The Essential Maynard Ferguson (2007)

About this title: While this two-CD set does cover a lot of the material Maynard Ferguson recorded between the mid-'50s and late '90s, it suffers from a chronological imbalance that keeps it from living up to its title as the "essential" distillation of his work. It's heavily tilted toward his Columbia output, which is understandable given that Columbia/Legacy is the label that put out this compilation. But that means that his recordings from Roulette between the late '50s and mid-'60s -- a period in which he's usually regarded as having done some of his finest straight jazz music -- is underrepresented, with ... read more

Tracks:

1. The Way You Look Tonight [Fields/Kern]
2. 20, Rue de Madrid [Holman]
3. Never You Mind [Holman]
4. Over the Rainbow [Arlen/Harburg]
5. The Wailing Boat [Cohn]
6. Somebody Wants Me Down There [Holman]
7. Blue Birdland [Guiffre]
8. Straight Up [Guiffre]
9. Free Lee [Albam]
10. Everybody Moan [Lewis/Wilkins]
11. Tag Team [Maiden]
12. Newport [Hampton]
13. Maria [Bernstein/Sondheim]
14. Macarthur Park [Webb]
15. Ballad to Max [Wheeler]
16. Give It One [Downey/Ferguson]
17. 'Round Midnight [Hannighan/Williams/]
18. The Fox Hunt [Live] [Abene]
19. I'm Getting Sentimental Over You [Live] [Bassman/Washington]
20. Two for Otis [Live] [Menza]
21. Superbone Meets the Bad Man [Chattaway]
22. Chameleon [Hancock/Jackson/Mas]
23. The Cheshire Cat Walk [Corea]
24. Gonna Fly Now [Connors/Conti/Robbi]
25. Everybody Loves the Blues [Ferguson/Lane]
26. An Offering of Love, Pt. 1 [Subramaniam]
27. Birdland [Zawinul]
28. Caravan [Ellington/Mills/Tiz]
29. Waltz for Nicole [Garling]
30. Manteca [Gillespie/Fuller/Go]

Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is further described below.