In my opinion as a brass artist myself, THIS recording of My Main Man Mighty Maynard is without question, the GREATEST brass performance of ALL TIMES! Full Stop. FACT.
Do let me elucidate...
The stage is set perfectly with the full gamut of greatness:
Dan Sebesky's heart-breakingly PERFECT arrangement is beyond wonderful and one of my favorites, the jazz setting gives Maynard the full range of textures and emotional tools with ZERO restraints, and Maynard's own showmanship and emotional sensibilities are on full display. What we see is not so much swagger I believe, as it is an honest love of the music and show business itself. It all comes through with crystal clear authority as Boss kicks off the band and then strolls to his mark like a suitor who knows he is about to pop the question in the most romantic way possible. Add to that the nature of the song "Danny Boy" itself with all of its emerald isle poignancy and nostalgic yearnings and you truly get something special indeed.
And then...
What the man PLAYS!? Here is the FULL range of his trumpet and jazz ballad gifts on magnificent display from the super-human top of the horn to the lesser known but gorgeous bottom of the trumpet. It is ALL here and executed FLAWLESSLY!
I've heard Boss pull off this kind of performance many times in person as one of his trombonists on the bandstand, but this one has to be my all-time FAVORITE.
As an aside, I took the One O'Clock Lab Band to the Guinness Jazz Festival back in 2010 (OF COURSE I did! :) and for our big encore we played Sebesky's "Danny Boy." The same one you hear in this clip. However, I didn't tell our wonderful lead player Dan Foster that we were going to do it until the end of the show! I am SUCH a stinker!!! But guess what? Dan absolutely NAILED it after playing almost two hours of one of the toughest lead books on the planet. Well, of course he did...he was the LEAD trumpet player in The UNT One O'Clock Lab Band. THAT is what those cats DO Y'all. ( I was SO proud)
So...don't just take MY word for it...here is Maynard himself giving us THE GREATEST BRASS PERFORMANCE EVER!!!
Steve, your commentary is so wonderfully on point! Maynard's rendition of "Danny Boy" is such a gorgeous masterpiece and an unheralded display of Maynard's pure feel and EMOTION that he poured into his less commonly appreciated wheelhouse. No...not what most know as his upper register and pyrotechnic incomparable abilities that goes unsaid, but the masterful gear he dialed into when pouring his heart and soul and PASSION into a ballad as only he could. So many others come to mind...Tenderly, Somewhere, 'Round Midnight, Stardust, But Beautiful, Darn that Dream...Truly, "The One and Only"!!!