Jazz Articles about Maynard Ferguson

Maynard Ferguson: Influential

by Woodrow Wilkins
September 10, 2006

I remember the first time I saw Maynard Ferguson in concert. It was spring 1982, the Cross & Sword Amphitheater in St. Augustine, Fla. It was my first time seeing a live jazz act, and the program left me feeling very satisfied. I knew I was onto something, although that could have been said the first time I played Conquistador (Columbia, 1977), Maynard's best-selling album which featured the top 30 hit “Gonna Fly Now. The band, I would ...

Maynard Ferguson: Gonna Fly Now

by Jack Bowers
September 5, 2006

On Thursday morning, as Betty and I finished packing for our second trip to the Prescott, Arizona, Jazz Summit (more about that later), the e-mails started to arrive. The first was a rumor; the second confirmed the unwelcome news. Maynard Ferguson, a trumpeter whose breathtaking virtuosity, especially in the higher register, epitomized the word incredible, had passed away at eight o'clock Wednesday evening (August 23) in Ventura, California. He was seventy-eight years old.

At times like these, we writers are ...

Maynard Ferguson: MF Horn 2 / The Ballad Style

by Jack Bowers
June 27, 2006

The two albums on this CD reissue from Vocalion were recorded during trumpeter Maynard Ferguson's “English period (1968-72). It was a time when Ferguson was trying a number of new things, some of which worked, and some of which didn't. The first eight tracks are from MF Horn 2, the others from The Ballad Style of Maynard Ferguson.

As one can readily hear on MF Horn, Ferguson had turned away from more traditional jazz and popular standards and toward such ...

Maynard Ferguson: Live -- At the Top

by Jack Bowers
April 5, 2005

Maynard Ferguson Live -- At the Top Brentwood Home Video 1975/2005

I loved trumpeter Maynard Ferguson's bands of the early to mid-'60s -- great charts, great players, and they swung their butts off. By 1974, when Live -- At the Top was filmed at the Plaza Hotel in Rochester, NY, Maynard had entered his “pop/funk/rock" phase for Columbia Records, covering hit songs by Lennon/McCartney ("Hey Jude") and Jimmy Webb ("MacArthur Park,"), recording themes from ...

Maynard Ferguson: Conquistador

by Jim Santella
December 3, 2003

Maynard Ferguson's only gold album, Conquistador split its session time between his big band in San Francisco and a contemporary studio ensemble in New York. The 1977 album's memorable themes from Star Trek and Rocky, as well as the enchanting “Mister Mellow," made use of the studio ensemble with superlative results. Bob James and George Benson added a considerably fresh atmosphere to the album and ensured its crossover success.

While “Gonna Fly Now" and “Theme From Star Trek“ ...

Maynard Ferguson: Chameleon / Conquistador

by Matt Merewitz
October 7, 2003

It‘s not your everyday big band that has three simultaneous scream trumpet players on every song. Nevertheless, it is what has come to be expected from the master trumpeter-band leader Maynard Ferguson. The newly re-released and re-mastered Maynard Ferguson Big Band tapes, Chameleon and Conquistador, fully embody the modern big band. It has all the elements of a good big band. All horn sections blend beautifully. The band has great dynamic contrast. The rhythm section swings, grooves, and metrically modulates ...

Maynard Ferguson: Brass Attitude

by John Sharpe
January 1, 1999

Maynard has scaled back the personnel of his orchestra in recent years but his 10-piece Big Bob Nouveau still packs a hefty punch. They provide plenty of brassy backing and rhythmic muscle for Maynard's lip-busting high note gyrations. Although he has recently shown a certain degree of restraint, the seventy-year-old trumpeter is still capable of uncorking the kind of stratospheric barrages that made him famous. Brass Attitude kicks off with a punchy, boppish arrangement of Just Friends, featuring Tom Garling ...