The thrill of Maynard Ferguson: “Straight Out”

This is one of the first jazz albums I owned, bought with my own money mowing lawns. I would have be 12,13, maybe 14, somewhere in there. When I’d bought it I’d never heard of Maynard Ferguson. I was looking for trumpet music – I’m a trumpet player – that had “that Latin tinge,” to borrow a phrase from Jelly Roll Morton, whom I hadn’t heard at that time. Between the album title, the serape, and all the horns I figured that album would fill the bill.

It did. The title tune had that Latin tinge, though not quite what I was looking fore. But the whole album was magnificent. And this cut, it’s been on my mind for the last two or two. What a thrill! Big band, up-tempo, driving beat, repeated riffs, and then Maynard’s solo about halfway through (1:40) following a blistering sax solo. Maynard announces himself with a little call and moves into complicated rapid cleanly articulated lines and gradually worked his way into the upper register. I’d never heard trumpet playing like that. Blew my mind.

You need to understand the trumpet, it’s a very physical instrument. That kind of playing, at that tempo, moving into the upper register, you play the horn with your whole body. You feel it in your trunk, in your core. It gives you a deep visceral thrill.