For years Maynard Ferguson fans have been
waiting for Sony to get off their rear ends and release CD versions of his classic recordings from the 70s. Finally,
Wounded Bird Records is now re-releasing
many of Maynard Ferguson's classic recordings. One of his best was
M.F. Horn, aka
M.F. Horn 1. The album was recorded in 1971, and I think it is one of his finest.
I have seen Maynard in concert three times: once at a small theater with his High Voltage band in the 80s, once with a jazz orchestra in the 90s, and two years ago with his Big Bop Nouveau band. He sits down a lot during his concerts now, and he needs to have an assistant prepare his charts for each song, but I give him credit for giving the young players he tours with the same opportunity that Stan Kenton gave him in the 50s.
I used to listen to a cassette tape of
M.F. Horn 1 & 2. I played it so much that it is on its last legs now. The cassette tape had no liner notes, so I never knew much about it except that the playing was exceptional. I found out two interesting things from the liner notes: 1. the musicians were European, 2. all the smoking trombone solos are Maynard playing the valved trombone!
Prior to the reissued CD, I had been listening to a FLAC recording of the cassette tape made with my computer's analog input. When I compared the new CD with my old recording, I realized that the pitch of the cassette recording was off by a 1/2 step due to the age of the tape and the low quality of my walkman!
The re-release of
M.F. Horn sounds really good. I have also picked up
Carnival and
It's My Time. The former sounds good as well, but the latter isn't as good acoustically in my opinion. Most of the music is focused on the center channel.
All in all, it's great to have CD versions of these old recordings.
