Trumpet Guru Wows Kobalt Crowd

by Peter Landsdowne

LINCOLN, RI--Trumpeter Maynard Ferguson and his Big Bop Nouveau band wowed a crowd of several hundred fans that packed the intimate confines of Kobalt, a club in the Lincoln Park, Rhode Island casino complex, on the final Friday night in June 2005. The concert was eagerly anticipated, as Ferguson and Big Bop Nouveau (Patrick Hession, Joey Pero, Pete Ferguson: trumpets; Reggie Watkins: trombone, music director; Matt Parker, Julio Monterrey: saxophones; Ji Young Li, piano; Eun-Chang Choi, bass; Stockton Helbing, drums) were resuming their annual tour after a hiatus of several weeks.

Dressed rather conservatively in navy blue trousers and a matching suitcoat worn over a pink shirt with a designer print tie, a portly Ferguson, his hair now as white as the fur of an Artic fox in mid-winter, took the stage to the strains of his theme song, Jimmy Giuffre's "Blue Birdland," which first appeared in 1955 on one of Ferguson's Birdland Dreamband recordings. The trumpeter, who turned 77 on May 4, 2005, has seemingly made a seamless transition from jazz superstar to living legend-elder statesman status; but if Ferguson is supposedly in the twilight of his career, he is showing few signs of slowing down. Like that bunny with the batteries, he just keeps going and going and going.

The 75-minute set was built around a couple of standards ("I Love You" and "I'm Old Fashioned"); a revamped version of trombonist Slide Hampton's "Frame for the Blues" culled from Ferguson's first Roulette recording, 1958's A Message from Newport; trombonist Watkins' reworking of "The Girl from Ipanema"; and "The MF Hit Medley," which trumpeter Hession has tweaked to include "MacArthur Park," "Give It One," "Gospel John," "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me," "Pagliacci," "Gonna Fly Now," a brief snippet of "Eli's Coming," "Chameleon," and "Hey Jude."
 
Ferguson and the band appeared to be well-rested and happy to be back playing together again in front of a receptive crowd. Maynard was in fine form and showed that he can make his trumpet moan and sigh as well as sing and scream. He still has an impressive command of the octave from high C to double-high C, but he can also play with both passion and power in the lower register of the horn. He seemed to genuinely relish every moment of the concert as he conducted the band, cued soloists, or just listened to the ensemble with rapt attention.

Big Bop Nouveau is packed with impressive soloists, but the band's ensemble playing is something to hear as well. This attribute became evident on "The MF Hit Medley," a crowd-pleaser that elicited the first standing ovation of the evening. Hession was a standout throughout the medley, handling everything from "MacArthur Park" to a beautifully rendered version of "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me" with aplomb and some impressive high-register work. By the time that Hession, Pero, and Pete Ferguson (yes, he's Maynard's nephew) wandered into the crowd for "Hey Jude," audience members were on their feet. By the way, relative newcomer Pero is a keeper. He has a big sound and a good range, and he seems to get what playing in Big Bop Nouveau's trumpet section is all about.

The encore was a rousing "Birdland" that featured some powerful trumpet work from Maynard, a blustery trombone solo from Watkins, Parker's driving tenor saxophone work, Helbing's in-the-pocket drumming, and another standing ovation from the crowd. Significantly, in his thank-you speech at the end of the set, Ferguson praised production manager Mike Freeland for handling the sound and other production issues with considerable skill and tour manager Ed Sargent for taking on everything from introducing the opening act (Watkins, Ms. Li, Choi, and Helbing on a driving Watkins original) to supervising the sale of tour t-shirts, Maynard's new DVDs, and other merchandise after the show.

Today, on the last Saturday in June 2005, Ferguson will do a complete turnaround and perform at The Barnum Festival in Bridgeport, Connecticut, along with a bevy of drum and bugle corps in a concert presentation called "Champions on Parade."  We'd be willing to bet that at some point in the concert, a 10-year-old kid, perhaps a future Maynard or a potential Big Bop Nouveau sideman in the  making, will tear his eyes and ears away from Ferguson and his trumpet long enough to nudge his father in the side and say "Hey Dad, get me one of those!"
    
© Copyright 2005 by Peter Landsdowne. Author gives permission for republication with appropriate attribution.