Here is one of the songs that started it all for me!  Gospel John by Maynard Ferguson.  It was the first serious high note thing that I ever tried to play.  I loved La Fiesta from this album but never thought that it was attainable for a mere human like me.  This song (Gospel John) seemed like one that was playable, even for a 14 year old kid.  I never performed it, but 30 years ago I wore out this album &  the book trying to play it. The range on this solo goes up to High B and also has an A... but the meat of it is a high G.  A long, long, long High G.  Plus the descending shake lick that starts on that High B and goes down an octave.. My mother always thought this lick sounded like an old Chevy with a bad power steering pump!  LOL!

This excerpt came from a book published in the 1980's called "The Jazz Styles of Maynard Ferguson" that contained leadsheet style transcriptions of some of those "Columbia Era" MF charts such as "Maria", "The Fly", "Conquistador", and a few others from the Primal Scream-Conquistador-Chameleon albums. 

It would be great to use this space to post some clips of you guys playing it!  Who's got the Maynard chops!?  Send me a link and I will add it here!


Click on the "Download Attachments" link near the bottom to open a PDF file of the transcription.