Maynard Ferguson with Sid Mark

by | Mar 22, 2025 | Audio, Big Band, Vocal

What’s in a name?  Well, The Mark Of Jazz is more than just a name it was an actual, living person.  It was also an upbeat song and a highly successful 1950’s radio show.  Specifically, the person’s name is Sid Mark and the song, written as a tribute to him, just happens to be called The Mark Of Jazz.  You can hear some of the Slide Hampton arrangement, performed by the Maynard Ferguson orchestra, in the podcast below. The (top) video offers a bit of banter between Mark and Ferguson before launching into I Can’t Get Started, with Maynard actually attempting a vocal!

Sid’s long running Mark of Jazz radio show was heard locally in Philadelphia, where he established himself as a popular disc jockey, before coming into widespread prominence with his nationally syndicated Sounds of Sinatra … a program which has run for more than half a century! He developed a close friendship with both Frank and Maynard that spanned nearly half-a-century. This website is intended as a salute, not only to jazz music, but to the man … The Mark Of Jazz..

Thanks to Sid Mark, the music of Francis Albert Sinatra has become an integral part of our lives.  I believe he is the only disc jockey with his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.  A button on his studio wall pretty much said it all: “It’s Sinatra’s world.  We just live in it”. But the videos above are pure Maynard Ferguson.  On The (left) is a nearly signature Ferguson song––the theme from Rocky––Gonna Fly Now. To me, Maynard owns the definitive version of it. On the (right) the big band cuts lose on a tune called Got It … and below I’ve brought my Whydat Podcast forward from our Podcast Page, to explain why we named our website as we did, and what my own connection was to the man and the legend.

Whydat?

by Fred Masey | Podcast #002

The Fifties Ferguson

by | May 21, 2021 | Big Band

Maynard Ferguson went through several musical transitions during his more than 40 years on the jazz scene but one of my favorite periods was during the 1950s when he was first introduced to the general public.  Newly arrived from Canada, while he was only 22 years old and playing with the Stan Kenton Orchestra, Maynard’s introductory appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show established him as one of the premier trumpet players of the era.  He was fearless during those years.  The video below is from that appearance.  A year later, in 1951, he recorded What’s New … not only one of my favorite tunes but one that truly demonstrates his ability to play notes which, theoretically, can’t be played on a trumpet.

What's New

by Maynard Ferguson | Band Ain't Draggin'

Night Life / Ol’ Man River – Maynard Ferguson

by | Mar 20, 2020 | Audio, Big Band

Maynard Ferguson was the poster boy for musical evolution … from playing high notes that only dogs could hear with the Kenton Orchestra to his own big bands in the fifties and sixties, to popular tunes and disco stylings during the 1970s and beyond.  Beneath it all was always a foundation of solid jazz but my favorite period was the Ferguson orchestra between 1959 and approximately 1965, featuring Willie Maiden with his untamed tenor solos and unusually creative arrangements that fit Maynard’s powerful ensemble to a tee!  Then there were the compositions and occasional injection of Slide Hampton’s talents on the tuba and flugelhorn, along with his renowned prowess with the trombone.  Rufus “Speedy” Jones on drums rounded out the band’s driving sound, as he did in the latter half of the decade with the Basie and Ellington orchestras.

Night Life

by Maynard Ferguson | A Message From Birdland

Night Life is a low key Slide Hampton arrangement that features a more mellow Maynard on the uncommon valve trombone rather than playing dog-whistle notes on his trumpet.  A Message From Birdland was the second jazz album I ever bought and the one that got me hooked on Ferguson big bands for life.  Ol’ Man River is an arrangement that I suspect would make Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein proud.  They would most certainly take notice right from the solo baritone sax lead-in by Frank Hittner.  As the tune rolls on, you can almost hear the paddle wheel churning up the water!

Ol' Man River

by Maynard Ferguson | Newport Suite

Maynard Ferguson ’69

by | Jan 18, 2019 | Big Band

The first time I heard Maynard Ferguson was at the Pinebrook Show Tent in New Jersey and it cost me all of a dollar for a seat on a long wooden bench.  I was a kid in my impressionable teens and the tent was only set up for that one summer, but I was in the front row every Friday night.  I’ll never forget it!  That buck bought around three hours of nearly nonstop jazz performed by the likes of Ahmad Jamal, Count Basie, Dave Brubeck, Lionel Hampton, Art Blakey, (Maynard of course) and so many others!  Sometimes I think the musicians had more fun than we did.

For my money, the band Ferguson had during the 60’s was his greatest ever.  It was before the days of “Theme From Rocky”, “Pagliacci”, and some of the disco tunes with which he experimented later on.  The three cuts below from 1969, to me, represent the sound of that incredible orchestra and the excellence that simmered just below the surface.

Maynard Ferguson and his Orchestra play “Somewhere” from Leonard Bernstein’s musical “West Side Story” on a 1969 TV show.  Whether or not you like show tunes, you’ve got to love this rendition by the original “Boss”.

Here is Maynard with his high flying treatment of “One O’Clock Jump”, a song usually associated with the Count Basie Band. Please excuse the time code in the middle of the screen, but the Orchestra was too tuned in to miss!

“Danny Boy” is a bit of a departure for the Ferguson Orchestra but is proof positive that this powerful band had a deeper third gear in addition to hot or mellow … sweet.  Brass, not pipes are callin’.

Black Coffee – Chris Connor

by | Jul 28, 2017 | Audio, Big Band, Vocal

Chris Connor didn’t just sing a song, she owned it!  Born in Kansas City to a musical family, she was originally trained on the clarinet but made her first on stage appearance as a singer … and a singer she remained forever more.  Her easy going manner and distinctive ability to get ‘inside’ a lyric became her trademark.  Although she performed with big name big bands, including the Stan Kenton Orchestra, Chris preferred smaller groups and established her lasting reputation touring internationally as a solo performer leading her own trio.  She was one of only a handful of white vocalists considered to be, incontestably, pure jazz singers.

Black Coffee

by Chris Connor & Maynard Ferguson | Double Exposure