Clark Terry (pictured), Don Friedman, Hank Jones, Maynard Ferguson ....

At JazzWax this weekend, Clark Terry (pictured), Don Friedman, Hank Jones, Maynard Ferguson and more... https://t.co/KYZueno1Av pic.twitter.com/UabhRmUKpw

— Marc Myers (@JazzWax) January 21, 2017

Maynard Ferguson ....

"The day of #Jazz improviser who doesn't read #music is over" Maynard Ferguson • https://t.co/hhElDbnQxk • pic.twitter.com/Ed6iVg5ix7

— A Passion for Jazz!® (@APassion4Jazz) August 5, 2016

Marion Montgomery, Cleo Laine .....

Published on Jun 11, 2013
Big Band spectacular from late 1969.

I Can't Get Started - Maynard Ferguson & Al Hirt Trumpets

Maynard Ferguson Big Bop Nouveau Band

- You Got It
- Caravan
- Sweet Baba Suite
- It Don't Mean A Thing 

Maynard Ferguson - trumpet, flugelhorn, leader
Scott Englebright - trumpet 
Carl Fischer - trumpet
John Roberts - trumpet
Tom Garling - trombone
Matt Wallace - saxophone
Chris Farr - saxophone
Mike Willmers - piano 
Phil Palombi - bass
Phil Maturano - drums

10. Internationale Jazzfestival Viersen, Germany, September 9, 1996

Maynard Ferguson: Newport Suite

Reprinted from http://jazzwax.com

Slide Hampton's composition and arrangement of Newportwas 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 onThe 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 asNewport Suite, a title much more in keeping with its shifting structure. 

A few days ago, JazzWax reader Jim Manley sent along a link to a newly posted YouTube clip of the Maynard Ferguson Orchestra in July 1959 performing Newport as well as other tracks from its evening festival set:
Used with permission by Marc Myers

Bob Freedman on Maynard Ferguson.....

Bob Freedman is a composer, arranger, pianist and reed player. In the early 1950s, he played alto sax with trumpeter Herb Pomeroy's big band in Boston, writing a good chunk of the orchestra's arrangements. Since 1960, Bob has arranged for more than 30 jazz and pop stars, including Ron Carter, Billy Joel, Joe Williams and Sarah Vaughan. He also has written for television and the movies. On the bling side, Bob shares a Grammy Award with Quincy Jones for The Wiz (1978) and has been nominated for three more.

But back in 1957, Bob wrote an arrangement for Maynard Ferguson that to this day knocks out fans of the trumpeter. The song is And We Listened, and it remains a superlative example of late 1950s high-energy big-band writing. What's more, the arrangement was recorded by Ferguson on one of his most celebrated albums of his fabled Roulette Records period—A Message From Newport (1958). Bob's swaggering arrangement sizzles with metallic zest, reverberating with the impact of the horn section's cannon fire and drummer Jake Hanna's shoving beat.

Yesterday I spoke to Bob, 75, about Boston jazz, Chet Baker and his arrangement for Ferguson:
JazzWax: Where did you grow up?
Bob Freedman: We lived in Wollaston, Mass., until I was 12 years old. Then we moved to Cranston, R.I., where we remained. My father and sister played piano, which captured my interest. In the late 1940s, I'd turn on the radio and there were great big band jazz recordings on all day. It was a magical time. The song that excited me most was Dennis Farnon’s 1949 arrangement for Charlie Barnet of All the Things You Are, with Maynard Ferguson on trumpet.

JW: How excited were you?
BF: I flipped. I ran into Providence, which was close by to where we lived, and bought the 78-rpm record. I’m glad I did. Soon after, the estate of Jerome Kern, the song's composer, had it removed from record stores and banned from the radio. They hated the interpretation, so the record soon after I bought it was impossible to find.

JW: You played piano. When did you add the saxophone?
BF: Actually, it was the clarinet first. When I was 12 years old, I wanted to play the guitar. But my father didn’t approve. Then I wanted to play the trombone. He didn’t care for that idea either. Somehow the clarinet came up, and my dad was willing to buy me one. I played in the high school band. We had a terrific music director.

JW: So you played both instruments?
BF: From an early age, I had talent and intellect and good ears. I had been playing piano and clarinet with the school band, and when I was 13 I bought a book called Glenn Miller's Method for Orchestral Arranging. There were instructions for writing along with two or three scores of songs Miller had recorded. So I’d read the scores and listen to the records. That's how I learned the fundamentals of arranging.

JW: When was your first professional job?
BF: When I was 14, I played with Tommy Reynolds, a minor league Artie Shaw who led a territory band based in Providence, R.I. I got to play the baritone, alto and clarinet chair in that band. We also went out on the road locally. On breaks, I’d write out eight bars or so of music and the guys would play them so I could hear what I was doing right and wrong. That was some education.

JW: What about after high school?
BF: In 1951, I joined the Army. I was 17 years old. I didn’t care much for high school. My grades weren’t great and I wanted a change. My parents were fine with my decision. After basic training, I was sent to Fort Huachuca at the very bottom of Arizona. The Army band was made up mostly of misfits.

JW: Was the band any good?
BF: It turned out to be a really nice band. Soon after I arrived, Chet Baker was sent there. He was a misfit of sorts, too. He was a beautiful guy. He was a sweet, happy person who wanted to play. He was all about the music. We’d drive around various parts of southern Arizona looking for jam sessions. I got taken along because I was the only jazz piano player in the area. I knew the tunes and was a good comper.

JW: How did the audiences react?
BF: Chet struck everyone as exceptional. I didn’t understand the reaction at first. People were transfixed. It was his looks and music. It was the whole package.

JW: What made his sound special?
BF: At the time, he didn’t sound like anyone else. The lines he played were so simple and pretty. He’d do manipulations of notes in chords that a whole lot of people weren’t doing in those days.

JW: What was the net result from a musician's standpoint?
BF: The impression he left was that naturalness is a good thing. There was never a sense of imitation. He just let it happen and wasn't out to manufacture a product. When we’d go into clubs, he’d sometimes just stop playing for eight measures or so. He'd have his trumpet to his lips. Then, when he had an idea, he'd play a few notes and develop something great. The lesson was you don't have to play just to fill space. Things came so easily to Chet that he didn’t feel the need to push.

JW: What did you do after the service?
BF: In 1953 I returned to New England and played alto sax with Herb Pomeroy’s groups at The Stable in Boston. Herb was so beautifully generous. He’d rehearse anything I brought in. I eventually wrote 20% of the band’s book. We played two nights a week, and the place was always packed.

JW: How did you come to arrange And We Listened for Maynard Ferguson?

BF: In 1957 Maynard Ferguson brought his band to Boston's Storyville, which was across the street from The Stable. Carmen Leggio, a saxophonist in Maynard’s band, had some emergency and couldn’t make the early days of the week-long gig. I got the call and took his chair for a couple of nights. They wanted me to play alto but everything in Carmen’s book was for the tenor sax [laughs]. So I had to transpose his parts as I played them, since the alto and tenor read different notes to produce results in the same key.

JW: How did you do?
BF: Very well. Maynard used to stand on stage just off to the side of Carmen’s stand, so he could hear me loud and clear. In the ensemble pieces, he was a foot away from me. He smiled at me so I knew he was happy with what I was playing. Actually, I knew things were going well when alto saxophonist Jimmy Ford hit me with his signature phrase: “Hey man, got any reeds?” [laughs]

JW: How did arranging come up?
BF: On one of the nights, during a break, I asked Maynard if I could arrange a chart for the band. He said sure. He told me, “I don’t like solos running into each other. I like a solo to be followed by the band before another solo starts. And I like things to build.”

JW: So what did you do?
BF: I wrote And We Listened. It took me about four days. But before I sent it off to Maynard [pictured], I had Herb Pomeroy’s big band run it down during afternoon rehearsals at The Stable. I wanted to hear the chart in case I needed to make changes. But it sounded perfect. Fortunately Herb had trumpeter Lennie Johnson in the band. Lennie could play Maynard’s part and hit the high Gs and more. When I heard Herb run it down, I was excited.

JW: How did you come up with the song's title?
BF: The title came from my fondness for Gerry Mulligan’s writing, in particular his use of the minor-7, flat-5 chord. That's the first chord I used in my arrangement. I was trying to write something that reflected the West Coast thing that was going on then. My original title was And We Listened to Him, referring to Gerry. But in truth, the title was also a tribute to Bill Holman, who is still my idol, Lennie Niehaus, and a few of the other great writers out there.

JW: How did the title get shortened?
BF: It must have been trimmed by the record company so it would fit on the album. Or maybe they didn't get the "to him" part and felt it wasn't necessary. I don't know.

JW: How fast was the original tempo?
BF: Quite a bit faster than the one Maynard used on A Message From Newport. Herb had played it down the way I had written it.

JW: How did it wind up so much slower?
BF: I heard later from Maynard's drummer Jake Hanna that in the Roulette studio, the band needed one more tune to complete the album. There was a 10-minute gap on the record. So Maynard pulled out my chart and said, “Let’s run this down.” They played it once, apparently even faster than the tempo Herb had rehearsed it. Jake, who had been at Herb's rehearsal, shouted out to Maynard, “It’s actually supposed to be slower than that.”

JW: What did Maynard do?
BF: With a 10 minutes hole on the date, he decided to slow the tempo way down. The result is what you hear on the album. I think it’s much more dramatic and powerful the way he recorded it. The build is much stronger. Trumpeter Bill Berry [pictured] told me that the brass section in the band used to hate playing it because they’d be totally beat at the end [laughs].

JW: When did you first hear that Ferguson had recorded your composition and arrangement?
BF: When I saw an ad for the record in a magazine. After I bought the record and played it. I was thrilled to death. That was the first time I had had anything recorded by a name band.

JW: Did you write additional arrangements for the band?
BF: I sent Maynard another chart called Thus Spake Jake, which showcased drummer Jake Hanna. But the band never recorded it. I have no idea why or what happened to the chart. I never made a copy.

JW: Did you feel badly?
BF: Things like that cross your mind and you wonder why things didn't work out. But Maynard was surrounded by great arrangers in that band. There was never a shortage of material [laughs]. That's just the way it goes and you move on.

JW: Does the result on Message sound as perfect to you as it does to most fans?
BF: Yes, absolutely. Actually, there’s a very small flaw in Carmen Leggio’s part right at the beginning. He plays a note that I didn't write. I can hear him start to play the wrong note and slide into the right one. I had written the part for the alto sax and since he played tenor, he had to transpose his part. I guess I had gotten him back for the same problem he left me with when I played his chair at The Stable [laughs].

JW: Why didn’t Pomeroy buy the arrangement?
BF: [Laughs] Herb [pictured] wasn’t buying anything in those days. That band played for love. We never assumed there would be any money for the arrangements we wrote. I was always aware of how fortunate I was playing with those guys. I don’t think anyone thought it was a job. With Herb’s band, Sunday morning rehearsals in the basement of the Schillinger House of Music building were mandatory. If you weren’t there, you were out of the band.

JW: Are you still impressed with the result on A Message From Newport?
BF: Oh sure. But you have to give praise to that band. The track you hear was only the second time they had ever played the piece. You can hear the hunger and energy in the instruments. That’s how it was then. Everyone was working hard and playing hard and hustling.

JW: What did you receive for the arrangement?
BF: I think I received a check for $75 when A Message From Newport came out. I don't think there were any additional royalty checks [laughs]. It was about the love. Just hearing what I had written played by that band was enough for me.
http://www.jazzwax.com/

Legacy of Maynard Ferguson Celebrated in new Book

The printed word has greater certainty of permanence than oral history. The difficulties of bookstores, or any other, has created a kind of sub-market, where projects seen as commercial risk become a labor of love. In this case, is publishing a collection of interviews of interesting bandleader and trumpeter Maynard Ferguson (pictured), compiled and written by a producer of jazz long time, Ralph Jungheim. The book has no visual appeal, but the stories and testimonies are consistent, even if you're not a fan of trumpet pyrotechnics.

Among the companions of Maynard, showing his admiration, are Bud Shank, Mundell Lowe, Irene Kral, Peter Erskine, Lanny Morgan, Don Menza, Lew Tabackin, Shelly Manne, among others. Yes, some of these names, as the object of homage, are no longer with us. Jungheim explains that taped interviews in 1978, when a performance of Maynard and his group in Santa Monica, California. After his wife trancrever the countless hours of interviews. Jungheim hoped to publish the interviews, but received no interest from major publishers. "So I kept them in a box and for a long time, I forgot," said Jungheim. "Sometimes when I picked up and reread." He was the son of Jungheim that led him to do something with the archived material. "I fought cancer for a period of two and a half, and my son suggested that I make an eBook and finally the thing came out," recalls Jungheim. He finally managed to edit the book, which can be found at the site of fans and Ferguson in "Amaxon. Maynard! "Is available also in" Buster Ann Music "Jungheim and" Simon & Schuster.

Interestingly, Jungheim disks Reviewed links to JazzTimes and in 1997 wrote about an authorized biography written by Bill Ferguson Lee And you can read an emotional tribute to the leader of one of their most prominent pupils, Peter Erskine, who greeted him on the issue March 2007 as part of the section of farewells. I demonstrated the Jungheim my disappointment about the absence in the book of my favorite story about Maynard, who appears in the seminal "Jazz Anecdotes" by Bill Crow. Ferguson was touring the Midwest and had hired Cessna aircraft to take you to places of work. Once, a storm was occurring around the small plane. Maynard stood up and shouted: "I'm going to sleep, but if you sights Glenn Miller, please wake me. Jungheim laughed and said, "Yes, Maynard was playful, gentle and quiet."
Source: JazzTimes / Lee Mergner

"Maynard!" -- New Book About Maynard Ferguson Now Available

MAYNARD! becomes the first new book on bandleader and jazz trumpet phenomenon Maynard Ferguson in nearly a dozen years. It's 240 pages of raw MF as remembered in interviews by 30 musicians and others from his earliest U.S. gigs in the late 40s to the peak of his career on Columbia Records in the 70s. Grammy winning producer Ralph Jungheim rolled tape on this hand-picked group of Ferguson intimates, revealing the innermost workings of Maynard--the man, the musician, and the leader. Charlie Barnet and producer Jim Conkling tell the behind-the-scenes story of Maynard's long-suppressed recording of “All the Things You Are."

Bud Shank remembers the scuffling days, sharing a duplex with Maynard and his first wife Kay Brown. Don Ellis was with Maynard during good times and bad. Including the night Maynard met a vigorously booing Berlin audience. Alto saxophonist Lanny Morgan recalls the tough life on the road when he was one of those paid an extra two cents a mile for driving, in the pre-bus days when the band traveled in station wagons. Don Menza played Birdland in Maynard's band--opposite Sonny Rollins and Stan Getz, and many other jazz greats. Lew Tabackin remembers the night Dick Spencer was late getting back from a break. So Maynard grabbed an alto and played Dick's part. Then Dick surprised by playing Maynard's trumpet solo beautifully from the back of the house!

Bernie “The Bolt" Myers was at the wheel of the big Butler Motor Transit Silver Eagle driving over 800 miles in one day. While claiming he never drove “over 35 miles an hour." Others interviewed in MAYNARD! Include Peter Erskine, Biff Hannon, Mundell Lowe, Stan Mark, Mike Migliore, Bobby Militello, Joe Mosello, Lynn Nicholson Dennis Noday, Reed Rankin, Bob Summers and Ron Tooley, the late Milt Bernhard, Bill Berry, Dominick Calicchio, Jimmy Campbell, Joe Graves, Rufus Speedy Jones, Irene Kral, Shelly Manne and Tony Romano.

MAYNARD! is published by Buster Ann Music, 13428 Maxella Ave. #733, Marina del Rey, CA 90292 and available for $19.95 each, postpaid.
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/news.php?id=41789

Maynard Ferguson....

Louis Armstrong opened the door, but for this twelve-year old trumpeter, Maynard Ferguson was clearly the man. Dizzy and Lee Morgan would soon follow, but Maynard was my first live concert, which was electrifying. That edition of his big band, back in 1964, introduced me to the excitement of live Jazz. I've always prized Maynard's Roulette recordings from that era and as fate would have it, I had the honor of writing the liner notes for Mosaic's reissue of the Complete Roulette Recordings in 1994.
Cut to 1998, when I finally caught up with the man himself, four days after 70th birthday, during a weeklong gig at the Blue Note in New York. We did an interview which appeared in JazzTimes magazine, and I brought along my High 8 camcorder. A couple of months ago, I rediscovered the video in my archives and have used the content as the basis for my own tribute to Maynard Ferguson.

This edition of my video blog includes Maynard's thoughts on turning seventy, Jazz education, Clark Terry, Clifford Brown, Miles Davis, Indian music and spirituality, as well as a rare clip from the mid-50s, trading stratospheric eights with Don Ellis.
The Jazz Video Guy Newsletter

Maynard Ferguson....

Maynard Ferguson, Trumpet Player, bandleader
Originally printed in "Contemporary Musicians, Volume 7"
Jazz legend Maynard Ferguson far surpasses the title "trumpet player"; he is an internationally famous big-band leader, one of the world's great brass players, and instrument designer, record producer, composer, arranger, producer of film soundtracks, and dedicated teacher. He is also a three-time Grammy Award nominee and Down Beat magazine award winner. The prolific bandleader has recorded over 60 albums in his lifetime. The alumni list of his band members over four decades reads like a Who's Who of the jazz world: Chick Corea, Chuck Mangione, Bill Chase, Bob James, Slide Hampton, Wayne Shorter, Greg Bissonette, Peter Erskine, Joe Zawinul, Willie Maiden, and Don Ellis are just some of the greats Ferguson's bands have bred. Ferguson emerged from big-band swing and worked his way through jazz, bebop, rock, funk, disco, and fusion. When he wasn't actually playing his horn, he conducted, cueing his men, or just snapped his fingers and enjoyed the music. He has been a hustler, a tireless worker, and remarkably generous with his musical abilities. Few careers have spanned so many different forms of music, tribute indeed to Ferguson's flexibility and staying power.

Ferguson was a child prodigy who first soloed with the Canadian Broadcasting Company Orchestra at the age of 11. He was born in the Montreal suburb of Verdun on May 4, 1928. His mother was a violinist with the Ottowa Symphony Orchestra and later, a teacher who helped introduce music into the curriculum of the Montreal public school system. His father was a high school principal. By the time Ferguson was four, he too was playing the violin as well as the piano. At the age of nine he was enrolled in the French Conservatory of Music to receive formal training. He has cited his main influences as his mother and Louis Armstrong.

American Debut in 1948
Ferguson attended Montreal High School, but quit at age 15 to pursue music as a vocation. Around that time he played in a dance band, let by his brother Percy, with another budding musician, jazz pianist Oscar Peterson. By the age of sixteen Ferguson was leading his own jazz and dance band. All of the musicians in his band were twice his age, except Percy, with whom he had effectively reversed roles. In 1948 the 20-year-old Ferguson moved to the U.S. and made his debut with Boyd Raeburn's progressive band. He also played with Jimmy Dorsey and Charlie Barnet, and performed on woodwind and brass as a one-man act in New York's cafe society.

From 1950 to 1953 Ferguson's lashing, high-register trumpet was the cornerstone of Stan Kenton's enormous brass section. During his years with Kenton, Ferguson built a reputation that relied more on his dazzling technique - screech trumpeting in the dizzying upper register of his instrument - than his creativity as a soloist. The fire-breathing trumpeter took first place in Down Beat magazine's best trumpeter poll for three successive years beginning in 1950. After his stint with Kenton, Ferguson spent three years as first-call studio trumpeter for Paramount Pictures and recorded film soundtracks for Paramount, including that of the Biblical epic The Ten Commandments. In 1955 Ferguson joined Leonard Bernstein for a performance of the "Titans," by William Russo, with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.

The following year, after a period of free-lancing, Ferguson formed the first of several thirteen-piece orchestras, which were noted for the biting precision of their brass sections. On the striking "Frame for the Blues," off the Message From Newport album, Ferguson's dramatic solo style sears, and Don Sebesky, Don Menza, and Slide Hampton offer some of their best arrangements. Other noteworthy soloists featured on that applauded recording were Jaki Byard, Don Ellis, Joe Farrell, and Chuck Mangione. In 1959 an International Critic's Poll, conducted by Down Beat, voted the Maynard Ferguson Orchestra first place in the "new star" big-band division. But, as the popularity of big bands waned in the mid-1960s, Ferguson was forced to economize; he toured less frequently with the big band, favoring a smaller sextet instead. Finally, in 1967, he disbanded and his group began to follow a new path.

Spiritual Renewal in India
In 1968 and 1969 Ferguson taught at the Krishnamurtl-based Rhishi Valley School near Madras, India, which widened both his spiritual and musical horizons. He took his family with him to India, and they eventually moved to England. There Ferguson toured as the leader of a band called Top Brass. He also manufactured personally designed trumpets and mouthpieces from his home in Manchester. Being situated in England made touring Europe easier for Ferguson, and he took advantage of the proximity by embarking on forays across the continent with a variety of ensembles.

In 1969 Ferguson signed with CBS Records in England and created a repertoire for his new British band in which pop and rock songs were rearranged into a big band format, with electronic amplification. This was Ferguson's response to the psychedelic sixties. He produced contemporary arrangements of late 1960s and early 1970s hits like "MacArthur Park" and the Beatles' "Hey Jude." Ferguson's recording of "Gonna Fly Now," - the theme from the hit film Rocky - catapulted Maynard into mainstream popularity with a Top-10 single, a gold album, and a Grammy nomination in 1978. His album Conquistador, from which "Gonna Fly Now" sprang, earned Ferguson an unusual place in the history of music; with Conquistador, he alone was able to crack the pop charts in 1977. Ferguson's efforts helped rekindle the public's interest in big bands; his fanfare solos, along with his expertise on several brass instruments - often demonstrated in a single performance - set a dazzling example of sheer technical virtuosity.

Big Bop Nouveau
In addition to the trumpet, Ferguson plays the trombone, saxophone, clarinet, violin and piano. He stands five feet, nine inches tall, and attributes his horn-power to yogic concentration, which he claims enables him to control his central nervous system and make his lungs generators of energy. He is a family man, married since 1952 to his wife, Flo, and quick to speak proudly of his son and four daughters. One of his daughters, Kim, manages his current outfit, the Big Bop Nouveau Band. Started in the late 1980s, the band leans heavily toward more traditional jazz, reflecting both Ferguson's roots and major strengths. In the spring of 1990 Ferguson released the Big Bop Nouveau album, a combination of studio recordings and live takes from his 60th Birthday Band Tour. With the Big Bop Nouveau Band there is a new stress on instrumentation, marking Ferguson's return to where critics have so often preferred him; in front of a jazz-flavored big band. The Nouveau Band avoids overly-synthesized sounds, and focuses on hard-edged, straight-ahead be-bop jazz music - the sound that established Ferguson in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

As a young man in the 1950s Ferguson set the jazz world aflame with his innovative Birdland Dreamband. Four decades later - he has come full-circle back to his role as legendary, premier big-band leader. Over his lifetime career in music, Ferguson has displayed many peaks and valleys, often straying far from his roots; as a result, his sound is much richer, as are his devoted followers. Although it's never clear where Ferguson may roam next, it's certain that it will be a lively journey.
http://www.maynardferguson.com/article_bio1.html

Maynard Ferguson - Body and Soul