Dose of the real world Still powering ahead; JAZZ

The Evening Standard (London, England); 8/2/2005

Byline: JACK MASSARIK

Maynard Ferguson's Big Bop Nouveau

Ronnie Scott's Club, W1

SOME transatlantic acts cancel out when danger menaces London, but not this one. Maynard Ferguson is Canadian, thus an honorary Brit, and furthermore one blaring note from his trumpet or flugelhorn would freeze any fleeing terrorist in his tracks. "You guys all right? Survival London, right?" was his brisk greeting after a traditional entrance on a full-blooded high E that cut cleanly through his 10-piece band and rattled every jazz photograph on the walls.

Power is Maynard's game, and it's a hard-won attribute. Legend has it that in his youth he had several front teeth tilted forward to keep the notoriously lusty Stan Kenton band under control.

True or not, this pear-shaped virtuoso still blows a mean lead-trumpet at an age when most men have trouble blowing the dust off their golfclubs.

Altoist Julio Monterrey and tenorist Matt Parker took canny solos, and during one Afro-Cuban arrangement drummer Stockton Helbing, who looks like Tom Cruise's kid brother, managed to suggest the melody of Girl from Ipanema by artfully elbowing his snaredrum. Dennis Diblasio sparkled on some Roland Kirk-style flute-and-vocal and Jeff Lashway's unaccompanied piano version of But Beautiful reflected much chordal wisdom.

Maynard finally revved the volume back up with a medley of his big-band hits. His soaring, whinnying flourishes were electrifying, but the sheer precision of the brass, with Patrick Hession on lead, was the trump card.

Altoist Christian Brewer's quartet, playing opposite, wisely opted for their lyrical side. Their forte was never going to match the Ferguson fortissimo.

Until Saturday.

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