Give It One (1972)

Performer: Maynard Ferguson                              Writer: Alan Downey & Maynard Ferguson
Album US Chart Position: N/A                              Label: Columbia Records
Musicians: Maynard Ferguson, Jeff Daly, Pete Jackson, Dave Lynane and Randy Jones

My introduction to real jazz did not happen in the seventies. That was the decade of jazz fusion, a polyglot put together by out of work jazz musicians pandering to black audiences that had turned their backs on jazz to embrace soul music. Where once they had played saxophones and trumpets, young musicians were now picking up guitars and electronic keyboards instead. As a result, the only jazz I was able to purchase at the local department store in my small hometown was of the fusion variety. And since me and most of my musical friends were in the school jazz band, the records we tended to gravitate to were by big bands. The most exciting of these was clearly Maynard Ferguson who, like Art Blakey in the real world of jazz, put together young jazz musicians who would rotate in and out of his band, writing and arranging for the leader’s high-note pyrotechnics. For a while Ferguson had a string of successful albums that made the album charts in the U.S. M.F. Horn Two did not chart, even though it is a far superior album than its successor, M.F. Horn 3, which made it to number 128 on the album charts. That judgment, however, must be qualified. MFH2 was composed primarily of pop tunes, where MFH3 had none and was a far more jazz oriented album. M.F. Horn Two opened up with what I consider to be the best song that Maynard Ferguson ever recorded in the seventies, an up-tempo number called “Give It One.”

The song was co-written and arranged by one of his trumpet section at the time, Alan Downey. It begins with four-note phrases of eighth notes that begins with the trumpet section, and as the phrases climb continuously higher the saxes and trombones join in. Ferguson finishes off the line solo, with the rhythm section joining in. But then the band cuts out and just the piano and bass play a syncopated line that climbs back down to the tonic. The trombones set up a bass pattern and the same piano line is also played by the saxes, while the trumpets join in with the bones. At the end of the intro Ferguson does a couple of high-notes with vibrato, and then a drum fill leads into the melody of the verse played by the trumpets. The saxes provide a subtle counter-melody, and then everyone drops out while the trumpets continue with the rest of the band providing accents similar to the end of the intro. Another drum fill leads to a key change and the melody again, with the bones and saxes playing a more aggressive counter, and with the same trumpet breaks at the end. From here, alto saxophonist Jeff Daly launches into an absolutely amazing solo with the band supporting him the second time through. Next Ferguson takes a solo with high-note run and hold at the end. After that is a sax soli that leads to another trumpet section break. The piano and bass go back to the bass pattern, joined first by the drums and then the whole band. Finally a long climb begins with the saxes and is taken over by the trumpets. The sections alternate at the close with a longer drum fill, an even longer run up, until the whole band hits on the staccato final note.

When looking at Maynard Ferguson’s seventies albums, the best of all has to be Chameleon. I’m almost certain, however, that I purchased M.F. Horn Two before that album, and it is absolutely a close runner-up. Given that, the chart listings for his albums don’t really make a lot of sense to me. While M.F. Horn 3, the jazz oriented album, charted, Chameleon failed to. After that Primal Scream, a definite step down artistically, made it all the way up to number seventy-five. Ferguson’s all-time best seller was Conquistador because of its inclusion of “Gonna Fly Now,” the theme from Rocky. From there on out, however, his albums tended to rely too much on the disco ethos and the arrangements of pop tunes weren’t nearly as interesting as those by Jay Chataway on Chameleon. During my time in the jazz band at high school we had a couple of guys who could play the high trumpet parts, and so we took the opportunity to purchase several of Ferguson’s charts, including “Give It One,” on which I attempted the saxophone solo. But where we were able to master the tunes off of Chameleon, we were never really able to get a hold of the intricacies of “Give It One.” Though that was always something of a disappointment, the few times we did attempt the tune were thrilling for me. But that challenge also served to demonstrate the artistic value of “Give It One” in general and only reinforced my love of the tune.