Career
Ferguson once said that when people asked him what he did, he"d tell them he wouldn"t tell them he was a musician, he"d say he was a jazz musician. He said he was proud of it and he would wear it as a statement on his forehead if he could. He also wrote liner notes and was a contributing writer
He wrote liner notes and articles for jazz magazines such as Bird and Los Angeles Jazz Scene.
Ferguson first played professionally around 1963, working with Charles Earland, Shirley Scott, Don Patterson, and Groove Holmes. he also recorded frequently with Pat Martino. Concomitantly he worked as a child tutor for the Model Cities program in Philadelphia.
He then moved to Los Angeles, where he became a prolific session musician, playing on albums by Dizzy Gillespie, Horace Silver, and Benny Carter among many others He formed a trio with John Heard and Tom Ranier.
He taught jazz theory at University of California, Los Angeles, University of California-Irvine, and Jackson State University.
He released the album Welcome to My Vision, on his own label Jazz-a-nance in 2002. Among the tracks on the album were "Lush Life", "Lester Left Town" and Bobby Watson"s "Monk He See, Monk He Do". The band comprised Ferguson on drums, saxophonists Louis Van Taylor and Carl Randall and bassist Trevor Ware.
On January 22, 2006, Ferguson died at his Louisiana Crescenta home aged 61.
The death was a result of diabetes.