 12
5Intermission RiffCD 2, track 13
6Where Or WhenCD 2, track 14
7Walking By The RiverCD 2, track 15
8All Of YouCD 2, track 16
9TenderlyCD 3, track 2
10Baby You’re ToughCD 3, track 3
11When Your Lover Has GoneCD 3, track 4
12The Way You Look TonightCD 3, track 5
13Fearless FinlayCD 3, track 1
14You Turned The Tables On MeCD 3, track 6
15Memories Of YouCD 3, track 7
16Intermission RiffCD 3, track 8
17The Nearness Of YouCD 3, track 9
18I See Your Face Before MeCD 3, track 10
19LauraCD 3, track 11
20When Sunny Gets BlueCD 3, track 12
21NightingaleCD 3, track 15
22The End Of A Love AffairCD 3, track 13
23I Married An AngelCD 3, track 14
NOTES

Special thanks to Jim Brown for his comment on the Woody Herman article letting me know about these CDs.

MORE FROM LHP
SOURCES

Harry Oliver’s Desert Rat Scrapbook. Harry Oliver’s Desert Rat Scrapbook, Packet One of Pouch Nine, undated.

Bennett, John R. Stan Kenton And His Orchestra Live At The Patio Gardens Ballroom liner notes, 1992.

Brown, Jim. Comment on Live At Lagoon, 1956. 16 Mar 2021.

History of Hyde Street Studios. HydeStreet.com, accessed 2 Sep 2021.

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