Walter “Maynard” Ferguson, one of the most influential musicians and band leaders in the history of Jazz, passed away August 23rd at Community Memorial Hospital in Ventura, California. He was seventy-eight years old. His death was the result of kidney and liver failure brought on by an abdominal infection.

Ferguson started his career at the age of thirteen when he performed as a featured soloist with the Canadian Broadcasting Company Orchestra. He played with some of the great Big Band Leaders of the 1940’s including Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Barnett, Jimmy Dorsey and Stan Kenton. In 1945, at age seventeen, Ferguson became the leader of his own Big Band. The seventy-eight-year old musical phenomenon went on to record more than sixty albums, receiving numerous honors and awards including the GRAMMY(R) nomination for “Gonna Fly Now,” the theme to the movie Rocky.