Before beginning his professional career in the United States with saxophonist
and conductor Boyd Raeburn, Maynard Ferguson trained in Montreal, where he had
already led several small ensembles. He then joined the orchestras of Jimmy
Dorsey and Charlie Barnet, before coming to prominence during a solo concert in
New York, not least because he plays a wide range of instruments, from clarinets
to trumpets and saxophones. But it was mainly in the early '50s that he
established his reputation, in Stan Kenton's band, where he developed his
musical personality and his high-pitched flig...