[Dixielandjazz] Maynard's NY Times Obit

[Steve Barbone]

Sadly,
Steve Barbone


Maynard Ferguson, 78, Trumpeter and Bandleader, Dies

NY TIMES - By TIM WEINER - August 25, 2006

Maynard Ferguson, whose soaring trumpeting reached the instrument¹s highest
ranges and propelled a musical career of more than 60 years, died Wednesday
in Ventura, Calif. He was 78.

The cause was kidney and liver failure, said his personal manager, Steve
Schankman.

Mr. Ferguson had a stratospheric style all his own. He possessed ³a
tremendous breadth of sound and an incomparable tone,² said Lew Soloff, a
prominent trumpeter who started out with Mr. Ferguson in the mid-1960¹s. The
writer Frank Conroy once noted, ³He soared above everything, past high C,
into the next octave and a half, where his tone and timbre became unique² ‹
sometimes reaching, as Mr. Schankman said, ³notes so high that only dogs
could hear them.²

He pleased far more crowds than critics. John S. Wilson, reviewing Mr.
Ferguson¹s big band at the 1959 Newport Jazz Festival for The New York
Times, called it ³screaming² and ³strident.² Yet that same year the readers
of Down Beat magazine voted the band the world¹s second-best, outranked only
by Count Basie¹s. 

Today, record collectors pay hundreds of dollars for rare Fergusons. ³Very
few rock superstars can command that kind of prices for used CD¹s or
records,² said John Himes, who runs the Maynard Ferguson Album Emporium in
Cypress, Calif.

Mr. Ferguson¹s bands toured ceaselessly, across Asia, Europe and the United
States, stopping often at high schools and colleges, where he served as both
entertainer and educator. At his last stand ‹ a six-night booking at the
Blue Note in New York, which ended July 23 ‹ every show sold out. The next
week, he completed the last of his roughly 100 recordings; it is to be
released this fall.

Walter Maynard Ferguson was born on May 4, 1928, in Verdun, Canada, now part
of the city of Montreal. Both his parents were teachers and school
administrators. His mother, a former concert violinist, taught him to play
at an early age. His father stored school orchestra instruments in the
basement, and Mr. Ferguson schooled himself on woodwinds and brass. By 15,
he was out of school and into nightclubs, seven days a week.

He came to national attention in 1950 with a four-minute televised cavalcade
on ³The Ed Sullivan Show,² backed by Stan Kenton¹s big band. After three
years with the brass-heavy Kenton band, he did studio work and then, in
1956, formed his own band, which he led for a decade.

After a trip or two to Timothy Leary¹s consciousness-altering community in
Millbrook, N.Y., Mr. Ferguson dissolved his band in 1967 and moved to India
for a year. He began a new band in London in 1969, fusing rock and pop into
its repertory. His stock with jazz purists fell as he played his versions of
hits by the Beatles and Stevie Wonder. But his popularity skyrocketed.

Mr. Ferguson¹s performance of Leoncavallo¹s ³Pagliacci,² an operatic
warhorse turned into a disco anthem, was heard at the closing ceremony of
the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal and seen by millions of television
viewers. His version of ³Gonna Fly Now,² the indelible theme from the movie
³Rocky,² was nominated for a Grammy in 1977.

Mr. Ferguson won his homeland¹s highest civilian honor, the Order of Canada,
in 2005. His wife of 53 years, Flo Ferguson, died that year. He is survived
by four daughters, Kim, Lisa, Corby and Wilder, and two grandchildren.

Unlike many bandleaders, Mr. Ferguson rode a bus from stage to stage with
his musicians. His tour manager, Ed Sargent, said that he preferred to
travel in ³a million-dollar rock ¹n¹ roll coach² with his sidemen.

Mr. Schankman, his manager, said that Mr. Ferguson had a cross-country tour
set to begin in a few weeks, and pleaded from his deathbed for the shows to
go on.