Man, this Maynard Ferguson cover of The Beatles classic, "Hey, Jude"is killer. I should clarify why this particular arrangement of the song goes above and beyond for me.
When I was in college, I played trombone (that’s me on the left) in both the marching and pep bands at the University of Missouri-Columbia. Marching Mizzou (250 strong at the time) marched at all the home football games, but if you auditioned into Mini Mizzou (only 40 members), you would sometimes get to travel with the team as well as play all the home basketball games in Columbia. Those were good times.
This arrangement of The Beatles' classic was what we would always play at the end of the night, win or lose, as folks made their way out of the Hearnes Center. Our brass could go "full Maynard" with the best of them on the high notes, and when it came to the outro chorus, the entire band (and plenty of fans still hanging around) would sing the "Na nas" full-throated and for all the world to hear, stopping only for the fills at the end before a killer stinger at the end.
For a 20-year-old kid who all through junior high and high school had persevered playing with small town, salt-of-the-earth musicians still very much learning our instruments, my time at Mizzou was a musical peak that made me a better player and provided plenty of groove goosebumps along the way (having seats on the floor for our then ranked #1 basketball team wasn't too bad, either).
One of my daughters, after hearing the Ferguson arrangement over lunch, asked me if I was sad that neither she nor any of her sisters were ever in bands. I am a little (even in high school, our all-district and all-state outings were quite musical and memorable), but I take heart that they have had excellent musical instruction and experiences through multiple children's choirs and have learned not only to love good music, but also how music "works," which I would argue is both a life skill and a means to worship God.
I love what Martin Luther wrote about the topic in a letter to composer Ludwig Senil, dated 4 October 1530:
"I plainly judge, and do not hesitate to affirm, that except for theology there is no art that could be put on the same level with music, since except for theology [music] alone produces what otherwise only theology can do, namely, a calm and joyful disposition...This is the reason why the prophets did not make use of any art except music; when setting forth their theology they did it not as geometry, not as arithmetic, not as astronomy, but as music, so that they held theology and music most tightly connected, and proclaimed truth through Psalms and songs."
Or, as The Beatles sang, "Na, na, na, na-na-na-na."