April 8, 2018
ALL THAT JAZZ #52
Maynard Ferguson - Chameleon (1974)
A week or so ago, OJ posted an article about how Miles Davis led Herbie Hancock to the Fender Rhodes (electric) piano, which was a big step in the electrification of jazz that took place in the 1960's and 70's. In commenting on the post, I noted that I don't have an objection, per se, to the sound of the Fender, it's just that any time I hear it now (whether in a jazz performance or a Billy Joel tune), it immediately dates the recording in my mind to the 70's or 80's, regardless of its actual vintage. Within 10 minutes after I posted that comment, Maynard Ferguson's recording of La Fiesta, with its opening Fender Rhodes vamp, began playing on my car radio, and I was immediately transported back to my sophomore year in high school...and I had the subject of my next ATJ.
Maynard Ferguson was a Canadian-born jazz trumpet player, who came to the fore in the early 1950's with the Stan Kenton band. A player of first-rate technique (he later performed as a soloist with the New York Philharmonic), he became particularly known - and popular (he won the top trumpet award in the Down Beat Reader's Poll in 1951, 1952 and 1953) - for his astounding ability to play high notes. After a couple of decades doing studio work and playing in other big bands, Ferguson formed his own big band in 1971.
Let's be clear, Maynard's big bands of the 1970's are not high art; rather, they are a guilty pleasure...and one that is probably only really enjoyed by those who were in their teens or early 20's during that time. This wasn't the timeless blues-drenched elegance of Ellington or propulsive swing of Basie. Maynard's band was loud, electrified (in addition to the Fender Rhodes, the guitar player relied heavily on a wah-wah pedal and reverb, and the bass was electric), and fronted by a guy seemingly unfamiliar with the concept of subtlety. The band played more tunes with a rock beat or a quasi-Latin rhythm than with straight-ahead 4/4 swing. And rather than relying on the Great American Songbook as the backbone of its repertoire, the band played mostly current pop and rock tunes (Stevie Wonder's Livin' for the City and Paul McCartney's Jet), movie and TV themes (The Way We Were, Flying High Now (from Rocky), Star Trek) and popular songs from the world of what was then called "jazz fusion" (Hancock's Chameleon, Chick Corea's La Fiesta, Wayne Shorter's Birdland). The only standard on this album is I Can't Get Started, which features Maynard on trumpet and vocal (a la 1930's bandleader Bunny Berrigan, who had a huge hit in 1937 with this tune...although I don't think Bunny sang Maynard's lyric "I've been invited to tea by the Queen/Linda Lovelace thinks I'm obscene").
As a high school sophomore, I loved this album, Maynard's Live at Jimmy's and a handful of his others. The funky beats, the jet-engine decibels and the high notes...especially the high notes. Hearing Maynard live reach for a high C was like watching an Olympic pole vaulter trying for a new record: sometimes he made it, sometimes he didn't, but it was always dramatic. We played a lot of Ferguson arrangements in my high school jazz band (indeed, in the 70's, most suburban high schools didn't have "jazz bands" or "big bands", they had "jazz/rock ensembles")...so he was part of my introduction to the music. In those same years, I was also getting my first tastes of the big bands of Basie, Ellington and Woody Herman, and trumpeters such as Miles, Dizzy, Clark Terry and Clifford Brown. Over time, I drifted away from the guy in the jump suit and scarf, who played fast and loud, and then faster and louder. But the arrangements are tight, the musicians execute it all with skill (Bruce Johnstone's bari sax solos never disappoint), and the music is fun (if locked in its era).
After a long time away from these posts, I'm back with 2 in rapid succession, and, by coincidence, in both I'm quoting another writer whose experience with the subject is amazingly similar to mine (I started sketching out this post before a friend sent me this link...but note that it also discusses Ferguson from the perspective of a high school boy in the 1970's and finds a sports analogy to be apt). In an appreciation of Ferguson that ran in the Washington Post after his death in August 2006, David von Drehle wrote:
I was a high school boy at the time. This fact is not incidental. In the blogs and tribute pages devoted to memories of Maynard Ferguson yesterday, the two near-constants were adolescence and masculinity. Ferguson lit up thousands of young horn players, most of them boys, with pride and excitement. In a world often divided between jocks and band nerds, Ferguson crossed over, because he approached his music almost as an athletic event. On stage, he strained, sweated, heaved and roared. He nailed the upper registers like Shaq nailing a dunk or Lawrence Taylor nailing a running back -- and the audience reaction was exactly the same: the guttural shout, the leap to their feet, the fists in the air. We cheered Maynard as a gladiator, a combat soldier, a prize fighter, a circus strongman -- choose your masculine archetype....That's why he was the hero of the horn sections. When Ferguson reached the peak of his fame in the mid-1970s -- thanks to a hit recording of the theme from "Rocky" -- the world was full of manly guys whanging electric guitars and thrashing drums. But jazz? Our friends the Purists had just about drained the last drop of juice from the great American art form. In place of the old jump, stomp and jive, the Purists seemed to offer little but heroin chic, prissy intellectualism and monkish devotion to old 78s.Maynard Ferguson did his best to blow some hormones back into the band room. Along the way, he turned a fair number of us on to the more subtle achievements of more refined musicians. For that, we forgive all the reverb and rayon, all the electronics, even the lamentable disco phase.
Post script: For those interested to hear what kind of player Maynard in his purer days, check out this recording of him going toe-to-toe-to-toe with 2 of the greatest straight-ahead jazz trumpeters, Clifford Brown and Clark Terry:
Posted by Foos at April 8, 2018 7:38 AM