Home »
Jazz Articles » Album Review » Maynard Ferguson: Brass Attitude
Maynard Ferguson: Brass Attitude
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 and Carl Fischer trading licks on superbones (a combined valve and slide trombone). Garling provided the arrangements for three of the CD's nine tunes and he also penned the lovely
Waltz For Nicole and the Brazilian romp,
Knee Deep In Rio. Baritone saxophonist Denis DiBlasio strikes a humorous note with,
The Lip, his scatting vocal tribute to the leader. For the set closer,
Caruso, Maynard switches to the warm-toned flugelhorn for a duet with p! ianist Ron Oswanski. I often find much of M.F.'s output a bit bombastic but, Brass Attitude contains enough variety to earn a guarded recommendation. ***
Personnel
Album information
Title: Brass Attitude
| Year Released: 1999
| Record Label: Concord Music Group
PREVIOUS / NEXT
Support All About Jazz

All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.
Go Ad Free!
To maintain our platform while developing new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity, we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for as little as $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to
future articles for a full year. This winning combination vastly improves your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by
making a donation today.