[Dixielandjazz] Another view on Maynard

[Steve Barbone]

snipped from an article by Mike Zwerin at a country blues festival:


There were no horn players. Guitarists play in sharp keys, which are easier
on their instruments. Sharp keys begin to grate and prickle after three
days, and I was feeling wired. There was also a dire lack of chords
reflecting anything more advanced than harmony 101.

Culture Clash

The clash of musical cultures within me was driven home when I heard in
Rochefort that the trumpeter Maynard Ferguson had died a few days earlier,
on Aug. 23, in California. (The few guitar players I mentioned it to had
never heard of Maynard Ferguson.) I was in his jazz band in 1959 and 1960,
and I remembered how I used to love sitting in the middle of all those fat
and fancy jazz chords played by brass and reed instruments in the funkier
flat jazz keys.

It was a while ago, and I had not seen him since, so I was surprised to be
so moved by his passing. The absence of black performers in Rochefort led me
to recall how color-blind he had been. When a chair became vacant, he would
just hire the next guy who came along and could play. There were no quotas.
A racially integrated band in those days was rare.

Most of the arrangements were by Slide Hampton, whom I replaced in the
trombone section. They were good arrangements, the players were good, and we
liked Ferguson for his color-blindness. Along with Benny Goodman and Artie
Shaw, he was a rare bandleader who was also a virtuoso on his instrument. At
the same time, he was not afraid to hire soloists who were better than he
was; and he gave them the space to play.

Drum Solos

Frankie Dunlop, who later played with Thelonious Monk, was the drummer.
Ferguson really liked drum solos. During my time with the band, his soloists
included tenormen Wayne Shorter and Joe Farrell (later with Chick Corea),
the trumpeter Don Ellis (composer of the music for ``The French
Connection,'') and the grotesquely underrated Jaki Byard on piano.

Ferguson's fatal flaw was his majestic high register. Although he could play
a soulful blues if he felt like it, most of the time he leaned on high
notes, which (like drum solos) always got applause. He was like a home-run
hitter who considered a single a failure. He could play triple high Cs with
ease, and he moved around fast up there without cheating by swallowing
notes. Unlike other high-note trumpeters (Cat Anderson with Duke Ellington
for example), he also had a fat low register.

Treble Overload

All those high notes required a big band to fill in the mid- range -- a
combo would have been insufficient and a big band was actually a part of his
instrument. But it was still all treble, as though somebody forgot to turn
the woofer on. Somebody said that Ferguson's trumpet ``screamed with
passionate vulgarity,'' and back in the brass section, we used to say: ``If
Maynard had taste he'd be a genius.''

Although the shouting, the glitz, the kitsch, and the banality (the themes
from ``Rocky'' and ``Battlestar Galactica'') could be embarrassing, Ferguson
just loved to lead a big band, he was very good at it, his body language
communicated enthusiasm and playing with him was fun. He was probably the
best boss I ever had. Along with Count Basie and Harry James, we were one of
the top big bands still working at the end of the big-band era.

One weekend, I drove one of the cars through a blizzard from New York to a
one-nighter in Cincinnati and back. The following Monday, I collected two
checks -- $35 for playing and $109 for driving.

Actually, not that much has changed. During the Rochefort en Accords
festival, a guitar player pointed out, not at all unhappily, that musicians
are paid in inverse proportion to their enjoyment of their work.

 (Mike Zwerin is a critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his
own.)

 To contact the writer on this story: Mike Zwerin at  mikezwerin at free.fr .