MAYNARD FERGUSON
Chameleon
Conquistador
Sony Legacy
Back in the mid-1970s, in the midst of the
first wave of jazz fusion, big bands staged a comeback of
sorts. Touring big bands had not been a viable financial
option since the dawn of the 50s. Duke Ellington was an
exception, keeping his band on the road largely financed
out of his own pocket and a steady stream of recordings,
but even the venerable Count Basie found it necessary to
pull off the road for a short time before reconvening his
big band with a new sound and a new book of arrangements.
For many others, time was less kind. But then a curious
thing happened: the powerhouse sound of these bands, driven
by large horn and saxophone sections and bolstered by electronically
amplified rhythm sections found receptive young audiences
among those who had been drawn in by the electronic jazz
of Miles Davis, Weather Report, Chick Corea, and Herbie
Hancock. With books of charts that relied heavily on modern
pop and rock songs, the bands of Woody Herman, Buddy Rich,
Stan Kenton, and others were reborn, playing concerts at
venues across the country. Many of these shows were done
at high schools, with school band members selling tickets
to raise money for band activities. The schedule was grueling
for these bands, but for many it was simply amazing to be
back on the road again. By far one of the most successful
big bands of the time was the band led by Maynard Ferguson.
Before the recording of Chameleon,
Ferguson had noted the paucity of opportunities for big
bands in the U.S., and by 1967 he was touring and living
in Great Britain as well as traveling to India on a personal
spiritual quest. After landing a contract with Columbia
Records, Ferguson returned to the U.S. and compiled the
group heard on this recording, a combination of American
and British musicians. Following a 13-week tour that took
them across the country and back again, Ferguson recorded
and released Chameleon to thundering acclaim. Now
that Columbia/Sony is reissuing these classic Ferguson albums,
it’s easy to see why they were so successful. Chameleon
is full of energetic playing, hot soloists, excellent material,
and beautifully realized arrangements by a stable of musician/arrangers
that included Jay Chattaway, Randy Purcell, and Jerry Johnson.
It is truly the updated big band sound that Ferguson and
company were no doubt hoping to create when they went into
the studio.
“Chameleon,” the super phat Herbie
Hancock funk track that opens the album, was a big hit for
Hancock upon its release, and Ferguson’s version,
arranged by Jay Chattaway, whose main experience up to that
point had been as a Navy band arranger. It’s a sheer
powerhouse track from the get go, with trombonists Randy
Purcell and Jerry Johnson digging into Hancock’s chromatic
bass line while Australian pianist Alan Zavod gets some
tasty licks in on electric piano. The trumpet section adds
a solid wall of brass that is topped off by Ferguson’s
trademark high notes, and when it comes time for solos,
tenor sax player Brian “Hard Bop” Smith provides
plenty of energy to keep the chart cooking along nicely.
“Gospel John,” composed by Jeff Steinberg, opens
with Maynard portraying a fiery Baptist preacher with his
trumpet, “preaching” to the congregation with
the aid of Alan Zavod’s gospel chords. When the number
kicks into gear it is sometimes reminiscent of a marching
band number, but the arrangement really brings it around,
with the trombones providing counterpoint to the trumpet
section in the later statements of the melody.
Of the pop song arrangements, “The Way
We Were” is the most successful, largely because Ferguson
plays with lyricism and tenderness, even in the upper register.
It’s just a gorgeous arrangement of a classic melody
that is very well executed by the band. Less successful
is an arrangement of Paul McCartney’s “Jet,”
which drummer Danny D’Imperio refers to in the liner
notes as “filler.” Everyone tries their best
to make the chart work, but in the final analysis it is
simply not a track many listeners will care to hear more
than once. Somewhere in the middle is Stevie Wonder’s
“Livin’ For the City” which reproduces
the feel of the original fairly accurately, and has some
nice solo work as well.
That leaves the absolute best tracks (other
than the title track): a fiery reworking of the Chick Corea
composition “La Fiesta” (which was also recorded
by Woody Herman’s band, for which the Herman Herd
received a Grammy award) and the Chattaway original “Superbone
Meets the Bad Man.” The Corea composition features
a sizzling passé doble section that allows the rhythm
section to spur the band and, later, the soloists into a
white hot frenzy. The melodic middle section features Andy
Mackintosh on soprano sax. “Superbone Meets the Bad
Man” hearkens back to Ferguson’s days on the
stage at Birdland and features the bandleader playing his
Superbone, a valve/slide trombone of this own design. Ferguson’s
foil on this chart is baritone sax player Bruce “Badman”
Johnstone.
The album’s remaining track is Ferguson’s
take on the Bunny Berigan classic “I Can’t Get
Started.” Ferguson is no great singer, but he doesn’t
embarrass himself, either, and has a lot of fun with revised
lyrics such as “Stan Kenton made me a star”
and “Linda Lovelace thinks I’m obscene.”
Not only does Chameleon provide a perfect time capsule of
what big bands sounded like in the 1970s, it also sounds
remarkably fresh and (with a couple of exceptions) less
dated than one would expect. It’s just great music.
Less exciting overall is Conquistador,
which was released, not as the followup to Chameleon,
but as the successor to Primal Scream, an album
that was made with Bob James in the producer’s chair.
James brought in his own New York session musicians, so
Ferguson’s band members didn’t appear on the
album. Though the album was a commercial success it miffed
the band members, and very few of the album’s charts
were incorporated into the band’s live appearances.
On Conquistador James was still at the helm, and
there were plenty of guests brought in, but the touring
band did figure prominently.
The level of musicianship on Conquistador
is high, but the chief problem is that the material is,
overall, not very good. With the exception of “Gonna
Fly Now,” the theme from the hit movie Rocky
that became a hit for Ferguson, the material is almost all
forgettable. “Conquistador,” co-composed by
Ferguson and Jay Chattaway, is a pretty decent chart with
some nice solos, but you’ll scarcely find yourself
humming it on the way to the supermarket. That’s also
true of “The Fly,” another Ferguson/Chattaway
composition. Of the remaining tracks, “Mister Mellow”
(which features a trademark guitar solo from George Benson)
is pure drivel, a foreshadowing of the smooth jazz that
producer James helped create, complete with vapid female
backup vocals that coo (what else?) “Mister Mellow….Mister
Mellow.” Bob James’ composition “Soar
Like an Eagle” is more of the same sonic wallpaper,
though it tries hard to exude some kind of funky vibe. The
band’s take on “Theme from Star Trek”
sounds like the Enterprise has wandered into a department
store with its vapid Muzak background over which Ferguson’s
trumpet glides prettily but emptily.
In fact, it would appear that the entire raison
d’etre for this album is the inclusion of Ferguson’s
version of “Gonna Fly Now.” Jay Chattaway’s
version forgoes some of the epic qualities of the original
in deference to a certain funkiness, but overall it’s
the song you remember. In fact, it may well truly be the
song you remember, because Columbia rushed Ferguson’s
version out ahead of the soundtrack album, and had a huge
hit with it, a bigger hit than the Bill Conti soundtrack.
It’s a decent performance, but overall not particularly
jazzy. It was albums like Conquistador and a few that followed
that caused many a jazz fan to quit taking Maynard Ferguson
seriously as a jazz musician, though his recent work with
his Big Bop Nouveau band have done much to reinstate his
jazz credentials.
Chameleon is a welcome CD reissue,
and there will certainly be those that will enjoy Conquistador
as well. But a lot of the best M.F. is still languishing
in the Sony vaults because Sony doesn’t think they
will sell well enough to justify reissue. These releases
include Primal Scream, and the excellent M.F. Horn
series: M.F. Horn 1, M.F. Horn 2, M.F. Horn 3,
and the absolutely classic M.F. Horn 4 & 5: Live
at Jimmy’s. That last set, recorded live, features
a knockout version of the Ferguson big band playing some
of the group’s best charts, including “Teonova,”
“MacArthur Park,” “Nice N’ Juicy,”
and the stunning “Got The Spirit.” Now that
some of the more commercial Ferguson CDs are out of the
bag, write to Sony and ask that they reissue these other
classic albums and help restore the legacy of Maynard Ferguson
and an important time in the history of big band music.
