It's My Time

by Richard S. GinellStill looking for another "Theme From Rocky" while at the same time trying to maintain some kind of credibility as a jazz act, the Maynard Ferguson big band walks the tightrope uneasily on this 1980 release. After hearing the commercial disco/funk of "It's My Time" and "Dance to Your Heart," where the big band serves as mere window dressing to Ferguson's soaring trumpet and the beat, you think that the gotta-dance pattern has been set. But no, "Everybody Loves the Blues" is set in a different idiom, an easy-swinging thing with pungent big-band harmonies, and an adaptation of a piece by L. Subramaniam, "An Offering of Love - Part I," has Ferguson playing the lyrical tune on flügelhorn over a string section. On side two, Maurice White's "Star" returns listeners to the dancefloor with a vengeance -- and nothing much of great musical interest happens for the rest of the record. Ferguson uses his wide Harry James-sized vibrato when crooning the ballad-tempo material, and Tom Rizzo's distinctly rock-flavored guitar surfaces at times. No hits resulted from this project, and only Ferguson completists should bother with it.