Maynard Ferguson
Johnny Yee's
Yarmouth, MA
02-16-1975

Aud > ? > CD-R > Adobe Audition > wave > Flac level 8, SBEs corrected

Disc 1
01 Blue Birdland
02 Left Band Express
03 Chameleon
04 Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me
05 Superbone Meets the Badman
06 La Fiesta
06 LA Expression

Disc 2
01 MacArthur Park
02 Col Sanders' Revenge
03 I Can’t Get Started
04 The Fox Hunt
05 I'm Getting Sentimental Over You
06 Airegin
07 Got The Spirit


This is very similar to the PA '75 torrented a few months ago, in fact it is
ten days after that show. As mentioned then, I said

"Not all personnel are mentioned on the recording,
but I checked another show from ten days later which confirmed everyone below, as well
as the personnel mentioned in the accompanying Downbeat article."

The Downbeat article is included again for reference.

Danny D'Imperio wrote an extensive set of liner notes for the Chameleon CD release. Only
a portion of them were used. You can find the whole thing at
http://www.maynardferguson.com/chamelon_linernotes.html

and because of a story in the notes that refers to this actual gig, I've included them in a
file. There was a lot of editing to be done as far as splitting up the tracks and balancing
the channels. Hopefully you'll find the results worth the effort.


Personnel:

Trumpets: Maynard Ferguson, Stan Mark, Dennis Noday, Bob Summmers, Joe Mosello, Ernie Garside
Bones: Randy Purcell, Keith O'Quinn
Saxes: Andy Macintosh, Brian Smith, Bruce Johnston
Piano: Pete Jackson
Bass: Rick Petrone
Drums: Danny D'Imperio

---

From http://www.maynardferguson.com/chamelon_linernotes.html


Remastered Chamelon Liner Notes - FULL

In July of 2003, Maynard's legendary Chameleon album was remastered and re-released. Danny D'Imperio, drummer on the Chameleon album (Danny also appears on the newly released At The Top DVD), was asked to write some new liner notes. He did, but they were shortened considerably for the final project. Danny has graciously provided the Maynard Ferguson Tribute Page with the full liner notes for us all to enjoy.

Note: Danny currently records with his own band. You can find more information at his website, http://www.whodat.com/audio/dansextet/dimperio.htm.

THE STORY OF THE CHAMELEON BAND
By DANNY D'IMPERIO

Maynard Ferguson had basically been considered an expatriate since 1965 when he gave up his commercially unsuccessful American Band and relocated overseas. The CHAMELEON BAND was the beginning of reestablishing his operations in the United States. He had been doing "Tours of the U.S." with a British band but the IRS was getting hip to that so it made more sense to become an American commodity once again. The CHAMELEON BAND was what could be considered the United States resurgence of Maynard Ferguson.

It was a transitional period in that the 3 man saxophone section was comprised completely of foreigners. Lead altoist Andy "Mean" Mackintosh was from London. Bruce "Badman" Johnstone was the baritone saxophonist from New Zealand. Brian "Hardbop" Smith was on tenor and also from New Zealand. Alan Zavod was from Australia. Manager, Ernie Garside, was from Manchester, England. The rest of the band was American, except of course for Maynard who was from Montreal, Canada.

1974 was a very exciting year for the Maynard Ferguson Orchestra in that the colleges were really opening up to big bands. Buddy Rich, Stan Kenton, Woody Herman, and of course Maynard, were all doing clinics at universities around the country. The "Big Band Jazz Rock" phase was beginning to catch on so the time was ripe for a showman, the caliber of Maynard Ferguson, to ravage the scene. I remember kids absolutely mesmerized when they'd hear those high notes and the energy coming from that stage. For me it was a dream come true. Having been a fan of Maynard's since youth I had given up hope of ever having the opportunity to play with the band since it was no longer performing in the U.S. When the invitation came, upon Randy Jones' departure, I didn't hesitate. I WAS THERE!!

I joined in January of 1974 and we recorded the CHAMELEON album in April of that year. It was actually the second tour of the year. We had done a very taxing three months of one nighters and then took a short break. When we got back we did the album in April. The following are the dates surrounding the sessions:
March 30th 1974 - Allegany Community College, Cumberland, Maryland (8:00-10.00)
March 31st 1974 - Eastchester Jr. High School, Eastchester, New York, (8:30-10:30)
April 1st 1974 - RECORDING SESSION FOR CBS at Studio B, 52nd & Madison (8:00 - 3:00)
That night a Show at Westchester State College, Westchester, Pa. (8:30-10:30)
April 2nd, 1974 - Haverling High School, Bath, New York (8:00 - 10:00)
April 3rd, 1974 - John F. Kennedy High School, Willinboro, New Jersey Clinic (4:30 - 6:00) Show (8:00 - 10:00)
April 4th 1974 - RECORDING SESSION FOR CBS at Studio B, 52nd & Madison, N.Y.C. (8:00 - 11:30) That night Colony III (Club), Nutley, New Jersey (9:30 - 11:30)
April 5th, 1974 - Gloversville High School, Gloversville, New York Clinic (3:00 - 5:00) Show (8:00 - 10:00)

As you can see by the schedule, we didn't have a lot of breathing time in between sessions. That was a very hard drinking band ( I may have been the Sergeant Major along those lines) so as a result there was not much sleep prior to the sessions. We mostly hung out as a band at the Blarney Stone, an Irish gin mill on 49th & 8th Avenue, a stone's throw from the Hotel Piccadilly where we stayed which was on 46th and 8th. In short: there were some bloodshot eyes at those sessions as we were mostly hitting and running in 'n out of the City and spending late hours at THE BLARNEY STONE.

Re the sessions:
I recall Artie Shaw being in attendance at one of the sessions. For some reason he was hangin' out with Teo Macero during that period. I remember playing at the Bottom Line a short time later with the band and Teo and Artie were there. After a particularly energetic set I went over to Teo and Artie and said to Artie, "It's a great pleasure to meet you Mr. Shaw, I've always enjoyed your bands." He responded with, "Thanks, but we never played ANYTHING like that." (I don't know if it was a compliment or a put down. I didn't persue it).

Another funny happenstance was that after the last session, late at night at the Blarney Stone (it stayed open 'til 5 AM) "Hardbop" Smith (Brian Smith) and I were at the bar discussing the sessions. At one point this bearded scrufty looking character, who was sitting next to me, tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Excuse me but I've been listening to about one tenth of your conversation and I take it that you're musicians." I kinda blew the cat off with a, "Yeah that's right, Pal" and turned away. This Mug, being persistent, went on with, "Well I play alto and trombone myself." I said, "Yeah right, buddy, who are ya, Murray McEachern or somebody?" He said, "Yes, I am." I froze. I made him show me his ID, after which we had a great time palavering and buying each other drinks. Turns out he was in town meeting with Jane Dorsey to start up the Tommy Dorsey ghost band.

Back to the date:
I can't quite remember the sequence of the recordings but I do remember that Gospel John, Chameleon and La Fiesta, were recorded on the first day. I was really bugged because they put a sand bag up against the head of my bass drum so I felt like I was playing a suitcase instead of a resonating drum. That was a sign of the times and I unfortunately was caught in it. Suffice it to say that in person the band was much more exciting than these recordings would indicate.

Stanley "Wanley" Mark was the lead trumpet player and a total Mayonaisse (Maynard) devotee. He actually married a chick once to cop an out of print record she had by Mayonaisse. (The Maynard Ferguson Octet - Emarcy). After he got it the marriage was annulled. That's when he was awarded "THE WANLEY CUP" (for doing the dumbest thing on a band tour). He pretty much retained "THE WANLEY CUP" tour after tour for his tenure with the band.

He and "Captain Squirt" (Randy Purcell) had been with the Navy Commodores in Washington D.C. They introduced Jay Chattaway's writing to the band. Chattaway was also in one of the Washington service bands at the time. Jattaway brought in several charts but his four offerings for this CD were Jet, Livin' For The City, Chameleon and Superbone Meets The Badman.

CHAMELEON was brought in during the same time Herbie Hancock had his hit with THE HEADHUNTERS. It was a nice choice and got to be the title tune of the album. We played the Wichita Jazz Festival in Kansas that summer and THE HEADHUNTERS were opposite us. Herbie Hancock sat in with the band and man, THAT WAS A KICK! Of course we played CHAMELEON and Herbie funked it out. Too much!!

GOSPEL JOHN was composed and arranged by a cat named Jeff Steinberg. I had played with Jeff on Buddy DeFranco's Glenn Miller Orch. back in 1970. Jeff was a bass player but was really always persuing his first love which was writing. We recorded together at Royal Festival Hall in London England on April 20th 1970 with the G.M.O. I hadn't seen or heard anything from Jeff since that time until I joined Maynard. I believe he was hanging around Detroit trying to break into the Motown thing. He contributed several charts to the library including Nice & Juicy which was recorded by the band twice prior to these sessions. He did a beautiful tune called Sweet Rosetta which was written for a gorgeous black DJ in Detroit. She came out whenever we were in the area. It was recorded in live concerts but never in the studio. Too bad. It was a gas.

GOSPEL JOHN really got that preachin' thing goin'. I recall one time we were playing in a church and Maynard actually got up in the pulpit and played that opening. I though I'd collapse. It was hysterical, him playing with one hand and pointing at the audience with the other. Later in the chart he playes the baritone horn and used to get to marchin' around the stage. I felt like instead of being in a big band I was travelling with a PENTECOSTAL CARAVAN. When we got back in the bus we had a few tastes laughin' over that scene.

Don't know where Steinberg is now but I hope he's still writin'...HE WAS GOOD!!

THE WAY WE WERE was written by Randy "Cap'n Squirt" Purcell. He wrote it as a feature for himself and he did a nice job with it. I believe that was the only thing he wrote that was ever recorded. The "Cap'n" wrote another chart called "Let Us Spray" but it didn't see much action. JET was NEVER PLAYED AGAIN after this recording. It was a period piece and I guess we rightfully put a PERIOD on it after the session. Didn't bother any of us either that it got bagged. You could call it "FILLER". LA FIESTA was arranged by trombonist Jerry "The Hermit" Johnson. He was called "The Hermit" because he chose to never double up with anybody in hotels/motels.In short: HE WAS A LONER. This chart was initially run down at my first rehearsal with the band in January of 1974. It was funny that we would be doing this chart because Woody Herman had already recorded it and actually won a grammy for his album "Giant Steps" which included it in the program. "The Hermit" was unaware of that when he began working on his arrangement. Now dig this! A piano player from England was hired for the tour but for some reason had visa problems and couldn't make the beginning of the tour. Trumpeter Bob "Dupree" Summers had attended The Berklee School of Music in Boston and while there met Alan Zavod who was from Australia. It so happened that we began the tour in Boston so Zavod was contacted to come in and sub for the late arriving Britisher.

When we hit that chart with Zavod, Petrone, and myself, it was like an atomic bomb going off. Zavod was perfect. The funny thing about the whole thing was, Zavod had played briefly with the Glenn Miller Ghost Band and so had Rick Petrone. I had payed a couple year's dues with that band too. Teo Macero came to one of the tours early rehearsals and fell in love with the rhythm section. I remember him saying to Maynard, "I don't know what it is with this Glenn Miller Rhythm Section but they sure are makin' it"! The tardy Britisher was contacted and told to stay home. Zavod was in. LA FIESTA became a kind of Epic in live performances. It would last for twenty minutes. Petrone would open it up with an a cappella bass solo and then the band would hit. "The Hermit" would do his thing on Pump and then "Ally Wally" (Zavod) would completely unload. The proceedings would then be turned over to me and thence on to Mayonaisse. It actually took the form of a bull fight. I remember one night in performance it got pretty outrageous. At the end of the tune Maynard turned to me and said,"You may have killed that bull, but I BURIED IT"!! The version done here is much less intense than the live performances were. For the sake of time, on the original Lp release the drum solo was eliminated and the solos were shortened considerably. The message and feeling are conveyed but to have heard it live was yet another complete level of excitement. The last I heard of "The Hermit" he was residing in Toronto and appearing with Rob McConnell's Boss Brass. He was a very talented cat. At the time, I requested he do an arrangement of Joe Henderson's A Shade of Jade which he did. It was quite a chart but never got past the rehearsal stage. All that remains is my cassette tape of a rehearsal.

As a sidelight: I played this arrangement every night with Maynard for about a year and a half. I later went with Woody Herman and got to play it every night for another year and a half. I guess you could say I'm good on this chart as in "No thanks, I'M GOOD!!"

I CAN'T GET STARTED is a Pete Jackson arrangement. Pete came over with the first English band. He is not on this CD but did rejoin the band in January of 1975. Pete was a very talented writer. He really wanted to stay in the States and managed to do so with the aid of friends in the Philly area. I believe he also had a romantic interest there which further enhanced his urge to stay. Unfortunately, it was reported a few years ago that Pete had gone to his reward. I believe a heart attack took him out. Jackson was a very nice cat with a good sense of humor, a strong smoking habit and an intrepid toper. I can only speculate that the latter two attributes contributed to his untimely demise. He scored several great charts for the band. Teo Nova, Left Bank Express (both on Live at Jimmy's) and when he returned to the band in 1975 he brought a burning chart called L.A. Expression which was composed by bassist Max Bennett. Pete had played with Lynn Biviano's short lived band (a Maynard style band for sure) and Lynn did the chart as 1/2 of a 45rpm release that was the only recorded legacy of that aggregation. I wish we had recorded it with Maynard. All that remains is my cassette tape of the chart during a live performance.

I CAN'T GET STARTED was a great feature for Mayonaisse since Bunny Berigan was an early idol and Maynard actually gets to tip his hat to Bunny as well as a nod to his former boss, Stan Kenton. Linda Lovelace??...well I don't know from where that allusion emanates but it always got a laugh. Another interesting thing about this chart is that Dennis "Iggy" Noday gets to play lead trumpet in the section. He had been initially hired to play lead trumpet with the band after having come off a five year stint with the Kenton band. He got sick immediately at the beginning of the tour so Stanley "Wanley" Mark took over on lead and KEPT IT!! "Iggy" was a strong player and really sounds solid on this chart but of course Mayo comes in on the change of key and completely UNLOADS!! I used to love to lay into that out chorus. It was good fun for a drummer to set up those figures. Armand Zildjian (the late owner of the Zildjian cymbal company) loved the chart soooo much that he had it memorized. I remember one night at Johnny Yee's in Yarmouth, Massachussetts Armand was in attendance with his CEO, Lennie DiMuzio. Armand was known to take a drink now & then. On this night he was particularly well into his cups. When we hit that out chorus he virtually beat up Lennie at the front table mimicking my every drum fill. Poor Lennie. I think he must have been pretty black & blue the following day.

LIVIN' FOR THE CITY was another Chattaway chart. Stevie Wonder had the hit at the time. It was fun to play. I recall doing a couple takes of it and they were OK but I wasn't quite gettin' into it enough. From the engineering booth Teo told me in my phones to "LAY INTO IT"!! I did and took a bit of a chance on that drum break. It worked (the band was holding their breath) and when the take was over Teo said, "Yeah Danny, that was it, come on into the booth and have a taste and we'll play it back." No more takes were needed. Lynn "Little Lord Lynfield" Nicholson gets to shine on this one with his high notes. He was an amazing find who had come to the band from "CHASE", the high energy jazz rock band lead by trumpeter Bill Chase.

"Little Lord Lynfield" used to floor the crowds with an 11 bar section of MacArthur Park where he screamed his brains out. It was definitely a SHOCK & AWE effect. The last I knew of his whereabouts was Las Vegas. Bruce Johnstone quickly became Bruce "Badman" Johnstone on the CHAMELEON BAND. SUPERBONE MEETS THE BADMAN closes the program and was originally entitled "Lowerglyphics" but since it featured Maynard's Superbone and the Badman on baritone the logical title became "SUPERBONE MEETS THE BADMAN". I remember it being the first tune up at 8:00AM for the second session. Man, it was rough gettin' it going. The lights in the studio were bright as hell and we couldn't seem to get jump started. After a couple of aborted takes I yelled into the booth and asked to have the lights turned down a bit. After that we got a good take. "The Badman" and I were to be reunited on Woody Herman's Band in 1976-77. He is still very active in music residing in western New York State. Clinics for Selmer and concert appearances are very much a part of his routine.

Bob "Dupree" Summers went on to do a 5 year stint with the Count Basie Orch. Today he lives in the Los Angeles area and records with Bill Holman and performs with many of the area big bands including that of Bob Florence.

Dennis "Iggy" Noday established roots in Florida where he fronts his own big band in the Miami area. Randy "Cap'n Squirt" Purcell divides his time now between being a stock broker and trombone player in Pittsburgh. Andy "Mean" Mackintosh returned to London after giving L.A. a try. He is one of London's busiest reed players.

Brian "Hardbop" Smith returned to New Zealand and is still active in the New Zealand jazz scene. Alan "Ally Wally" Zavod became a member of Jean Luc Ponty's band after leaving Maynard. He did some writing for movies but as of late little is known of his whereabouts. Rick Petrone became a successful D.J. in Connecticut and still continues playing local jazz gigs. I went on to play with Woody Herman's Band and eventually landed the house band gig at Eddie Condon's in NYC. I formed a band called THE METROPOLITAN BOPERA HOUSE but was sued by the Metropolitan Opera House. I formed my own Big Band called Danny D'Imperio's Big Band Bloviation and recorded a CD for Rompin' Records in 2001 featuring Barry Harris on piano along with other top New York jazz players. As for Stanley "Wanley" Mark, rumor has it that a marriage is pending to a female bugler in the Goose Bay Labrador All Girl Drum & Bugle Corp because she is thought to be in possession of Maynard's original cornet mouthpiece

THE CHAMELEON BAND was a very exciting period for The Maynard Ferguson Orch. in that it was really the beginning of its acceptance in the U.S. and launched the band into a new era. Bigger hits were to follow such as *ROCKY* and *PAGLIACCI*.

Maynard Ferguson is an on going entity and even in 2003 at a youthful 75 he is virtually UNSTOPPABLE. Danny D'Imperio (April 2003)


---


M.F.'s Rules of the Road
Originally printed in the June 5, 1975 issue of Down Beat.
By Herb Nolan.
The Butler Coach with the Maynard Ferguson band pulled out of Chicago at 8 a.m., heading for Fort Wayne, Indiana an hour earlier than necessary: someone incorrectly believed there was an hour's time difference between Illinois and Indiana. It was just as well. The extra hour was spent groping through the city of Fort Wayne and its environs looking for the Elmhurst High School Jazz Festival and stage band competition where the M.F. band, short on sleep and food, was scheduled for two afternoon clinics and an evening concert. It would end up a 19-hour day.
"Are you going to mention the whole band in your article?" someone from a group of Maynard's sidemen asked after a meal of ham salad sandwiches and chili, catered from the Elmhurst high school cafeteria - it was also after Ferguson had retired to the privacy of another schoolroom to warm up, his regular routine before playing.
"Are you going to use our nicknames? The band is built around those names, Maynard uses them in his introductions." Sure, why not. They went down the roster:
Bruce "Badman" Johnstone, baritone, flute; Brian "Hard Bop" Smith, tenor; Andy "Mean" MacIntosh, alto sax; Randy "Capt. Squirt" Purcell and Keith "K.O." O'Quinn, trombones; Pete "Jason" Jackson, keyboards; Rich "Et Tu" Petrone, bass; Dan "Animal Rock" D'Imperio, drums; Bob "Dupree" Summers, Joe "The Loon" Mossello, Dennis "Ignatius" Noday, Ernie "Burning Funk" Garside, and section leader Stan Mark, trumpets; and Maynard "The Lip" Ferguson, also known to the rest of the band as "Mayonnaise."
No longer the all-British group it once was but still a foreign corporation, the Maynard Ferguson band has changed, going through personnel in the routine way most big bands do. On this tour, it carried people like Pete Jackson, who'd been in the first English group that had come from England in 1968. He'd been off the road recently, however, playing living and "getting his head together" in Philadelphia. Also from the first band was Brian Smith who, in addition to working with Maynard, has been associated with composer Michael Gibbs and the English group called Nucleus.
On the newer side were Bob Summers from Woody Herman; Dennis Noday, formerly leader of Stan Kenton's trumpet section; Randy Purcell, from the Glenn Miller band under Buddy DeFranco, and drummer D'Imperio, who had worked with Gap Mangione. After 15 months with Maynard Ferguson, D'Imperio was leaving after the tour to form a rock group called Palmer's Steamed Clams. "It's going to be animal rock," he said one day, "I'll come out with whips, dressed in a leopard skin outfit and start the concerts by whipping the drums - really, no lie."
"Now if you want to talk about the music," said a guy in the band, "we've got a pint of whiskey and some wine left, and I imagine if you come to the back of the bus about one o'clock in the morning you could get some really heavy shit."
***
The Maynard Ferguson band - everyone including managers Ernie and Don Garside, Maynard's daughter and traveling secretary Kim, and probably even bus driver Bernie ("The Bolt"), who's been the M.F. driver for three years - was showing signs of wear. After being on the road for almost two-and-a-half months and within five days and five concerts of taking a three-week vacation before starting out again in Palo Alto, the musicians were yielding to creeping exhaustion.
You might say that despite intense togetherness, it was like the microcosm of a marriage breaking up. A percentage of the bus's captive population of 16 was uptight, grumbling, and mildly rebellious in the confines of a fairly predictable daily grind. Frequently gripped by hysterical laughter, captivated by trivial diversions created during the long rides and short hotel room nights between concerts, the musicians were randomly angry like summer lightning. They were a typical big band on the road, living in a world of music and franchise foods were men often lust after a Kentucky Fried Chicken breast.
"It's the long jumps between concerts that burn it out of you," said Bruce Johnstone. "There's been a lot of sickness on this tour, too, which hasn't helped either." Keith O'Quinn, for instance, had arrived in Chicago with a 104 degree temperature and tonsils that looked like abscessed prunes.
Maynard Ferguson, 47, a man who has led touring bands since 1957, was also showing the effects of the ten week tour. In Fort Wayne, lacking sleep and dealing with a sore mouth after back-to-back clinics during which he demonstrates the art of hitting the upper register of his horn, he had trouble at the evening concert making a high note break on Elton John's Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me. His lips had whipped back from the horn's V-cup mouth as if it was electrically charged, and with an exaggerated wave he cued the brass section, then leaned toward the reeds saying, "It's going to be a tough night." On the bus he spent most of the hours dozing, slouched in the first row aisle seat opposite the driver's side.
The Ferguson band had arrived in Chicago two nights before Fort Wayne after a high school concert in Crete, Ill. Before that it had been Scottsburg, Indiana; Tuscaloosa, Alabama; and Florida. Florida had seen the usual one-nighters at clubs and schools, except for a week's stay at the University of Miami.
"We're the first band to do that, and it turned out sensationally," said Ferguson later, explaining they'd done clinics and concerts throughout the week. "We go back next year at the height of the season for two weeks -two weeks in Miami Beach is some sort of Shangri-La for a traveling musician."
But Shangri-La was past at this point, and when I got on the band bus in Chicago late one Friday afternoon, they were headed for McHenry High School in a semi-rural, agricultural community about 40 miles away. The next day would be Fort Wayne and back to Chicago (a 400-mile round trip), then Rock Island, Illinois and back again (another 400-mile trip). It was a typical itinerary.
"If we let Willard Alexander, our American agent, have his way we could be on the road every day of the year," said Maynard in Fort Wayne. "It's no longer a problem of getting enough gigs. We're past that. What I do now is go ten weeks and take three weeks off. It may vary - like 11 and three or nine and three - but you really need that break because it's all one-nighters."
McHenry was the only concert of the three that wasn't packed to the walls, the gymnasium with row upon row of folding chairs was about two-thirds filled.
Afterwards Ferguson grumbled about bad promotion, recalling that the last time he'd come through, they'd played another area high school and drawn 5,000.
Big crowd or small, Maynard and the band did what they do so well - turn everybody on.
The concert at McHenry was essentially the same as the others. As Don Garside announced, "Ladies And Gentleman, MAYNARD FERGUSON," the band was already playing the opening number, Maynard moved swiftly from the wings, trusting his silver horn into the air in salute. Reaching center stage, he planted his feet, arched his back, and put his trumpet to his mouth, pointing it up and out over the crowd. With a cue, the brass section came in; and Maynard rode over it with those high, adrenalin-charged notes. The crowd was hooked.
The music each night included tunes from the Chameleon album: the title tune, La Fiesta, Superbone Meets the Badman, The Way We Were, and I Can't Get Started. Then tunes planned for a future album, Elton John's Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me, Fruit of the Loon, and L.A. Expression. A taste of MacArthur Park would turn up as an introduction to the second half of the show, divided by a short intermission during which the band changes from yellow to red shirts.
From the beginning, when he comes out in a black satin coat (that gets discarded midway through the second tune) covering a light print shirt open at the chest, Maynard is either playing, pausing to listen, or moving - popping his fingers, mugging, giving the band thumbs-up, at times almost dancing, draining all the energy he has brought to the stage.
The concert closes with Slide Hampton's Got The Spirit, featuring a long and often inspired solo introduction from Johnstone on baritone. And if people aren't already jumping up and down, the last number, Hey Jude, with the brass section filing into the audience to play the refrain back at the rest of the band, has them on their feet screaming for more.
Maynard waves, takes some bows, and is gone. There are rarely encores.
If the schedule isn't too tight, the band lingers to sign autographs - often hearing declarations of love from teenage girls. There are, one discovers, Maynard Ferguson band groupies.
On nights when time is short and the musicians tired, everyone disappears with mercurial cunning into the dark, smoky interior of the bus. Everyone that is, except bassist Petrone, who goes to work in front of the bandstand selling 8 x 10 glossies of Maynard Ferguson at 50 cents each.
Without a doubt, the M.F. Band is among the most popular and commercially successful jazz groups in the world. It can command as much as $4,000 a concert and gets and additional $500 for a clinic. Maynard pays his musicians' lodging and the members of his group make good money - not as much as a super rock group, but enough to keep from going in debt and starving.
"Economically we've been doing very well," Maynard began over dinner in Fort Wayne before the evening concert. "Things have worked out nicely for me in a strange way, I suppose. In 1967, when I broke up the American band, packed that way, and took my wife and children to England and India, I didn't think there was an American market for what I was doing. That was one of the problems I had, with no new audiences. I hate to use the word 'stuck,' but it does apply in the sense that it got to be 'play Maria one thousand more times, Maynard I found that unbearable - mind you it's a great arrangement, I just use it as an example. I think getting away from America gave me a chance to destroy my cookie stamp."
Picking up and leaving came almost ten years from the time Maynard Ferguson put his first band together. "That was the 'Birdland-Newport' era, because we played 14 to 16 weeks a year and Birdland and did the Newport Festival nine or ten years in a row," he recalled, adding that the Roulette album Maynard Ferguson at Newport was one of his favorites from the old band.
"You see, I was the maniac who gave up what used to be considered the hip gig. I was under contract to Paramount Pictures in Hollywood and I walked out after a little more than three years. Everybody said, 'you must be insane,' when I told them I was walking out to start a big band - god, they couldn't believe it. But three years later, man, there were no more contract orchestras in any of the major studios. That was the beginning of the 'movie revolution' so to speak, and the end of the major studio star system as well as the so-called 'dream gig.' But, you know, I found the dream gig boring.
"I was the trumpet player with Paramount: I was very highly paid at a rate that had been established 15 years before and was based on 44 pictures a year. Well, things were changing. It took three years to make The Ten Commandments, but we did the score in five days. It was a joke. I averaged three-and-a-half hours of work a week for three-and-a-half years, during which I was highly overpaid. There were all kinds of fringe benefits, and I wasn't allowed to work for any other studio or on television or radio. I couldn't make records. During that period, I've always said, I leaned how to play golf and almost forgot how to play the trumpet."
After leading bands for almost a decade, Maynard succumbed to the personal and economic pressures of trying to keep a big band going during a period where they had become an anachronism. So Ferguson dropped out, becoming, in a way, another musician in exile. "The way my mind was working, America seemed an insane place in those particular years to try and raise five children."
After leaving the U.S., Maynard toured Scandinavia and England with an English group he eventually disbanded. At that point, he took his family to southern India, ostensibly to get another view of life. He says he did some of his best and most original writing there.
Maynard eventually returned to England with big bands still in his blood. In Manchester, there was a place called Club 43 operated by Ernie Garside. Garside brought Maynard in as a single with a pickup band that developed into sort of a rehearsal group. It was then he made the first M.F. Horn album.
"I was doing the record for CBS-London. Columbia in New York heard it and they were really knocked out. Personally, at the time, I couldn't understand where the people would be that would be knocked out by it. But in the years of my absence, of course, the total success of Blood, Sweat and Tears and Chicago, as well as a lot of other groups, had changed the situation a great deal. Today I think the public has gotten even hipper. It's the whole revolution thing we've gone through - some of it subtle, some things (like Watergate) unsubtle, and things like the black revolution both subtle and unsubtle - most of it I agree with."
With a big band jazz album making it commercially, Maynard brought his first English band to the United States, and what he found was a new young audience augmented by his older fans.
"Our success has a lot to do with the young people, and yet somehow we haven't lost the old people. I'll tell you, Herb, it's a strange thing, you get asked questions like Maynard, where do you feel music is heading today?' Man, I don't think any artist plans where it's heading. Certainly if I wanted to make a dynamite business move with a muzak corporation, that would be a planned music move.
"You know, Krishnamurti (his spiritual advisor) has a philosophy that deals with going through life as an observer. It tends to freak people out a little bit, it makes you think of being totally turned off, but it isn't being turned off at all. What it is, is not being anxious, uptight, and striving. Just observing. If I hear a tune that I think I can do something with - I don't really care if it's Sonny Rollins or Elton John - I make a move. It's just a question of playing music that makes you feel good and turns other people on. It's mostly sitting back and making a move. But even then you're an observer because it occurs to you.
"The thing I've tried to do in this whole venture since coming back to America, is to cut up the boredom part of a big band. The day of the hype doesn't work with kids - they should get a medal for that one. Of course, they go for that other hype, but it's an obvious one; it's called fantasy. That comes before they learn that the real fantasy is the music. The purist mystic art in the world is instrumental music, and the most mystical thing is unintelligible sound communicated between people, which is what music is - it is unintelligible, it's the hardest thing for someone to write about, especially when I don't sing I Can't Get Started." Maynard laughed.
"I try to do as many today attitudes in the music as I feel it's healthy to do. I don't mean that last part as a restriction, but as a plus. I don't really want to be 'today' just for the sake of being 'today.' But I enjoy change and I enjoy having proved that to the people who like my old bands. Oh, they'll still ask for Stella By Starlight or something like that, and they'll never quite understand when I tell them I love it. It really blows their minds because they think if I don't play it, I must hate the tune.
"The thing is, I don't like to impose the music of an older band onto the younger players of today's band anymore than it would be suitable to take today's basic book, hire the old band, and impose that music on them. The band I have now," Maynard added, "is a nice mixture of the new and old players."
Randy Purcell, who comes from Pittsburgh, spoke later about arranging for the band. His chart of The Way We Were is on the Chameleon album. "You have to be aware of what Maynard is looking for in the context of what else is happening in the band. There are a lot of charts that might be good musically, but not in the groove. I don't want to say 'in the style of the band,' because Maynard never wants to have a set style; but in a sense he already does. One of the obvious problems in writing for this band is the instrumentation; it's a little strange with three saxes, five trumpets and two bones. In many ways you can't write as full. It's easy to write for a band with five trumpets, five bones and five saxophones, because there are more pieces at your disposal. It's hard to get the same effect from the small sections. The Way We Were was different," he added, "because it was a pretty dark chart tonally and it was in contrast with everything we were doing at the time, which is why I wrote it."
Back in Fort Wayne, Maynard had talked about the way he relates as a leader. "Every band, once it gets together, sooner or later emanates the personality of its leader. If you think of Ellington, Basie, or Kenton their bands are them, although I think I have more fun," said Ferguson, who considers himself more of a performing leader with an obligation to the variety of instruments he plays rather than, say, a creator of compositions for his bands.
"The spirit of the band forms the basis for compliments that we usually get, and I'm sure that's the contagious thing I have to offer. You know, when the band's really cooking, I'm the best customer in the joint. I've got the best seat and when I'm not playing I'm listening just like everybody else. But I also know what I want to do with the tunes - they're really not played the same way every night. Sometimes the differences are subtle and sometimes outrageously unsubtle."
The subject of pride came up. "The pride thing," said Maynard, "has to be two-way in the band: first it's each member's personal pride, and then it's what the band is as a whole. Some attach a lot of it to where they came from, others could care less, it depends on where their heads are at as individuals at that point. It amazes me though, that when we get to every small town in America, and when if we arrive early enough, they're running around to these funny little local record shops to see if they can find old albums of the band. The first ones they ask for are Hollywood Party, Finger Snappin' and Dimensions, all the really hard to get records from when we first recorded. Of course those include some heavy people like Ray Brown, Clark Terry, Clifford Brown, people like that."
Another part of Maynard Ferguson and his music is his involvement in the design of instruments. Ferguson, who presently works for Holton/LeBlanc in Kenosha, Wisconsin, got into designing with a British band corporation during his stay in England. Designing, he says, is mostly trial and error and experimentation involving lots of craftsmen. "It's like designing acoustics for a symphony hall, nobody knows until the orchestra hits on opening night whether the guy who designed the really made it."
For the McHenry concert, Sandy Sandberg, vice-president of product development for Horton/LeBlanc, had brought a prototype of a trumpet design Maynard was working on. Ferguson had it put on the band stand without trying out the instrument. Towards the end of the set he grabbed this new horn for the introduction to I Can't Get Started, and he couldn't play it. Wow! His mind was racing: Christ, what's this? I can't even play my new design? Actually, there had been an error, the wrong trumpet was mistakenly picked up at the factory and brought to McHenry. At the conclusion of the evening Sandberg headed home with the bogus horn tucked under his arm.
Perhaps the most visible instrument that Maynard has produced is the Superbone. "That's an idea I've had all my life, the valve and the slide trombone should all be one unit. You should be able to play the valve with your right hand and the slide with your left simultaneously. In addition, I can change the key of my slide trombone by pressing any number of valve combinations: or I can change the key of my valve trombone by changing the position of my slide.
"One of the finest symphony trombone players just bought a Superbone. Now, that's a totally different performance market. People are beginning to understand that this is a revolutionary instrument designed for all trombone players. When I first got into the Superbone, the first thing I said was, 'I can't wait for someone to come along who can play it better than me.' Although it's the instrument he improvises on most and the one he calls his favorite, Maynard says he does not devote much time to practicing it.
Then there are the trumpets, specifically the M.F. Horn 468, 60 percent zinc and 40 percent copper, the brass combination that rings best, says Ferguson. The horn is, through and through, one of the largest trumpets in the world. Some members of the Ferguson brass section use it and some don't. In between is Dennis Noday, who commented at one point that as a band leader, Maynard had more understanding and sympathy for brass player problems than most other leaders. Noday's trumpet is half Yamaha with an M.F. bell.
"The bore of my horn," said Ferguson, "has a tremendous taper. For that reason, some of my brass players tell me it's very difficult to get mutes to fit. If somebody else uses the mute for even a week it will fall right back out of the M.F. 468 because the forks are squeezed up. The larger bell," he explains, "spreads the sound, but not in a dull way. It's not a dark sound with a brightness..."
***
The following day in the hotel coffee shop some of the band were grabbing a late breakfast before leaving for Rock Island. They never know when they might get a chance to eat. Was it time for the "heavy shit?"
I sat down with Bruce Johnstone, a baritone player who placed third in the 1974 Down Beat Readers Poll and has been with Maynard Ferguson for two-and-a-half years. Prior to that, he'd worked with various rhythm sections in Copenhagen as well as with Ben Webster, Dexter Gordon, Horace Parlan, and Neils Henning. I asked him about playing in the reed section and the music in general.
"I find that I'm playing at a higher volume level than I've ever played before," he said. At the clinic the day before Johnstone told the kids a reed lasts him three days. "I have to match my volume with the trombones because I'm written in with them a lot, although we don't actually play together as a section except for about eight bars here and there. The most elaborate writing is for the brass. An exception, I should add, is a new thing we have by Jeff Steinberg, it's a real laid-back blues written especially for this instrumentation and it makes the band sound huge. It's a really good tune, but we don't play it."
"The whole band," Johnstone continued, "is basically geared to sell albums; so consequently most of the stuff we are doing is from the M.F. Horn 4 Plus 5 and Chameleon albums, along with whatever new things we're working on. It's sort of a violent band, and Maynard goes for crowd reaction perhaps more than any other bandleader. The whole evening starts out at a high intensity level and builds. Maynard understands the emotional needs of young Americans," he said without sarcasm. "I think he has a definite success formula going. At the moment we generally play about nine or ten tunes a night, and there's probably about 12 basic numbers that we use, not many more. I guess the book we're carrying now has 30 to 40 tunes.
"But I'll tell you, I worked with him once in a quintet situation in Italy. We were there with the big band and the promoters got so enthusiastic they booked another week without telling anybody. All the other cats had commitments in England, so Maynard held onto the rhythm section and me and we did the week of concerts. The group played a whole bunch of off-the-wall tunes, and it was really quite good. For example, we played some things with fluegelhorn and baritone - I don't think he's played that instrument for a while - that were really roaring because they're both such dark instruments, and for ballad things it was quite beautiful."
"The band musically?" said Peter Jackson sliding into the booth across from Johnstone and bassist Petrone, "yeah, musically I don't think the band is as good as it used to be - nowhere near as good as it used to," he repeated, referring to the MacArthur Park band.
"I don't think some of the arrangements he's gettin' are that good," he continued, "it's the ordinary sort of thing, and there's not a lot to play. I mean, if you want a bit more of a challenge, you know, then you better play different tunes. We're doing the same thing every night, the same format, it's unbearable after a while because you can't do anything else - everything's a format at these gigs.
"You can't open the tunes up for more solo space," interjected Petrone, "because then you take the opportunity of doing another big number. If too many solos are put in a given number then we would be playing only five or six tunes. MacArthur Park is a great example. During the last tour, the tune was 15 to 20 minutes long - and sometimes longer, depending on who he pointed at to take a solo. Now it's down to a one-minute walk-on.
"We used to have a chart in the book called L-Dopa that was a 12-minute album track and it used to run 45 minutes on stage," added Johnstone.
"La Fiesta is getting that way," mused Jackson, who along with Petrone and D'Imperio gets a featured solo on the Chick Corea composition. "The music we're doing now, it's all bash, bash, bash, the faster, the wilder the better," Pete continued, getting slightly agitated. "You can put this down in the story too, man: I could get fired but that's all right. It's all bash, bash, bash, loud, loud, faster than fast. And it's a drag. I mean, there's more to music than that - there is to me anyway. Of course the people we're playing for aren't going to go crazy and jump onto their feet for a nice Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Charlie's Born type chart, which to me is beautiful music. But they will get up and scream and scream for Hey, Jude, which to me isn't music, at least the way we play it isn't, the way we do it it's nothing.
"Of course if you just want to work, make more bread, and get people going berserk for music that isn't that great, well that's another thing. But if you have any sensitivity as a musician...the music we're doing is not getting it.
"I've seen kids at these concerts and all they're waiting for is a double high C from Maynard Once he's hit it, that's made their night. Everything else that goes on doesn't matter - so what kind of people are we trying to play for?" Jackson asked rhetorically.
"Of course, this is the first exposure to a big band that a lot of these people have had," said Johnstone, "and hopefully they'll go and listen to other people as well."
"Listen," said Jackson, relaxing a bit, "I wouldn't mind going in there and doing a concert playing rock all the time and knocking the people out if it was as good as what people like Chicago and Blood, Sweat and Tears used to put out. But to me it isn't as good - but it's successful, so there you go...
"There's a very pretty chart in the book," Johnstone continued, "called Sweet Rosetta. It's very subtle, has nice lines and good voicing and we don't play it because it gets less than a berserk audience reaction...It's very good, well-played, and the band digs it.
"Maynard plays it safe and because he plays it safe, he knows he'll get a reaction from the people," added Jackson.
"One of the guys in the band, Bob Summers, is a mother of a trumpet player," Johnstone continued, "and for two years he's been playing two choruses of Lady Be Good. Occasionally, he gets to play a B-flat blues. But that's all he plays - here's an incredibly talented trumpet player going to waste."
"Personally, I would be more included to play the epics and the crowd pleasers," said Jackson, "because that's what they want to hear. But in the meantime, throw in some really good, hip things and try to educate the people a bit more. I mean, if all they're going to hear is Hey, Jude, and that's all they're getting their rocks off on, it's nowhere."
"That's where Maynard's original band was at," Johnstone said. "They used to play for dances and then say, 'Hey, now we're going to play some of the things we dig and then play some jazz.' That was a great idea at the time because Maynard played for a large and wide audience, and it made them aware of some other big band music - it would be kind of nice if that was done again. Just take the music a step further."
"I dig the rock thing as much as anyone when it's played well and you've got something to do in it," Jackson continued as he leaned forward, "but I would just as soon play a wider variety of music to keep me interested instead of the same solos and soloists every night. Got The Spirit is one of the first charts I played back in 1968, and he's still playing it. I'm not on an ego trip, I don't want to solo every tune, I just want to hear different music. There's enough music there - different music, better music."
"It runs in a pattern," said Petrone, who recently published an article in Guitar Player magazine on playing in the M.F. rhythm section. "Everybody gets a certain tune that they play on. Pete, Danny and I get a moment on La Fiesta, which is a similar moment each night. Bruce's moment is on Got The Spirit. We are all expected to be creative, if that's the word, all the time on the same tune."
"Seven days a week, it's kind of rough," added Johnstone, "that's why on the front of Got The Spirit, I try to change the beginning as much as possible so lethargy doesn't set in for me and the rhythm section."
The impromptu discussion broke up as movement around the bus signaled the band's impending departure. The M.F. Band members moved sluggishly, with programmed resolve, to the coach. Over its door was a sheet of paper listing the month's concerts - all but three had been crossed out.
Although I'd only been riding the band bus for two days, it was apparent the opinions voiced by Jackson and Johnstone were shared by other members of the band as well, some in fact were far more vitriolic. On the other hand, they were the kind of opinions that turn up naturally, in one form or another, in most band situations. Maynard could probably dig it, having been in the business as long as he has.
The trip to Rock Island, a small industrial town along the Mississippi River, was like the others, an incidental trip to another high school concert. Maynard, Kim and the Garsides sat in the first row of seats, lead trumpeter Mark sat behind them, and the remainder of the band spread itself out toward the rear of the coach. Some slept, others played cards, one worked on a music chart, while the rest listened to a tape of Cannonball In New York, (an old Blue Note session) on a Sony tape machine.
At the high school a large sign in a front window read "MAYNARD". As the coach slowed and Don Garside, road map in hand, peered out the window, a man in a checkered suit ran out and waved the bus down a steep, narrow drive to a rear entrance. It had started to rain.
The gymnasium was packed with kids and adults of all ages, and a very good high school stage band was playing. "The Maynard Ferguson band has arrived," a P.A. voice announced. The crowd cheered.
The M.F. Band, which carries its own sound system, set up with practical efficiency, and the concert started right on schedule. The program, with a 10 or 15-minute intermission, lasts about two hours.
During Rich Petrone's long, unaccompanied bass solo on La Fiesta, drummer D'Imperio left his traps, went to the back of the bandstand, and sat down with his back to the orchestra. He'd told me at one point that when he was 13 or 14 years old, his father used to take him to Birdland to see the Maynard Ferguson band along with the other groups that played there. His biggest dream as a kid had been to play with Maynard, he said, and now in two days, and after a little more than a year with the band, he was leaving.
With Hey, Jude, the crowd was once again giving the Maynard Ferguson band a standing ovation - the concert was finished. Petrone went to work selling pictures of Maynard The rest made hasty retreat to the back of the bus or worked to load the equipment back on the coach. It wasn't quite 10 p.m. and there were hopes for an early return to Chicago.
Perhaps there'd be time to catch Dizzy Gillespie's last set at the Jazz Medium across from the hotel. The rain, however, had turned both sides of that steep, curving driveway into vicious, tire-sucking mud. To make things more difficult, the road abutted the school's brick wall at one point. It took another hour of maneuvering before Bernie got the long motor coach out. As he reached the street, a loving cheer went up: "ALLLLLRRRRRIGHT, BOLT."