Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, September 24, 1993 TAG: 9309280329
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOE KENNEDY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
What else would keep a world-renowned jazz trumpeter on the road at age 65 with nine musicians who are less than half his age?
It has to be his love of the music. That, and ``the intangible thing that I really know this is what I was meant to do.''
Ferguson and his Big Bop Nouveau Band will perform at the Iroquois Club in Roanoke on Wednesday between 9 and 11 p.m. They'll be fresh out of Florida, where they will have played at the opening of a new jazz club at Disney World and entertained at other places, besides. They're in the early stages of a tour that began recently at San Antonio's Jazz Alive festival, and will conclude Dec. 13. It will take them twice to Germany and to other European countries, as well.
With such an itinerary, it's no wonder Ferguson hesitated when asked, in a telephone interview, where he was speaking from.
``When you ask a musician something like that,'' he said, ``there's always one moment where you space out. Let me think. Houston, Texas.''
Nobody knows the places he's seen since he began leading his first professional band in his hometown of Montreal at age 16. There were stints with with Jimmy Dorsey and Stan Kenton orchestras in the late '40s, studio work for Paramount Pictures in the '50s, his own big bands from the mid-'60s on, plus musical experimentation that included the creation of High Voltage, an electric fusion band, in 1986. He started the Big Bop Nouveau Band in 1990, and with it he offers a full menu of the things he has done all along - enough for three Grammy award nominations and a place in Downbeat magazine's jazz hall of fame.
He has covered a lot of ground, in more ways than one. But he doesn't mind, especially when he thinks about the good old days.
``The way we travel now, I think we must have been nuts,'' he said. ``It was like riding a Greyhound bus with a ticket. Now we get an Eagle bus, and it becomes where you sleep, if you want to, and everyone has TVs and listening devices and so on.''
Ferguson mixes the road with respites at his home in California. Neither traveling nor resting holds the favored spot in his heart.
``I like them both for what they are,'' he said. ``I enjoy home. I do a lot of swimming and that kind of thing, staying in shape. Even though I'm overweight, I still like to maintain my air, being a horn player.''
Every August, he and his wife, Flo, whom he married in 1952, visit the Krishnamurti-based Rhishi Valley School near Madras, India. They were first drawn to it in 1968, when they and their five children were living in England and the trumpeter became interested in Indian music. He taught at the school for two years, returned to England and later moved back to the United States. The school is run by Sai Baba, a spiritual leader.
``It's very ecumenical,'' Ferguson said. ``He's not one of those gurus who says, `Give me your checkbook and your American Express card and I'll show you God.'''
Ferguson is known for many things, including producing, composing, arranging and experimenting, but mostly for his mastery of his horn's highest register and for his willingness to share his knowledge with younger players. Many of today's top jazz names, including Bob James, Chick Corea and Joe Zawinul, spent time in his bands. They and the ones who will follow make him certain that jazz will continue to flourish. Jazz artists have been saying this for years, but Ferguson is more persuasive than most.
``I think it really is going to grow,'' he said, ``but we don't see it. We see Michael Jackson in Moscow - that's what the coverage is. If you look at my itinerary, it includes Australia, New Zealand, places we weren't playing 10 years ago. Hong Kong, Singapore. I went to India for five concerts for the first time. We've always heard about Japan, which always loved jazz music and still does, but within the past year we also took the band to Warsaw, and there were 5,000 people there, all going bananas.''
Few jazz musicians may make the evening news, but last week he and his group got ``about 38 seconds'' on a Houston TV station. He figured it was his longevity - he is perhaps the last of the old-time big band leaders still touring -- that earned the attention.
He intends to keep rolling, musically and geographically.
``You've got to have the adventure within you to change,'' he said. ``I don't get hooked on, `That's my hit so I'd better stay in this direction.'''
His mother was violinist with the Ottawa Symphony, his father a high-school principal. Ferguson was a child prodigy who soloed with the Canadian Broadcasting Co. Orchestra at age 11. He says his best musical teachers were Jimmy Dorsey, Stan Kenton and Charlie Barnett.
``Charlie taught me a great thing. He said, `Don't ever record anything you really hate, because God will punish you and make it your biggest hit, and you'll have to play it every night.'''
In 1978, Ferguson's version of ``Gonna Fly Now,'' the theme from the movie, ``Rocky,'' made the top 10 and earned him a Grammy nomination. It was one of the few jazz crossover hits of the time.
He still plays it, but not every night, and sometimes only as an encore.
``I actually don't mind doing it,'' he said, ``because I liked it when I first heard it and knew what I wanted to do with it.''
by CNB