Customer Reviews

Carnival

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

For those who consider themselves Maynard Ferguson fans, one of the most inexplicable problems in terms of collecting his work on CD has been the dearth of releases from Maynard's years on Columbia Records. These years were certainly not always his greatest in terms of the quality of the LPs - "Hollywood" and "It's My Time" leap immediately to mind - but, even on those mediocre, commercially-oriented releases, there was some incredible playing by both the band and its leader. So it's rather surprising that Wounded Bird Records chose "Carnival", Ferguson's 1978 album, to issue on CD when there are several Columbia titles that rank among his best ("MF Horn II", "Live at Jimmy's") yet to be put onto CD.

That having been said, it's still wonderful to have "Carnival" on CD. Despite the attempt at another Top 40 hit that would permeate several post-"Rocky" MF albums - on this one, it's the tepid "Theme from 'Battlestar Gallactica'" - there are some lovely moments on this album, particularly on Biff Hannon's creative arrangement of "Over the Rainbow" (with one of Bobby Militello's always-imaginative flute solos) and on the title cut, which features some fine ensemble playing by the woodwinds. Jazz purists usually cringe when MF is mentioned, but "Stella By Starlight" gets a very straight, traditional big band reading that works well, and highlights Maynard's outstanding band from those years. There are more jazz/funk remakes of pop hits than necessary, with EWF's "Fantasy" working and Gerry Rafferty's "Baker Street" not, and too much quasi-disco stomping as well. But, through it all, there is the amazing Maynard Ferguson trumpet - which, even on less-than-stellar material, is worth the price of admission. If only for "Rainbow", "Stella", and, of course, "Birdland", this one is worth owning.

I personally was very excited to finally see Carnival on CD. If you played trumpet in band during the 70's, you probably know this music! The purists among Maynard Ferguson fans almost universally discount the work that he did during the mid to late seventies as an ill-fated attempt to reach a more mainstream audience. However, I don't think that Maynard's legendary status as keeper of the big band flame is diminished in any way by this phase of his career. Some may consider the work dated, but I think it was a unique approach to the music of the time and one that, to me, stands out as being even more unique with the passage of time. Carnival is a bright and uplifting collection of pieces and the musicians on this recording turned in the expected fantastic perfomances. The opener, M.F. Carnival, is a standout with a unique acoustic guitar / trumpet trade off intro that leads into a tasty groove. You like horns? You got em! Fans of Earth Wind and Fire won't be disappointed by the cover of Fantasy. It's a great melody and a strong interpretation by M.F. The purist will no doubt revile the take on the Battlestar Galactica theme, but I really like the strong opening and the sterotypical 70's female backup vocals make me smile! I think the take on the standard Birdland still stands out as interesting today, which for as many times as it's been recorded by different artist since the original is statement enough. I didn't care much for the original Baker Street, but found the M.F. cover to be much more interesting. I definitely like the slammin' groove of How Ya Doin' Baby? The other two cuts, Stella by Starlight and Over the Rainbow are not really representative of what I like about M.F., but are done as only M.F. can do them. The purist is more likely to gravitate toward material like Stella. Thanks so much to Sony and Wounded Bird Records for making this trip down memory lane available on CD!

The one thing you'd have to say about Maynard, whatever you may feel about his talent and his taste, is that he never stood still. He remained throughout his life one of the most forward-thinking and moving big band leaders. And whatever the size of his band, it was always a BIG band.

A lot of nonsense has been said here regarding Maynard's musical "genius" and his superhuman qualities. This is also forgivable because Maynard was above all a man who loved life and loved music and loved playing. Live, he could get away with the most extraordinarily ridiculous postures because, bless him, he believed them! To call him to account for this silliness would be sort of like tearing apart the idea of Santa Claus. Whatever you may think in your heart, you just don't do it.

Less forgivable, I think, are the nasty-minded critics who attack Maynard for almost everything from poor technique to tastelessness in playing and costume and his open commercialism. All of which might be true. But, you know, this guy was the Liberace of the trumpet. He had fun, and he invited his audiences to join in the fun with him. It didn't matter if you were a hot player or a poor player or could play at all or if you were super cool or if you were a dork. With Maynard the party never stopped. And you were invited, Sparky.

This is Maynard's party album par excellence. Joyous, exuberant, and affirmative in every respect. There are moments on the album that are cheesy, moments that are dramatic, moments that are hot, moments that are ridiculous, but not a single one that is less than pure fun.

The charge of commercialism leveled against Maynard, often framed in terms of his desire to appropriate popular music for its own sake, is simply off the mark. The tunes here cannot be called commercial, because even in his most apparently commercial choices, he crosses over and combines musical forms. He is at his most experimental here. The opening number, "Carnival," mostly Brazilian-inspired, is a combination of a number of Latin forms, from the flamenco guitar and obligato trumpet opening to streetlike Brazilian piccolo, straight into its transformation into American disco with a samba-esque bass line, and then just as suddenly into funk and back to free-moving disco again. That opening announces what the album will be, and the rest of the numbers follow out the theme.

The second piece is Maynard's version of the Earth Wind and Fire classic "Fantasy," which is probably the most conformable to the feeling of musical experimentation and overlap. Here, the band moves back and forth between fusion-style neo-chamber music to deep funk, again as if searching for the free space of smooth disco. In the middle of the piece, trumpeter Joe Mosello plays a lovely tongue-in-cheek interlude on the piccolo trumpet, followed by the first of many uses of a backup group of female singers who open the way for more open singing of the whole band. Alas, Maynard elects to end with the sloppy device of a fadeout, which happens over and over again on this album (in fact, quite frequently in this period of the band in general).

"Theme from Battlestar Gallactica" (arranged by trombonist Nick Lane) is probably the most egregiously silly, with its driving disco beat, the backup singers crying out "Gallactica" until listeners of "taste" want to throttle them. What they are missing, of course, is that the tongues of the band are firmly planted in their cheeks. But the song is at least partially redeemed by Bob Millitello's very nice flute solo (Millitello was Maynard's flute guy in the late 70s, recalling his earlier work in the 60s with the great Joe Farrell). Again the fade out works its annoying magic.

The first side of the original album ended with a Slide Hampton arrangement of Ned Washington's "Stella By Starlight," which originally featured Hampton's incredibly skilled trombone. Here, Hampton is succeeded by the capable Phil Grey. Grey is no Hampton, but he does rock when the ballad abruptly changes gears with a brief and very fast mambo introduction into open swing. Mike Migliore picks up the tempo at the end with a lightning bebop style alto solo that would make Charlie Parker proud and leads directly into Maynard's stratospheric reiteration of the head which leads to a deliberately non-romantic ending which again defeats traditional expectations of how a ballad should be wrapped up (one thinks here of something like Charlie Parker's mischievous "Country Gardens" style ending of the beautiful ballad "Lover Man" which seems to wink at the listener, reminding us of how easily a musical form can shift our mood).

Side B opens with "Birdland," to this listener's ear the most exuberant of the tunes on the album. If you can listen to it without wanting to dance and join the band's claps, you have no soul. If I had a theme song, this would be it (it was on my MySpace page for the longest time and, come to think of it, still is). My one complaint is, again, the lazy fade-out.

The rendition of "Baker Street" is, I think, the most incongruous arrangement on the album. It sounds like arranger Biff Hannon (who also plays the electric pianos and synthesizers on the album) didn't quite know how to handle the (then) fairly recent Gerry Rafferty hit. Mike Migliore does a nice job with the alto solo that was originally created by Raphael Ravenscroft and which led to the celebrated Baker Street phenomenon in saxophone sales in the late 70s.

When the album first came out, I hated "How Ya Doin' Baby." It's a straight out funk number that didn't seem to fit with the rest of the pieces. Listening to it again, I'm more indulgent. What strikes me this time is the tightness of the band and the cleanness of the attacks, especially of the reeds. I'm still not sold on the piece, but it's not a monstrosity.

Alas, the closing number, "Over the Rainbow" sounds like it could have been written twenty minutes before the recording session. It features Maynard's trumpet on the melody with an attempt to use the band and strings to build excitement. I say an attempt, because every time the music seems to build, the tension strangely drops out. The strings behind Millitello's excellent flute solo make it sound more restrained than it is, and even the return of the band at the end of the solo does not allow Millitello's characteristic build to lead to the expected shout chorus. The very end, which features Maynard's high screams with little other backing than the Fender Rhodes (which Hannon voices with annoyingly close triads) makes even the trumpet sound weak. And again--the fadeout.

That's the low-down for the whole album. As an album, it stands up to anything else Maynard was producing in this period and, as I said, the feeling throughout is experimentation and joy and good humor.

This album is absolutely worth listening to. What you hear, I think, is what you bring to it.

I had this on vinyl back in the day! Great tunes, brought back many memories.

While I might agree this album's song selection is less than stellar <sic>, that in no way diminishes what might be Maynard's most unbelievalbe playing from start to finish. Anyone who buys this CD cannot possibly remove it from their CD player without humming this version of Birdland. In addition, the title track is one of the most diverse and festive tracks ever recorded by Maynard. I loved this album 25 years ago and I cannot be happier this CD has finally been released. Jazz purists be damned, this cat blows!

OK...we got Birdland out of this and that's good. But we also got Fantasy and that's not so good.

We got Carnival and that's good because like it or not, it WAS a creative sound.

But then, we got Stella By Starlight and that's not so good when you consider MF hated that tune (according to his biographer). And it showed.

Still, MF as always delivers. His material...well....another story.

As a first time customer of book_bound I am very impressed with their service. Ordered a CD from them and received it way ahead of the projected arrival date! That was a nice surprise. The CD was in perfect condition when I received it. I would buy from book_bound again without hesitation!

I've loved Maynard forever it seems. I really enjoy this cd, tho it's not my very favorite of his, I still love it. Someone reviewed that Fantasy was "not to good" but it is my favorite tune on the cd. I love it!! So to each his own, but giving Maynard anything but a 5 star is just not right.

1. It was interesting to read the other reviewer who noted that MF apparently didn't like Stella by Starlight. Personally, I think this incredible arrangement make this already great song, one of the greatest jazz songs I've ever listened to. Everytime I listen to it, I'm completely amazed and inspired.

2. As far as the rest of the album; I agree with some of the other folks: some decent tunes and then some tunes where you wonder why in the world MF chose to record those songs.

3. Personally, this is a no brainer purchase for anyone who love MF; but then again, those folks would already have this gem.

This is one of Maynard's better commercial albums. Galactica is the low point on this album; Maynard's attempt to grab some pop limelite, while clearly, Birdland is a Ferguson classic. Over the Rainbow is a nice lyrical counterpart to the fun and punchy M.F. Carnival and Fantasy is a nice Maynard party tune. I love Maynard, but How Ya Doin' Baby is too much to tolerate. Stella by Starlight is a pleasant reach back to his roots.

With a huge variance in style and termperment across the musical sprectrum, overall this album has plenty of great Maynard if you can overlook the minor potholes mentioned above. The great stuff more than makes up for a couple of lackluster or pop mistakes. Hey, Maynard has always been the great experimenter and not all experiments work, but when they do, we overlook the valiant attempts that fell short and simply savor the sweetness.

Kevin Brett
CEO, Kevin Brett Studios, Inc.
Author: "The Way of the Martial Artist: Achieving Success in Martial Arts and in Life"
The Way of the Martial Artist: Achieving Success in Martial Arts and in Life!

Producer: The Art of Intelligent Driving (DVD)
The Art of Intelligent Driving