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Performance: A Musical Tribute to Maynard Ferguson at Bass Performance Hall in Fort Worth on October 17

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An upcoming concert may be the liveliest tribute possible for late jazz legend Maynard Ferguson and his body of work.

Ferguson, who died in 2006, was a jazz trumpet player and bandleader, with more than 50 years of work contained in the 400-piece Maynard Ferguson Music Library, which the University of North Texas acquired in August after efforts from a group of donors.

“The way I like to speak of Maynard is that he was like a planet,” said drummer Stockton Helbing, who played with Ferguson during the last four years of his life and will perform during the tribute concert. “He had a polarity; he would pull you towards him. You wanted to play your best to complement what he was doing and it was such a fun ride.”

The Dreaming of Birdland concert, which is set for October 17 in Fort Worth, features the UNT One O’clock Lab Band performing selections from the collection.

The lineup includes seldom-heard music from Ferguson’s days of leading the Birdland Dream Band, a 14-piece jazz group that began in 1956 and lasted in various incarnations until the late 1960s. The Birdland pieces will include contribution from Craig Johnson, who played lead trumpet with Ferguson in the 1990s and in the lab band in the 1980s. Also, former lab band lead trumpet soloist Pete DeSiena will play during a few cuts, including the 1995 lab band arrangement “Tenderly.”

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