Comments for Ferguson, Maynard, Newport Suite

Who are the two other Trumpeters on Three more foxes?

The other trumpets are: Dom Ellis & Dick Kiefer

does anyone know where I can get mf's mouthpiece i heard it gives you an instant double high c

Fantastic album. If you are a serious Maynard fan and a Willie Maiden fan then give an ear to Jazz Barries, and Old man River. If you dig Slide Hampton check out Newport and Motherless Child. This was the absolute in creativve writing.

The two Newport albums (Newport Suite and Message from Newport) were Maynard''s most creative recordings. This was a time when his band''s outstanding musicianship meshed with imaginative writing and arranging. Everone was in synch and free from the boundaries of the big band sound. Nothing I have heard, before or since, by any other group, ever sounded quite like this. You could remove all of Maynard''s playing, and you would still recognize the band as being Maynard''s.

Maynard is awesome.

Is this album out on CD? I love the version "Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child". miklos

I first heard this album shortly after it's release in 1960. It is still the standard by which I judge the energy of other bands. These arrangements were so great that the band simply crackled when playing. The "Newport" cut is especially driving, with two great solos following a fast 3/4 section. It's very unusual to get this energy in a studio recording. This needs to be available today on CD. My LP is virtually worn out, and I'd like to hear this without the snaps and pops that have become almsot part of the listening experience for me.

A couple of corrections on previous comments are needed. First, the two other trumpet players on Three More Foxes are Don Ellis and Rick Kiefer, not Dom and Dick. Second, Maynard's mouthpiece does not instantly give you high notes. It is slightly shallower than a standard trumpet mouthpiece, but it still requires the uncanny talent to hit those stratosperic notes that only Maynard possessed at the time of this recording. I own nearly every Ferguson recording from 1958 to 1973, and as previously mentioned in the comments, Newport Suite certainly must rank at the top along with Message From Newport and The New Sounds of Maynard Ferguson, released in 1958 and 1964, respectively. The song, Newport, was written by Willie Maiden and performed at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1959, but not recorded until over a year later during these recording sessions. The band had recorded three jazzy dance albums prior to this session that gave a completely different sound than its regular jazz book of charts. When the group got together for this albums' worth of sessions, it was almost like they felt the need for pure jazz once again and really cut loose. The writing and arranging was some of the best Ferguson ever had, and the personnel of the band has to be considered one of the best collections of talent Ferguson ever put together. This is a must own for any serious Ferguson collector. However, it has been out of print for over 25 years, other than the Mosaic collection that was produced about six or seven years. Unfortunately, these also are now out of print with only 5,000 album sets and 5,000 cd sets being produced. You can find sets going on Ebay for as much as $700 since they are so rare.

I SURE wish I could get cds of these two Ferguson releases, Newport Suite and A message from Newport. I wore my LPs out years ago. These releases featured excellent original songs, musicianship, soloists, scores. . . they had it all for modern big band performance of the era. It would have been less than ten years before that Maynard was touring with Stan Kenton. The quality of players and "tightness" of their chops show that this band was playing a lot of dates. Such a big band probably could book at least 100+ or more nights a year back then. Maybe some producer will buy the rights and re-release these on a CD. We can only hope. I am certain that one of them was released 5-8 years ago on CD. I saw it at a Wherehouse record store in Northern California. latnjazfan@hotmail.com

I agree completely with the other comments. This album demonstrates the absolute highest level of the big band art form. It doesn't get any better than this. I think "Maynard 61" is the same band...another great album. -Charlie