He’d Rather Be Trumpeted as Bandleader : Baton Ranks Higher Than Brass for Maynard Ferguson, Who Appears at the Center Tonight

When describing his own career, trumpeter Maynard Ferguson likes to cite the famous Duke Ellington quote: “The orchestra is my instrument.”

Though many might argue with him--after all, Ferguson is probably best known for his soaring trumpet tones and an ability to hit, and hold, sky-high notes--Ferguson is one musician who practically began his career leading a band. As a teen-ager growing up in Montreal in the 1940s, he led a group that opened for all the American big bands that came through.

“It was a much older group of guys than I have now,” the jovial Ferguson said by phone from a hotel room in Kansas City, making a joke about the relatively young talent he currently travels with.

“We opened for all the great American bands: for Basie, Kenton, Ellington, Woody, [Tommy] Dorsey, even Dizzy Gillespie, who had a wonderful big band with Chano Pozo and Ray Brown. I got a lot of offers to go out on the road. Kenton told me I had a place as a featured trumpet player any time I wanted it.”

Kenton’s offer prompted Ferguson to move to New York in 1949 at the age of 21. Only problem was that he did so at the same time the respected bandleader had decided to take some time off. “I’d agreed to go with Stan, and suddenly there was no Stan for a year.”

But the young trumpet sensation was quickly gobbled up by bandleader-saxophonist Boyd Raeburn, whose orchestra had once included Dizzy Gillespie. From there, he spent six months touring with Jimmy Dorsey, then joined the Charlie Barnett band.

“Barnett had a marvelous band and a tremendous trumpet section at the time. There was Ray Wetzel [the great trumpeter who was later killed in an auto accident while traveling with the Dorsey band], Doc Severinsen, Rolf Ericson and myself.”

Kenton re-formed his band in 1950, and Ferguson was there to join him, spending three years with the revered bandleader. A tune that Kenton, trumpeter Shorty Rogers and Ferguson wrote together entitled “Maynard Ferguson” and tailored for Ferguson’s sky-scraping sound, appeared on the now-classic album “Stan Kenton Presents.”

Ferguson also began leading his own, often 13-piece ensembles in the early ‘50s, but the lure and money of Hollywood drew him to the West Coast, where he spent three years doing movie session work for films including “The Ten Commandments.”

But he found studio work unsatisfying, and he left it to play jazz. “Everybody thought I was totally mad to quit,” he says. “Here I was under yearly contract for Paramount, a dream gig with union benefits. But it just wasn’t for me. I get too much pleasure doing the music that I love.”

New York’s famous “jazz corner of the world,” Birdland, was looking for a leader for its Birdland Dreamland band and Ferguson was given the job.

“They were looking for some kind of extroverted sideman,” he says. “Out of innocence and instinct, I’d really always been a bandleader.” The group, which included Marty Paich, Al Cohn and Johnny Mandel among others, recorded a pair of albums for the Roulette label.

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Since those days, Ferguson has fronted a host of different ensembles, including his electric High-Voltage groups in the ‘70s. He had a major hit with Jimmy Webb’s “MacArthur Park” in 1970, and then, in 1978, with his version of “Gonna Fly Now,” the theme from the film “Rocky.”

Learning to be a bandleader is a skill that didn’t come easily, he says. “You can take classes in composing and conducting and music business administration and publishing. But nobody has ever taught a course on how to be a jazz bandleader. It’s the only thing they don’t touch.”

But, he asserts, being a bandleader is one of the most important roles a musician can take.

“A person like Woody Herman should never be judged by his clarinet playing, though he was good at that too. Instead, we judge him as the greatest bandleader of all time. Being a bandleader is like being Tommy Lasorda. It has to do with who you put together. You can have wonderful personnel but a lousy all-star team if they can’t play together. Of course, Stan [Kenton] had the talent to do that, and so did Ellington.

“I was a street learner,” Ferguson says of his own education in leading bands. “I learned a lot playing with other bands, of course, especially from Stan. He kept the band loose. That’s the complete opposite of someone like Buddy Rich, who liked to lead with an iron fist. It’s much more in my personality to lead with that relaxed approach. I have to feel like I’m playing with a bunch of friends.”

Such players as Chick Corea, Slide Hampton, Chuck Mangione, Joe Zawinul, Don Ellis and Wayne Shorter all came through the Ferguson college of musical knowledge.

Almost all the players on Ferguson’s current roster are in their 20s, and they are an especially impressive lot, according to the trumpeter. “I have three killer trumpet players, and the rhythm section is especially hot,” he said.

The band will preview its next album, “These Cats Can Swing,” when it plays tonight at the Orange County Performing Arts Center.

The disc, scheduled for release later this month, contains the usual Ferguson high-energy charts and performances. The trumpeter even takes a vocal turn on the comical “He Can’t Swing.” Ferguson’s longtime fascination with East Indian music surfaces on “Sweet Baba Suite” with its droning tamboura backing and Eastern percussion effects.

The album also contains plenty of Ferguson’s soaring trumpet lines. While trumpeters are known to lose their “lip” as they get older, limiting the register in which they can play, Ferguson, at 67, seems to be having no such problem.

“I travel eight or nine months out of the year, and I try to practice a couple hours each day,” he said, quickly countering the impression that he’s some kind of musical Superman. “When I get off tour, I put the trumpet down and don’t touch it for a couple weeks. I need the rest.”

* Maynard Ferguson’s Big Bop Nouveau and pianist Peter Delano play tonight at the Orange Coast Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. 8 p.m. $17-$37. (714) 556-2787.