In , Kenton formed the Innovations Orchestra, a piece jazz concert orchestra with strings, and with the folding of the Barnet band, Ferguson was available for the first rehearsal on January 1, While the Innovations Orchestra was not commercially successful, it made a number of remarkable recordings, including "Maynard Ferguson," one of a series of pieces named after featured soloists. Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 last. Sign in. Forgot your password? Get help. Password recovery.
Interesting stories about famous people, biographies, humorous stories, photos and videos. Home All posts Maynard Ferguson. Ferguson stood up and announced, "I'm going to sleep, but if you see Glenn Miller, please call me. At a time when racial segregation was overt in the US, Ferguson selected writers and musicians regardless of skin colour and recorded a swathe of valuable albums for Roulette, building up a cadre of jazz soloists within the band including Lanny Morgan, pianist Jaki Byard and trombonist Slide Hampton.
In , his then band was voted by Down Beat readers the second best in the world, behind that of Count Basie. Forced ultimately to reduce to a sextet, and disenchanted with the general drift of American society, he went to Ojai in California in , looking at the philosophy of J Krishnamurti. He enrolled his five children in the Rishi Valley School and stayed a while until he was invited to tour Britain with a concert package.
When Manchester promoter Ernie Garside told him about his rehearsal big band, Ferguson pulled out a suitcase of music and set to. Within weeks he had honed this orchestra into a powerful force, and set in train a period of huge success for his all-British band. Given a six-month musical slot on what was in that era fleetingly the dominant British chat show - that of Simon Dee - he recruited many of the best British jazz musicians, including saxophonist Danny Moss and Peter King.
He recorded a number of albums, and made the first of several return trips to the US, always managed by Garside. When the British musicians tired of travelling around the US, local men replaced them and Ferguson returned to New York, later moving to California. Thereafter he built a series of fine young bands, recorded prolifically, held college workshops and collaborated with instrument makers to create a series of hybrid brass instruments.
Always open to new genres - he had been the soloist when Leonard Bernstein premiered William Russo's Symphony No 2 in New York in - Ferguson maintained an involvement with Indian raga music, toyed with disco and jazz fusion, and achieved some commercial popularity with his covers of Macarthur Park and Hey Jude.
In his performance of Pagliacci featured at the close of the Montreal Olympics. Two years later he received a Grammy in for Conquistador. He was awarded Canada's highest civilian honour, the Order of Canada, in It was the beginning of my reading and listening to world philosophy and world music. But as news of events at Millbrook spread beyond the exclusive world of academia, curiosity-seekers began to turn up, and life on the estate took on an increasingly less spiritual quality.
Maynard moved his family to the gatehouse of the property but the environment was changing and in the fall of the first of many police raids occurred. It was time for a new experience. Not only Millbrook had changed, but also the music world had changed.
He felt from a business standpoint, it was no longer a sensible proposition and he wanted to do something new. The big band scene was at its lowest ebb during the sixties and Maynard felt he was just doing the same things over and over. So Maynard had realized his wish to front the most swinging ensemble around, one that had captured the delight of the jazz audience. It had experimented with the entire dynamic range, brought forth fresh, imaginative, exciting charts, and allowed the top improvisers of the fifties and sixties to freely express themselves.
He continued to play with his sextet, but the Timothy Leary years expanded his consciousness and he and Flo had set their sights on moving to India.
In Maynard was offered a gig to front an all—star Anglo-American jazz orchestra including Clark Terry on a tour of England. He accepted and took his family with him. The plan was to take them to India at the end of the tour. It was at this time that he met Ernie Garside who became his manager. There were several trips to India and the English music world was overjoyed to have Maynard Ferguson living there.
He was re-energized by the European music scene and influenced by the music of India with all its expanded time signatures and unique instruments as well as a spiritual path of oneness. For a while money was tight, so Maynard left Flo and the kids living near the beach in Barcelona, while he and Ernie Garside put the first tour together. Suddenly Maynard was playing all over Europe and loving it.
CBS had just negotiated a contract with Maynard and wanted Mansfield to be the producer. That was important, because at that time there was little interest in this area of music from any other record company. This was recorded between the fourth and sixth of December, at Olympic Studios in London which, although they had the room to record large orchestras, was better known as a rock and roll studio.
In fact, much of the Rolling Stones early recording work was done there. Maynard was literally standing on his head!
He would do this for several minutes at a time, often between takes. Yoga was very much a part of his life, and this was one of his ways of dealing with pressure. Once this project was finished, we had to decide in which direction to go next. In Maynard began his first tour of the U. He left this country in a darkness — an interlude of artistic withdrawal and private despair, facing financial ruin; he broke for a new life and found it on the other side of the ocean.
And now he was back, on his second U. The scene is surreal: Maynard on a meteoric warm-up streak, hitting a high note, whirling in slow motion; fans, people running in and out; Maynard moving into his strange Hatha Yoga breathing exercises, stretching, leaning, his entire body seeming to fill with air. Instrumentalists have many experiences. An audience consumed, gone with him. Later, alone, he gathers his energies, free inside. After a while, he speaks, his voice strangely suffused. His new band with its contemporary charts was a hit and Maynard was ready to move back to America.
He and Flo were happy to return with their family to sunny California. His new young fans were a powerful and charged audience. Maynard and his band had the time of their lives living on a cramped road bus traveling back and forth across the country. Every gig was fun, but there were spots in the country that were extra special. Places where the kids went nuts.
They were Maynard Fanatics. The Great American Music Hall in San Francisco was always packed with parents, band directors, music students and screaming kids. All excited about jazz. No matter the energy he used on stage, Maynard had plenty left to talk with kids and parents after the shows. He thrived on the interaction and developed a huge fan base that he knew by sight and often by name. Some nights the bus would be loaded and the band would wait an hour for Maynard to finish signing autographs, swapping stories with the local band director or giving a young student an impromptu trumpet lesson.
At that time Maynard was playing with a full big band. I wanted to watch him breathe and approach the trumpet. I heard him in the back warming up and then he came out for a mic check and blew me away.
I was awestruck. What a thrill for a young kid. Hold my beer. The band personnel were now half English and half American and Maynard played trumpet, baritone sax, superbone an instrument he designed and sang. With each new album release always came a couple of new charts. You felt like a movie star! It was a thrilling time for me. It was to be a week of rehearsals and three gigs.
Three days and I was in love. Maynard brought out the animal in all of us. This was too much fun and during that week I threw Maynard my best boyish grins in the hope that he would keep me on.
A week turned into a year. In the band, augmented by many studio musicians, recorded the album Primal Scream. For this recording Columbia was trying new producers and asked Maynard to work with Bob James. Primal Scream was the first collaboration album Columbia intended for the new burgeoning fusion audience. While Maynard was frustrated by lack of control and choice of musicians, he decided to be open and give it a try. The crossover success of the album would send Maynard back into the studio with Bob James for the next album.
They had him way up in the air on a small pedestal with no railing. It was not long after Munich, so there was a lot of security. I was hundreds of feet in the air. They would have shot him, I think, except there were all these girls dancing around him, laughing. So anyway, I blew out the Olympic flame and my whole family was there watching.
There were 75, in the audience and two billion watching around the world.
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