Renaissance man

Maynard Ferguson's inventive music

by Don Fluckinger

It's not enough for Maynard Ferguson to be one of the most talented brass players in the jazz universe -- this guy is a hands-on type who produces recordings, composes and arranges tunes, and during that three months he's not on the road each year, he even invents instruments.

The 69-year-old Ferguson and his 10-piece Big Bop Nouveau band play all kinds of gigs from jamming with the King of Thailand to playing with the orchestra in Lugano, Switzerland. At Point Breeze, in Webster, tomorrow, he will perform primarily on trumpet and flugelhorn, but could also break out the soprano saxophone if the mood is right. Lately, he says, he's been performing with the Firebird -- a combination slide and valve trumpet he invented, commercially available through instrument maker Holton. He's also invented other trumpets, flugelhorns, and the Superbone, a combination slide and valve trumpet.

Earlier this year, this jazz Renaissance man, who helped launch the careers of Bob James, Chick Corea, Slide Hampton, Wayne Shorter, and Chuck Mangione, joined the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Juno Awards.

It feels good to be recognized, Ferguson says, for performing in a musical genre that wasn't even considered an artform when he attended the French Conservatory in his native Quebec during the late 1940s and early '50s.

"We were told not to talk about jazz or blues, let alone that terrible rock and roll," he says. "Nowadays they have jazz studies there just like in the prominent American universities."

University-level jazz programs have enriched the education of young musicians, says Ferguson, who is a jazz instructor himself. That's why he's comfortable with hiring younger players to play in Big Bop Nouveau. "There's no more of that great improviser that doesn't know how to read," he says.

Conversely, "the era of the fourth tenor saxophone player who isn't going to play a solo all night -- and admire the guy who does -- is a thing of the past, simply because there are so many young, good soloists coming up these days."

The younger members also infuse a high-energy vibe into the Big Bop Nouveau, who play bebop in a "small big band" setting, the '90s version of the big band who trim a sax, a trumpet, maybe a rhythm player off the roster used by the original big bands like Benny Goodman's and Count Basie's. Ferguson's best-known bands of the 1950s included 13 players.

The band's tunes are peppered with many flavors, including funk, Latin, and New Orleans grooves. Of course it's all window dressing for Ferguson, who has the chops for big, exciting, hot solos, and the subtlety to pull off quiet, romantic interludes.

Known in the jazz world as a master of the trumpet's upper register, Ferguson also hit the pop charts in the '70s with a rendition of "MacArthur Park" and "Gonna Fly Now," the theme from Rocky.

After going through a phase of making fusion-funk with the aid of electronics in his High Voltage band during the 1980s, Ferguson's performances this decade have been mainly with Big Bop Nouveau, who record on the Concord Jazz label. Ferguson also produces a series of CDs for the label of younger jazz artists, titled "Maynard Ferguson Presents." Earlier this year, Concord released a CD in the series featuring Big Bop Nouveau trombonist Tom Garling, who can be heard soloing on the opener (trombone) and title (guitar) track of Big Bop Nouveau's most recent CD, One More Trip to Birdland, which came out at the same time the famous New York club booked Ferguson for its grand reopening in 1996. Birdland was the place where Ferguson gained popularity with his first American band in 1955.

While on tour this year, Ferguson and the Big Bop Nouveau will play songs from their four Concord albums as well as new material they plan to record for an album most likely to be released next year. The group played a big concert in Bangkok last summer and were invited the day before -- a Friday -- to come to the royal palace and jam with King Bhumibol Adulyadej, a longtime clarinet and alto saxophone player.

Although the king admires the bebop and more modern tendencies of the Big Bop Nouveau's players, Ferguson says, when they got down to playing music, he was more into the classic styles of the 1920s -- "Mezz Mezzrow, the jazz hots, that stuff.

"World War III could hit, but it better not hit on Friday," Ferguson says. "His majesty is not available on Fridays, because it's his music day."

Maynard Ferguson and Big Bop Nouveau play Point Breeze, in Webster, at 7 p.m. on November 22. Tickets are $17.50. Call 943-0159.