Maynard Ferguson
Monte’s Pub
Orlando, Florida
1976-03-16 & 17

Soundboard > master cassette > 1st gen copy > 2nd gen copy >
Adobe Audition > .wav > TLH Flac level 8, SBE’s corrected

01 Blue Birdland*
02 Give it One
03 Primal Scream
04 Two for Otis
05 Danny Boy
06 Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me
07 Trumpet Section intro and heckler smackdown
08 Tommy Medley/Blue Birdland*
09 MacArthur Park
10 Chameleon
11 Danny Boy

01 Fruit of the Loon part 1
02 Fruit of the Loon part 2
03 Pagliacci/Blue Birdland
04 One O’Clock Jump
05 Frame for the Blues
06 Gospel John/Blue Birdland

*Texas ’76, same lineage

Personnel:
Trumpets: Maynard Ferguson, Stan Mark, Dennis Noday, Ron Tooley, Guiseppe Mosello
Bones: Randy Purcell, Rich Caruso
Saxes: Mike Migliore, Bobby Militello, Mark Colby
Piano: Biff Hannon
Drums: Mike Shepherd
Bass: Gordon Johnson
Sound: Antonio Romero

More of the great soundboard recordings from the 70s have surfaced, which allowed me to piece together
an entire show from 1976, and what a great one it is. Let’s just get it out of the way: at the end of Pagliacci, Maynard hits the highest note I’ve ever heard performed on trumpet, a triple E. That’s ten ledger lines, if you’re wondering. Plus lots of great playing throughout the entire epic show. About a third of this material was torrented on the “Live ‘76” torrent a few months ago, using a later generation source. All of this torrent is from a source that is only two generations from the master copy. None of this material was ever released officially.

In 1976, Maynard played two nights at Monte’s Pub in Orlando, FL, March 16th and 17th. His album, Primal Scream, had been released on Monday the 15th. What we have is the first set from the 16th, and sets 2 and 3 from the 17th. The opener, Blue Birdland, and the Tommy Medley are missing from the tape of the 16th. However, the flip side of the same cassette consists of set 1 from another show labeled ‘Texas ‘76’, with an almost identical board mix and setlist, and both of those tunes are intact. It’s definitely from the same era and perhaps the same tour, and so I included them on this set at the appropriate points (the rest of the Texas material was in the Live ’76 torrent). So between these three sources, I was able to put together what amounts to an entire three-set show. From MacArthur Park onward it is from the 17th, St. Patrick’s Day. MF played Danny Boy in the first set on the 16th and in the second set on the 17th, and so we hear stellar versions from both nights.

One tune, Fruit of the Loon, was never recorded on an album, which is a shame because it’s a great one. It includes a lengthy drum solo, and I broke the tune into separate tracks in case you want to skip to the post-drum-solo portion. Otherwise, it should play smoothly without a break. But by all means, the drum solo is worth a listen all the way through at least once! ‘ Tommy’ and ‘Don’t Let the Sun’ were also never recorded in the 70s, though you can find a video of ‘Tommy ‘on the MF Tribute Concert DVD and ‘Sun’ on MF’s last live album, MF Horn 6. Eric Miyashiro also recorded ‘Tommy’ on his recent album Pleiades, along with some other MF tunes that were never recorded. Enjoy!