The heyday of the big bands may have ended in the late `50s with the advent of rock `n` roll, but Maynard Ferguson apparently hasn`t yet heard the news. Or perhaps we should say he simply chooses to ignore it.
”I consider my group a kind of adventure, and, anyway, I love making managers nervous,” says Ferguson with a wicked laugh, referring to his Big Bop Nouveau Band, a 17-man powerhouse that seemingly defies the economics of modern-day jazz.
Though many of the large ensembles touring today are essentially nostalgia acts (such as the Count Basie, Duke Ellington and Glenn Miller bands), Ferguson seems to have re-energized the form.
Having gathered up some of the best young virtuosos in the business, Ferguson has recorded a rousing big-band album that`s riding high on the Billboard charts (”Big Bop Nouveau” on Intima), its success prompting an upcoming tour of Europe and Japan, as well as a Chicago stopover (at 10 p.m. June 27 in the Cubby Bear, 1059 W. Addison).
Despite Ferguson`s glee over making his managers sweat the high cost of sending a jazz orchestra on the road-accompanied by a large crew of sound technicians and other support personnel-it`s clear that Ferguson has found an audience hungry for the big band sound.
”No doubt about it, there`s a resurgence of interest in this country, and beyond, in the big jazz band, and I`m not talking simply about nostalgia, which isn`t my game,” says Ferguson, himself an alumn of no less than the Stan Kenton Band of the 1950s.
”What I`m trying to do here is use the form of the old big bands and put it up against the hot, new young players of today. And it`s obvious that people are being turned on by the results.
”I think they missed hearing the same thing I missed playing. I wanted real horns again, and real, nonelectronic instruments.”
In recent years, however, Ferguson had immersed himself in the sound of synthesizers and other electronic wizardry, particularly in his High Voltage fusion band. That approach, it turns out, led to an artistic dead-end.
”After a couple years with High Voltage, which was into all the contemporary, computerized electronics, I suddenly didn`t want to do that anymore,” says Ferguson.
”I got tired of the sound, and there didn`t seem to be anywhere else you could go with it. I hungered to hear the real thing again.
”Now, it would have been no punishment to stay with High Voltage, but there was a lot more adventure going the big-band route. And I`ve been feeling more comfortable doing this kind of thing than anything else.”
It shows. The ”Big Bop Nouveau” album vividly testifies to the life still left in the big-band form. The group swings hard and fast, with muscular solos by Ferguson and 20-year-old alto saxophone star Christopher Hollyday.
Obviously, the key to the recording`s success is Ferguson`s long history leading and playing in big bands, dating back to his years as a teenager growing up in Montreal.
”Actually, my mother wanted me to be the next Isaac Stern, so I had to take violin and even piano from the age of four,” recalls Ferguson.
”But then I heard a guy play a trumpet, and I said, `Hey dad, buy me one of those,` and I said it in the same voice as a kid asking for some super toy he just saw.”
Such was Ferguson`s musical accomplishment that he formed his own band as a teenager, tapping as pianist another then-unknown aspiring Montreal jazz musician, Oscar Peterson.
By the time Ferguson was 19, he and his band were serving as opening act for all the ensembles that came through town, including the groups of Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington and Stan Kenton, who gave Ferguson a standing invitation to join up if he ever came to the United States.
A few years later, Ferguson was sending shocks of sound through the already high-powered Kenton ensemble. Even then, the wide-open, brawny sonority of Ferguson`s trumpet was instantly recognizable. No one then-or now- could blast high Cs with a strength and fury to match Ferguson`s.
The man`s power and high-flying improvisations, however, got him into a bit of trouble with Mrs. Jerome Kern, who threatened to sue Capitol Records over the ”Stan Kenton Presents” album, which featured Ferguson`s
rambunctious solo on Kern`s ”All the Things You Are.”
”Mrs. Kern threatened to sue because that was their love song, and she said I had desecrated it,” says Ferguson, still a bit incredulous.
”But you see, in those days, most people didn`t even know about Charlie Parker`s version of Kern, or Thelonious Monk`s. At least I gave them 16 bars of the melody.
”So Capitol recalled all the records. And wouldn`t you know it, most of the record stores in America suddenly said, `Gee, we just ran out of them,`
and then they put those records under the counter and sold them for $80 apiece, because they had become collectors` items.
”In fact, we always used to joke that all the fuss did me more good than the original tune, which I haven`t even played since. I thought I ought to let that one lie.”
By the `70s Ferguson had become something more than just a notable band player, thanks to his airborne solos on such crossover hits as the ”Gonna Fly Now” theme from the ”Rocky” soundtrack and Jim Webb`s ”MacArthur Park.”
And though Ferguson has been criticized for having abandoned his jazz roots in pursuit of commercial success, he doesn`t seem to regret a note he has played.
”I thought it was wonderful, because it expanded the number and kind of people that came to listen to us,” says Ferguson.
”It`s like they used to say about Jascha Heifetz: `Because he`s an incredible master of the instrument and has incredible technique, of course there`s no real feeling there.`
”Well that`s ridiculous. And just because I played some tunes that were really popular doesn`t mean they weren`t any good. I played those tunes because I liked them.
”We all know who the greatest critics in the world are, and they`re on either sides of our own heads.”
Say what you will about Ferguson`s perpetual shifts from big band to pop to fusion and back to big band, there`s no arguing that, at 62, Ferguson refuses to settle into any formula.
”I`ve always been accused, or admired, depending on where your head is at, for being a person who loves to change-but that really only means that you try to do what feels good to you personally,” says Ferguson.
”So all I`m trying to do is have a little fun. I mean, if I had become the world`s greatest classical trumpet player, I still would not be a serious musician.
”I`m just like my good friend Bud (Adolph) Herseth (the legendary first- chair trumpeter of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra). I`ve never seen him when he`s serious, but he`s still a marvelous musician.
”If you come to one of my rehearsals, you wouldn`t know which guy was the leader half the time, except for my white hair, because I like to take the input of all the young guys that surround me and have a good time with it.
”I guess you could say I`m like a jockey,” adds Ferguson. ”When you get right down to it, he does it for fun.”
