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Maynard Ferguson
Walter "Maynard" Ferguson was a Canadian-born jazz trumpet player and bandleader. He came to prominence playing in Stan Kenton's orchestra, before forming his own band in 1957. He was noted for being able to play accurately in a remarkably high register, and for his bands, which served as stepping stones for up-and-coming talent.
Early life and education
Ferguson was born in Verdun, Quebec (now part of Montreal). Encouraged by his mother and father (both musicians), Maynard was playing piano and violin by the age of four. At nine years old, he heard a cornet for the first time in his local church and asked his parents to purchase him one. At age 13, Ferguson first soloed as a child prodigy with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Orchestra and was heard frequently on the CBC, notably featured on a Serenade for Trumpet in Jazz written for him by Morris Davis. Ferguson won a scholarship to the French Conservatory of Music where he studied from 1943 through 1948 with Bernard Baker.
Ferguson dropped out of Montreal High School at age 15 to more actively pursue a music career, performing in dance bands led by Stan Wood, Roland David, and Johnny Holmes. While trumpet was his primary instrument, Ferguson also performed on other brass and reed instruments. Ferguson later took over the dance band formed by his brother Percy, playing dates in the Montreal area and serving as an opening act for touring bands from the United States. During this period, Ferguson came to the attention of numerous American band leaders and began receiving offers to come to the United States.
Ferguson moved to the United States in 1949 and initially played with the bands of Boyd Raeburn, Jimmy Dorsey, and Charlie Barnet. The Barnet band was notable for a trumpet section that also included Doc Severinsen, Ray Wetzel, Johnny Howell, and Rolf Erickson. Ferguson was featured on a notoriously flamboyant Barnet recording of Jerome Kern's All The Things You Are that enraged Kern's widow and was subsequently withdrawn from sale. When Barnet temporarily retired in 1949 and disbanded his orchestra, Ferguson was free to accept an offer to join Stan Kenton's newly formed Innovations Orchestra.
Kenton and Hollywood
Stan Kenton had a longstanding offer to Ferguson but had temporarily disbanded when Ferguson moved to the United States. Kenton's bands were notable for their bombastic brass sections and Ferguson was a natural fit. In 1950, Kenton formed the Innovations Orchestra, a 40-piece jazz concert orchestra with strings, and with the folding of the Barnet band, Ferguson was available for the first rehearsal on January 1, 1950. While the Innovations Orchestra was not commercially successful, it made a number of remarkable recordings, including Maynard Ferguson, one of a series of pieces named after featured soloists.
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Sonny Rollins, Miles Davis, Kenny Dorham & Eric Dolphy
by Joe Dimino
In honor of Thanksgiving, we produced a powerful hour of jazz affectionately called Jazzgiving"--a carefully prepared hour of music with all the trimmings. We begin with Maynard Ferguson and move on to Kenny Dorham. We continue to dial up heavyweights with Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker__and {{m: Dave Brubeck. We close out the hour with Eric Dolphy and music from his iconic album Out to Lunch. Dig this special hour of jazz. Playlist Maynard Ferguson ...
Continue ReadingCanadian Jazz: Remembering Maynard Ferguson
by Nick Catalano
The recent Montreal Jazz Festival (read about it here) sparked many conversations hailing the evolution of the event in recent years and its growing importance for musicians everywhere. It certainly ranks among the best jazz convocations in the Western Hemisphere. The occasion of the festival offered me an opportunity to reflect on the history of Canadian jazz and my association with some of its leading exponents. The first name I thought of was Maynard Ferguson. My multiple associations ...
Continue ReadingMaynard Ferguson: Memories of Maynard
by Nicholas F. Mondello
With the possible exceptions of Louis Armstrong and Charlie Parker--both of whose playing influenced the entire genre of jazz--no other jazz performer has had the purely imitative effect on an entire instrument's universe of players than Maynard Ferguson. Ferguson's unique abilities as a trumpet player and individual inspire trumpeters young and old to this day. His most ardent admirers stretched beyond the jazz idiom to Maurice Andre, Adolph Bud" Herseth--respectively considered the gold standard" of orchestral and virtuosic trumpeting--to the ...
Continue ReadingMaynard Ferguson: The One and Only Maynard Ferguson
by Woodrow Wilkins
Throughout his sixty-plus year career, Maynard Ferguson featured numerous sidemen on varying arrangements of jazz standards, covers of pop hits and original songs. As a young man, he performed with such legends as Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie and Stan Kenton. As a bandleader, his stage band and studio guests included a virtual who's who of jazz, including Bob James, David Sanborn, Nathan East, Stanley Clarke, George Benson and Steve Gadd. Born in Canada but living in the United ...
Continue ReadingMaynard Ferguson: The One and Only
by Jack Bowers
In baseball parlance, one could say he went down swingin'. In July, 2006, less than a month before his passing at age seventy-eight, trumpeter Maynard Ferguson led Big Bop Nouveau and a handful of the group's notable alumni into a studio in Englewood, NJ, to record what is arguably his finest album in years, and one that presumably no one, least of all Maynard himself, suspected might be his last.
On the other hand, we'll never know if Ferguson may ...
Continue ReadingMaynard Ferguson: MF Horn VI: Live at Ronnie's
by Jack Bowers
In August 2005, when Maynard Ferguson and Big Bop Nouveau recorded MF Horn VI at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in London, no one could have known or even suspected that the trumpet legend would pass away one year later, shortly after a series of sold-out concerts at New York City's Blue Note nightclub and another recording session with BBN, this one a studio date in Englewood, New Jersey.
There's a saying about cowboys and westerners who lived life to the ...
Continue ReadingRemembering Maynard at "Stratospheric" 2004
by Patricia Myers
Maynard Ferguson grinned with delight as the sounds of Blue Birdland roared from a big band of 14 trumpeters. When the chart ended, he climbed on stage and declared, Finally, somebody got it right! We don't need those funny instruments like saxophones and trombones!
MF's classic wit and charisma were bonus elements of the four-day production in 2004 of Stratospheric: A Maynard Ferguson Big Band Alumni Reunion. MF reminisced energetically during panel discussions and was readily accessible to chat with ...
Continue ReadingBackgrounder: Maynard Ferguson - Around the Horn
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Recorded in November 1955 and May 1956, Maynard Ferguson's Around the Horn With Maynard Ferguson remains a spectacular album. All 12 tracks were composed and arranged by the late Bill Holman, and the band was top notch. The band featured Ferguson (tp,b-tp,vtb); Buddy Childers and Ray Linn (tp); Bob Burgess (tb); Herb Geller (as); Georgie Auld and Bill Holman (ts); Bud Shank (bs); Lorraine Geller (p); Buddy Clark (b on tracks 1–4) and Ray Brown (b on tracks 5–12); Alvin ...
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Perfect Album: Newport Message
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Over three days in May 1958, Maynard Ferguson's band was in New York to record an album for Roulette. The result was A Message From Newport, one of the most powerful big band albums ever recorded. That July, the Ferguson band performed at Freebody Park in Newport, R.I., at the Newport Jazz Festival. The band played a brief set for the CBS radio network early in the evening and then returned to open the second part of the concert. The ...
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Maynard Ferguson: New York, 1950
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
In December 1950, the Stan Kenton Orchestra appeared on Ed Sullivan's Toast of the Town TV broadcast. While the variety show hosted by an awkward Sullivan aired on CBS, not many people saw the band's newest addition—trumpeter Maynard Ferguson. Television was in its infancy then and few homes had one. Fortunately tapes survived of Kenton's first TV appearance and Ferguson's spectacular debut. Great coverage of Shelly Manne on drums, a pan of Shorty Rogers in the trumpet section, Bob Cooper ...
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Maynard Ferguson: Jam Sessions
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Born in Verdun, Canada, Maynard Ferguson quickly outgrew the dance bands he played with in Montreal and Quebec. Though his main instrument was the trumpet, Ferguson could play a range of brass instruments in his teens. By the late 1940s, he was being courted by bandleaders in the U.S. who were eager for a hot trumpet—the rock guitar of its day—especially one who could double on instruments. When Ferguson came down to the States in 1948, he intended to join ...
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Video: Maynard Ferguson
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
In the fall of 1969, Maynard Ferguson toured Europe with a great book of arrangements and a clutch of American players, adding top local musicians along the way. On Nov. 29, he was in Vienna at the Konzerthaus, a formal hall that dates back to 1913. The band included Maynard Ferguson (tp, vtb), Dusko Goykovich (tp), Heinz Hermann (as), Brian Smith (ts, ss), Ferdinand Povel (ts); Pete Jackson (p), Toni Barnthaler (b) and Randy Jones (d). The songs performed were ...
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StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: The legacy of Maynard Ferguson
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St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman
The week, let's take a brief look at the legacy of the late trumpeter Maynard Ferguson, as carried on by some of his former sidemen. Billed as the M.F. All-Star Band, they'll be playing in St. Louis on Saturday, April 23 at the Touhill Performing Arts Center as part of the Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival. (This year's GSLJF also will feature a concert on Friday by St. Louis favorite John Pizzarelli, with the UMSL Jazz Ensemble directed by Jim ...
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Maynard Ferguson: Newport Suite
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Slide Hampton's composition and arrangement of Newport was first performed at the Newport Jazz Festival in July 1959 by Maynard Ferguson's orchestra. Later in the year the song was recorded in more modified form by Hampton on The Slide Hampton Octet and His Horn of Plenty (Strand). Then Ferguson recorded Newport in March 1960 for his band's studio album Newport Suite (Roulette). In June, at the Newport Jazz Festival, the song finally appeared as Newport Suite, a title much more ...
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Maynard Ferguson on Cameo
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Most Maynard Ferguson fans consider his years on the Roulette label (from 1958 to 1962) to be his finest big band recordings. They are ferocious on every levelfrom stampeding arrangements to spectacular musicianship by sections and soloists. But Ferguson's two records for Cameo that followed in 1963 come close. Both albums have just been reissued by Abkco on a two-fer set, and they pick up musically where Ferguson's Roulette output left off. [Photo: Maynard Ferguson at the Newport Jazz Festival ...
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Four Maynard Ferguson Clips
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Sadly, Maynard Ferguson does not get nearly enough credit for being a bandleader and brass player of the highest order. Though somewhat commercially successful in his latter years and increasingly excitable on stage, Ferguson struggled to create a sound in the rock and disco eras that made sense. He found it in material that scorched everything he touched and that today is largely forgettable. But back in the late '50s and '60s, Ferguson was at the top of his game ...
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Book: Maynard Ferguson
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Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
Ralph Junghem, Maynard! (Buster Ann). Jungheim's book is a collection of 30 transcribed reminiscences about the trumpeter and bandleader. Most of them are by musicians, but Ferguson's valet, bus driver and instrument maker also contribute. Some of the anecdotes are amusing, some interesting, some appalling. The exclamation point after his name in the title applies to Ferguson's spectacular playing and his ego. Even associates who had problems with his music and his insecurities had affection for him. The mystery of ...
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