Maynard Ferguson-"Superbone Meets the Bad Man"

"Maynard Ferguson? He's that high note trumpet freak who played those over the top arrangements of crappy pop tunes." That's the Maynard Ferguson stereotype a lot of people, including jazz critics who really should know better, have.

Granted, Maynard did play his share of over the top arrangements of crappy-or at least mediocre-pop-pop tunes. The album this cut is from, 1974's Chameleon, includes, for instance, an unlistenable treatment of Stevie Wonder's "Livin' for the City". But Maynard did 60-some albums in his own name, and the vast bulk are at least good. Some, like the ten-CD Mosaic set of Maynard's Roulette output (late 50's-mid 60's) are justifiably seen as classics, and will run you a good $500 should you like to get it on EBay.

That Roulette era band featured players such as Joe Zawinul, Don Ellis, Jaki Byard, and Joe Farrell, and included writers Slide Hampton, Ernie Wilkins, Mike Abene, Willie Maiden, and more. As much a fan as I am of "competitors" Count Basie, Quincy Jones, Woody Herman, Terry Gibbs, etc from that period, Maynard really did have the best band, for both players and writers.

(Roulette, by the way, was very possibly a Mafia front-"roulette"-gambling, get it?), but Maynard and Count Basie both recorded there, and the sound quality was most excellent for its era. Ferguson supposedly was not paid for his output but likely was not inclined to protest vehemently.

All that said, to the track at hand. This, as noted, is from 1974's Chameleon album ("Chameleon" being the hit tune from the pen of Herbie Hancock). It was at this point that the record label (Columbia-now Sony) pushed Ferguson to go commercial in a way that was far less successful artistically than the earlier MF Horn albums. The remaining Columbia albums (Maynard allowed his contract with the label to expire around 1980) were typically half good cuts with Maynard and his band, bad ones with MF and a whole crapload of studio guys. On more than a few of these, Ferguson wasn't even mixed prominently, which he may've been thankful for.

On "Superbone..." Maynard plays his own-design valve-slide trombone opposite Bruce "Bad Man" Johnstone on baritone sax. Here Ferguson belies his high note trumpet player image and gives us some very swinging playing on that superbone. Great stuff.

One day a good biography of Ferguson will be produced, covering his whole career-teen aged bandleader in Montreal, the Kenton years, his tenure as Principal Trumpet at Paramount studios, the years in Europe, etc. One of the most important bandleaders in jazz and one of the 20th century's great multi-instrumentalists deserves no less. 

Tine Thing Helseth-"In the Bleak Midwinter"

Still nearly winter here, so I thought of this.  Heartbreakingly beautiful reading of an old hymn.  Helseth (say it "Tina Ting") is a 30 year old Norwegian who, along with Briton Alison Balsom, is one of the great young trumpeters on the classical scene.

Perfection: Miles Davis-"Seven Steps to Heaven"

Not much needs to be said about this one...although what I will say may be somewhat controversial. This is peak Miles, to me-the 50's-early 60's Miles. This is before the outish Plugged Nickel-period stuff, and well before the electric era (though I do like some of that, especially "Aura" and "In a Silent Way").

This is the "other group" from the "Seven Steps to Heaven" sessions-Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and 17-year old (!) Tony Williams piano/bass/drums respectively, rather than Victor Feldman on piano and Frank Butler on drums. George Coleman on tenor sax. Ironically Feldman wrote this tune (Miles is co-credited-you know what that's worth), but isn't on this May 1963 session.

Raymond Scott-"Space Mystery"

A fascinating cut from the great innovator in electronic music, Raymond Scott. Space, it seems, is a scary but intriguing place.  You may not have heard of Scott (nee' Harry Warnow), but his music was much imitated for cartoons and much more. Scott's official website.

Dexter Gordon - "Stairway To The Stars"

First cut here on JazzTracks-the great Dexter Gordon with the lovely ballad Stairway to the Stars. I've always thought of Dexter as the Joe DiMaggio of the tenor sax-he makes it all seem so easy. This is from the Our Man in Paris album (1963). This album got a 4 star (maximum) rating from The Penguin Guide to Jazz, and TPGTJ's people call it a "classic". No argument here.

Dexter had moved to Europe, as so many jazz guys ultimately did in the 60's, from Phil Woods to Maynard Ferguson. The Beatles, though they themselves produced good music, wrecked the market for more grown-up, sophisticated pop music and jazz. When Gordon moved back to the US in the 70's (after, somewhat ironically, jazz-rock fusion had revived the market for acoustic jazz) it was a very big deal.

Dexter often said that on ballads a jazz musician should think of the lyrics, not just the melody and the changes. Quite obviously Gordon is well aware of the lyrics of this classic standard, with words by Mitchell Parish.


This track features the great Bud Powell on piano, in his best ballad mode. You tend to think of Bud as the ultimate bebop guy, romping through changes at breakneck speed, but he's in perfect form for the romantic mood here.

Bob Perkins, America's greatest DJ, played this on WRTI yesterday, and I thought it would be a good opener for my re-configured blog.

Thoughts on recent movies seen-one "old", one "new".

Recent movies seen: 1) "East of Eden", 1955. Julie Harris, James Dean, Raymond Massey. 4 stars (out of 5). I've tended to avoid James Dean movies becuse the whole Dean phenomenon is so depressing (including the fact that the car accident that killed him wasn't his fault, despite popular belief), but I've read the book (Steinbeck) so I did want to see the flick. It's a pretty heavy melodrama. You may know it's a modern telling of the Cain and Abel story, but the best scenes in... the movie are those between Cal (Dean) and his mother (Jo Van Fleet), who he'd been told was dead. She's now running a bordello in a nearby town.
 

She's cold to him at first, but comes to see him as a like-minded rebel against Cal's father and his religious convictions. She eventually develops something close to motherly affection for him. The performance by Van Fleet is in many ways the highlight of the movie, and for once the deserving person actually got the Oscar (Best Supporting Actress). So-what would Dean's career have been like? Would he have been able to graduate to truly adult roles? Paul Newman was at his best when he played punks, such as in Hud and Cool Hand Luke. He was never quite as good again. Maybe the same for Dean. I don't know.


2) "No Country for Old Men", 2007. Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin. 4 1/2 stars. This is a Coen Brothers movie-screenplay/directing. Llewelyn Moss (Brolin) is shooting deer in the West Texas bush country. He misses the deer, but stumbles upon what's left of a drug deal gone gruesomely wrong. There are bodies everywhere, one guy barely alive begging for agua, and $1.5 million in cash-which Moss takes. Big mistake. (You need to overlook the fact that whoever killed most everybody left all that money behind).


Anyway, Moss later feels guilty over leaving the guy begging for water, goes back, and his truck gives him away. Javier Bardem is the psychopath who chases Moss and kills people with an ususual method best not detailed. Tommy Lee Jones is one of the old men of the title, those not prepared for a world where dozens are killed over a suitcase full of money. All the performances are fantastic, the dialogue is crisp and often funny, and despite the brutality the movie is, as they say, compulsively watchable.