RIP Maynard Ferguson
Aug. 25th, 2006 02:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
damonthttp://www.maynardferguson.com/
Jazz trumpeter passes away at 78
Okay, let me point one thing out: while Ferguson did score a Top 30 hit (Top 10 in the UK) with his cover of "Gonna Fly Now" (the theme from Rocky), his version's not the one on the soundtrack. That one is by Bill Conti, whose version hit Number One in the USA. But that's largely beside the point.
I'm not a trumpeter except when I'm needed to be. If I'm playing jazz, I'm a low brass player and a keyboardist. And yet, Maynard was one of my high-school icons. Not because he could make that trumpet sound soar better than almost anyone else (although he certainly could)... it was for his arrangements and the way he could put a band together. Going to high school in eastern PA in the late 1970's, if you were in the jazz band you did a lot of MF's charts. Judges in that time and place were heavily influenced by Maynard; we occasionally went to the extreme of playing an all-Ferguson-chart program if we thought that would please the judge best.
We listened to all his albums; I even transcribed some of the albums' music straight off of reel-to-reel tapes (occasionally played at half speed); and my own trombone solos were inspired by the solos played by Maynard and his bandmates. And perhaps the high point of my high school band career came as a senior when I played the final solo in the MF arrangement of "MacArthur Park" and hit notes I never thought I could.
So I've got my Maynard albums on the turntable (yes, on *VINYL*...) and I raise a glass in his honor.
Jazz trumpeter passes away at 78
Okay, let me point one thing out: while Ferguson did score a Top 30 hit (Top 10 in the UK) with his cover of "Gonna Fly Now" (the theme from Rocky), his version's not the one on the soundtrack. That one is by Bill Conti, whose version hit Number One in the USA. But that's largely beside the point.
I'm not a trumpeter except when I'm needed to be. If I'm playing jazz, I'm a low brass player and a keyboardist. And yet, Maynard was one of my high-school icons. Not because he could make that trumpet sound soar better than almost anyone else (although he certainly could)... it was for his arrangements and the way he could put a band together. Going to high school in eastern PA in the late 1970's, if you were in the jazz band you did a lot of MF's charts. Judges in that time and place were heavily influenced by Maynard; we occasionally went to the extreme of playing an all-Ferguson-chart program if we thought that would please the judge best.
We listened to all his albums; I even transcribed some of the albums' music straight off of reel-to-reel tapes (occasionally played at half speed); and my own trombone solos were inspired by the solos played by Maynard and his bandmates. And perhaps the high point of my high school band career came as a senior when I played the final solo in the MF arrangement of "MacArthur Park" and hit notes I never thought I could.
So I've got my Maynard albums on the turntable (yes, on *VINYL*...) and I raise a glass in his honor.
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Date: 2006-08-25 07:14 pm (UTC)