Ooh! I know!
Trumpeter and bandleader Maynard Ferguson performing, on the Mike Douglas show, for you....
Cheesiest.
MM video.
Ever.
MM video.
Ever.
Monday, August 16, 2010
Monday music: Maynard Ferguson playing... well....
How to follow up last week's surprising Ella Fitzgerald clip?
Trumpeter and bandleader Maynard Ferguson performing, on the Mike Douglas show, for you....
Trumpeter and bandleader Maynard Ferguson performing, on the Mike Douglas show, for you....
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16 comments:
I coulda used more cowbell...
Doggone it, Al, now I can hear it... with cowbell.
At the 2 minute mark one bearded fellow was WAILING on the cowbell... music's most misunderestimated instrument.
al sends
O.o
There MUST be a reason why they don't make this kind of music anymore.
And while this was a bit strange, I'm a little disappointed that the clip ended when it did, right after that guy who looked like Phil Johnson on a flute started to play...
Ouch.
Well, that's one way to get jolted out of a Monday morning fog.
I actually saw Mr. Ferguson back in the '80s. I'm pretty sure this was on the set list, with, of course, "Gonna Fly Now".
Good times. Good times.
And that guy on the keys, that was pretty much me, back in the day.
Boldly going where no man should go again....
Specially the open front shirts. Egad.
Me? Well, I kinda liked it. Y'know, the way you kinda like getting a root canal...
Squirrel
Wow. I haven't thought about Maynard in a long time. Back in the eighties every kid learning to play a trumpet was fascinated by Maynard Ferguson because of the insanely high register in which he could play. Every trumpet teacher forbade his students to even listen to him, though, because his higher-register stuff was written off as "squealing" and attempts to duplicate it were said to cause fatigue and possibly damage to the embouchure. Listening to Maynard was the trumpeter's equivalent of sneaking out behind the band room for a smoke - and woe betide anyone caught "squealing" during warm up!
Of course we knew even then that his music was purely awful. It was just that he played it so high!
Umm... groovy. I guess.
Maybe I'm too young (or maybe I just wish I was) to enjoy that, but the raucous fight outside my window between the crows and the stellar jays only added to the finger-nails-on-the-chalkboard effect to my ears.
Please Dan, I beg you, it's Monday morning and we're starting a new week, next time... not so painful ;D
I saw him in concert in 1978, and similar to David Regier's recollection, Gonna Fly Now was also on the set list (along with MacArthur Park).
Minus the unbuttoned shirt, this is pretty much how I remember his dress and performance antics (meaning the over-the-top way he conducted the band).
He was really "on" that day. It's a happy memory.
I saw him live in the late 70's as well - either '77 or '78, during my senior year of college, IIRC.
At the time, I was kinda-sorta into this style of instrumental, jazz-flavored pop; what I remember bein' most impressed by was his un-paralleled skill of circular breathing, enabling him to hold notes for a realllllyyyyy lonnnnnnngggggg time.
NLB,
Exactly. His circular breathing technique was unreal.
The concert I attended was in the afternoon, and specifically for school students. The whole stage band went, and we talked about it for the rest of the year.
To hear what NLB is talking about, just fast-forward to the 3:30 mark of the studio recording of GFN and listen for the next ~20 seconds.
Tom Chantry -
When you talk about him playing so high, there's some analogous language there. He was somewhat, uh, incoherent when I saw him.
"Minus the unbuttoned shirt," eeww.
Oh. WOW.
I'd say that was the most disturbingly white music performance I'd ever seen, but I thought I did see one gentleman of greater pigmentage in the band. Which leaves me just utterly mind/ear-boggled. What genre of music is that???? Was the flute player a frustrated jazz saxophone player whose limp-noodly biceps were too weak to hold up his saxophone during band practice in jr. high???
And as for the whole circular breathing technique, every Australian worth his/her salt knows that that's simply "sampling" from Aborigine didgeridoo players who've been doing the same thing for, oh, a couple thousand years. Right, Rupert?
But other than that, very nice.
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