The letters MF were of course Maynard Ferguson’s initials, but their secondary adjectival meaning also fitted the extrovert Canadian’s prowess on both trumpet and valve-trombone to a triple-T. Not merely a high-note crowd-pleaser, Maynard was also a fluent and solid improviser whose ideas were worth listening to in any register.

The story goes that, weary and disillusioned about making a big band pay in the rock-bound USA and depressed after his marriage breakup – he took to announcing one number as ‘Ain’t No Sunshine Till She’s Gone’ – Maynard hopped off to India to seek spiritual wisdom and meditate. On the way back, his flight made an unscheduled stop at Ringway airport and he found himself in Manchester, where local musicians made a big fuss of him. He in turn made a big fuss of them.

Older British big band fans still reminisce fondly about the earth-shaking impact of the British ensemble he put together, particularly the trumpet section. They won a weekly TV slot on Granada’s Simon Dee Show and later toured American for 15 crazy weeks. Several band members, including Jackson and Jones, got their Green Cards and never came home. Here in one double-disc set are the band’s three original 1970s recordings, a heady mixture of brassy big band punch and trippy flower-power funk. Is that a sitar we hear in there?

Highly recommended as an Anglo-American project that really worked, a valuable document of UK jazz history and an atmospheric souvenir of a bygone age.