Sep 3, 2025 12:02 PM
Keeping the Flame at Van Gelder Studio
On the last Sunday of 2024, in the control room of Van Gelder Studio, Don and Maureen Sickler, co-owners since Rudy Van…
Trumpeter Walter “Maynard” Ferguson died on Wednesday at Community Memorial Hospital in Ventura, Calif. He was 78. Ferguson’s death was the result of kidney and liver failure brought on by an abdominal infection.
A widely popular and acclaimed musician, Ferguson had recently returned to his California home from New York where he performed at the Blue Note club. While on the East Coast, Ferguson and his Big Bop Nouveau band recorded a new album in New Jersey.
Born in Verdun, Canada, Ferguson studied at Montreal’s French Conservatory. He worked with such bandleaders as Charlie Barnet in the late 1940s, and then received greater attention as a sideman for Stan Kenton in the early 1950s. Ferguson’s facility for his unique style of hitting high notes made him highly valued when he set out on his own in 1953. In 1957, the trumpeter began leading his own big band and maintained that format, although economic circurmstances occasionally caused him to scale back to smaller combos.
During the 1970s, Ferguson received popular success for his theme song from the film Rocky . Yet he never coasted on such rewards, as he expanded his proficiency to the french horn, trombone, euphonium, and his own hybrid trumpet invention. Sometimes Ferguson would play them all during a single set.
Ferguson’s recordings include Message From Newport (Roulette, 1958), Maynard Ferguson’s Horn (Columbia, 1970), Live From San Francisco (Palo Alto, 1983) and Brass Attitude (Concord, 1998).
Don and Maureen Sickler serve as the keepers of engineer Rudy Van Gelder’s flame at Van Gelder Studio, perhaps the most famous recording studio in jazz history.
Sep 3, 2025 12:02 PM
On the last Sunday of 2024, in the control room of Van Gelder Studio, Don and Maureen Sickler, co-owners since Rudy Van…
Trio aRT with its avalanche of instrumentation: from left, Pheeroan akLaff, Scott Robinson and Julian Thayer.
Sep 3, 2025 12:03 PM
Trio aRT, a working unit since 1988, shockingly released its very first studio recording this summer. Recorded in…
“Think of all the creative people I’m going to meet and a whole other way of thinking about music and a challenge of singing completely different material than I would have sung otherwise to my highest level in dedication to the moment,” Elling says about his Broadway run.
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Kurt Elling was back at home in Chicago, grabbing some family time in a late-June window between gigs. Sporting a smile…
Pat Metheny will perform with his Side-Eye III ensemble at Big Ears 2026 in Knoxville, Tennessee, next March.
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Mark Masters, right, with Billy Harper.
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The Rising Star Category of this publication’s annual Critics Poll was once called Talent Deserving Wider Recognition…
