Born May 4, 1928, in Montreal, Ferguson got his start in the bands of Boyd Raeburn, Jimmy Dorsey and Charlie Barnet in the 1940s. He played with Stan Kenton from 1950 to 1953, his soaring high notes perking up audiences far and wide, and he soon topped the trumpet category in Down Beat Readers polls. He then worked at Paramount studios before leading his own big bands and small groups in the 1950s and 1960s, bands that included such musicians as Slide Hampton, Don Sebesky, Bill Chase, Don Ellis and Bill Berry. In the late 1960s he toured extensively with a big-band he based out of the United Kingdom. In the 1970s he reached an even wider and younger audience with his rock-influenced M.F. Horn group, which produced definitive arrangements of "Chameleon," "Birdland," "Rocky" and other songs.

Besides trumpet and flugelhorn, Ferguson also played soprano sax, French horn, oboe, clarinet and his brainchild, the super-bone. His technical expertise made him a model for many young musicians. Toward the end of his life, he toured, performed, recorded and fostered these up-and-coming young players in his Big Bop Nouveau band, still playing at a torrid pace. "I actually like the road," he said in the April '98 issue of Down Beat. "People ask me if it is tough being on the road. I remember watching Dizzy Gillespie being asked about how you deal with marriage when you're on the road. He said that most marriages that end up in divorce have only one honeymoon. Then he said, 'I've had about 136 honeymoons—when I come back off the road!' ... And the road isn't as tough as it used to be, you know?"

In 1992, Ferguson was elected by the Readers into the Down Beat Hall of Fame. He died Aug. 23, 2006.