Dennis_M Posted August 30, 2005 Report Share Posted August 30, 2005 Sure. It's a highly polished studio album. Of the three I mentioned, it's my least favorite, but anyone who is interested in alternative time signatures and innovative music in the 60's-70's should give it a spin. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSngry Posted August 30, 2005 Author Report Share Posted August 30, 2005 as far as the later stuff goes-hearing a bunch of well coached music school cats playing tricky charts isn't why i listen to the jazz.← Anybody interested in the technical aspects of Ellis' work should download the dissertation from Johns Hopkins University, entitled "The Exotic Rhythms Of Don Ellis," by Sean Fenlon. More information than most people would ever want. http://www.donellismusic.com/Dissertation/dissertation.html Although I sympathize completely with the first sentiment, the second post reveals a deeper issue. Namely, was Don Ellis' rhythmic/odd-meter "fixation" a gimmick or something deeper? I believe that it was the latter, and that to judge his music solely by the type of players he got to play it is selling it short. To have any kind of a ongoing working unit, you have to have players.And if your concept is as "out of sync" (irony intended) with the prevailing mainstream, as Ellis' certainly was, your worry shifts from "who can I get to play this music with all the nuance and sensitivity it deserves" to simply "who can I get to play this music". You wanna get guys to play a Basie or Herman type gig, hey, no problem - 4/4, swing, standard changes, blowing space for the soloists, get in line. You wanna get somebody to play in 35/16 or some such all night long, with "exotic" modes, electronics, and such, well, yeah, there's always going to be that special kind of frak who drools at the chance, god bless 'em, but a whole big band's worth? Not in this world... Ellis' "fatal flaw" may well have been his conviction/delusion/whatever that a big band was the best format for his ideas. The finances alone made it a daunting task (and no doubt led to some of the bizzare choices of direction/material), and the reality of finding players to fill the chairs no doubt often compromised his vision in all but it's most obvious points. But I for one don't question his sincerity, nor his vision, nor do I cast aspersion on the sheer guts it took to do what he did the way he did it. When he succeeded, he did so magnificiently, and when he failed, well, the old back-handed compliment of "I dig what you're trying to do" applies, and not necessarily always as a back-handed compliment. Was Don Ellis a "visionary"? No, I don't think so, at least not in the "messianic" sense of the word. But he was definitely way ahead of the curve (the "jazz" curve, anyway) in tems of things like odd-meters/world rhythms, microtones, electronics, and stuff like that, stuff that would come to the fore on a larger scale in years to come. Judge the work on its own merits, but do so with the realization that this was not a "poser" who pretended to know more than they did, nor was this somebody who, like Stan Kenton, depended on outside forces to create "his" vision. No - Don Ellis was "Don Ellis", for better or worse, in triumph and in failure. Me myself, I gotta respect the hell outta that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dennis_M Posted August 30, 2005 Report Share Posted August 30, 2005 Namely, was Don Ellis' rhythmic/odd-meter "fixation" a gimmick or something deeper? I believe that it was the latter, and that to judge his music solely by the type of players he got to play it is selling it short. I'm not sure what the issue is here, but I certainly agree that Ellis' rhythmic innovations were sincere and well worth the effort. At one time, I was an expert at counting out 19/4, and just about any other rhythm he played. I only wish he would have kept up the sincere approach in his later albums. Still, I regard him as one of the most under appreciated and talented musicians of the last several decades. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Wheel Posted August 30, 2005 Report Share Posted August 30, 2005 (edited) Sure. It's a highly polished studio album. Of the three I mentioned, it's my least favorite, but anyone who is interested in alternative time signatures and innovative music in the 60's-70's should give it a spin. ← My uncle gave me a tape of this record years ago (misplaced it but haven't replaced it with the CD yet due to laziness). But I can still hear in my head those crazy half-steps (or are they quarter-tones?) on the horn entrance to "Turkish Bath"--awesome! Edited August 30, 2005 by Big Wheel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clifford_thornton Posted August 30, 2005 Report Share Posted August 30, 2005 Man! 215(!) pages of... of... ...(I don't know yet...) ← It is a Bridget Riley, and that Larry Austin piece is great! One of the rare examples of successful 'third stream' in my opinion. The PJ big band sides I enjoy quite a bit - not really music-school geek music, unless you're talkin' reefer-in-the-lounge music school. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeweil Posted August 30, 2005 Report Share Posted August 30, 2005 (edited) I saw Don Ellis live with his very last big band, shortly before he died, and whatever it was that the believed in, he appeared as a man who believed in what he did and threw in everything that he had to make it come alive. The band was mostly rather young players, I recognized only Glenn Stuart and Chino Valdes from the earlier lineups, and it took a visionary dervish like Ellis to get them to playing the shit out of these charts. I was also very fortunate to hear an hour-long interview with him on AFN radio around the time the "Goes Underground" LP was released - he listed Stan Kenton, Harry James, Dizzy Gillespie and some others I cannot recall as his influences - I should have taken notes ..... but it was a list revealing that showmanship was as important to him as musical chops and dedication, and that he had one foot rooted deeply in the big band tradition, Ray McKinley, Harry James, Maynard Ferguson, and those people. What ever he did was sincere, and I love and respect him for that and for the self-effacing dedication to the music. I was interested in oriental music already when I first encountered his music at age 16, and it was counting through and analyzing the charts on "Autumn" that laid the basis for my abilty to play any type of meter. It certainly is a lot easier for us to point out his weak spots than it was for him to put his vision on stage. I had the impression that Columbia had a big hand in the way "Goes Underground" turned out to be - they tried to sell Ellis on the wave of the "Underground" music Columbia (and Clive Davis) were making huge money with, I remember tracks from "Shock Treatment" and "Goes Underground" appearing on samplers along with Big Brother & the Holding Company, Moby Grape, The Flock, The United States of America, Electric Flag, whoever Columbia had signed back then, and especially Blood, Sweat & Tears - if Ellis would have turned out to be the big band equivalent to them, the label would have been happy, and they sure tried hard. Having Al Kooper produce Ellis is more evidence in that direction. I think he loved the small group avant-garde stuff just as much, but when you try to lead a big band, you can't do both on that same high level. (edited for typo) Edited August 30, 2005 by mikeweil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe G Posted August 30, 2005 Report Share Posted August 30, 2005 Very interesting discussion. I'm definitely intrigued. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dennis_M Posted August 31, 2005 Report Share Posted August 31, 2005 Very interesting discussion. I'm definitely intrigued. ← Get the "Live at Monterey" CD. It is deadly serious jazz (unlike some of the later work) and much of the improvisation in these odd time signatures is just remarkable. One warning- the sound quality is not great (but not terrible either). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnT Posted August 31, 2005 Report Share Posted August 31, 2005 Thanks for the recommendations. I ordered the "Live at Monterey" and the "New Ideas" CDs. Later, I'm going to pick up "Electric Bath" too (I see there is a remastered version). I already have the other PJ Big Band CD and like it a lot (hadn't listened to it in long while). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeweil Posted October 20, 2005 Report Share Posted October 20, 2005 There's even one more small group item, live in Poland from Oct. 1962, but perhaps that Muza release is not legit. ← The Ellis on Muza is legit 'cause I have it...somewhere. I used to really be into the Muza modern classical and discovered at the same time some of their jazz titles. Hokey covers - I think the word "jamboree" was used somewhere for the series titles, so you can imagine what they looked like! ← "Jazz Jamboree" was the name of Warsaw's annual jazz festival. The recordings of that series were made live at the festival or during the musicians' stay in Poland at that occasion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeweil Posted October 20, 2005 Report Share Posted October 20, 2005 I confess to not being familiar w/Ellis' Prestige (New Jazz?) & Candid albums. I recently got the Candid with Paul Bley and Steve Swallow - recommended. He knows what he wants to do with those standards. Looking forward to getting Essence - being a dedicated Ellis fan from the first time I ever heard him - way back as a teenager when a recording of the Monterey performance was boradcast on German TV - I got everything except Essence, which was very rare back then. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeweil Posted November 18, 2005 Report Share Posted November 18, 2005 i do like ralph humphrey's stiff style in perhaps the most challenging (and my favorite) of zappa's ensembles (in '73). I think stiff does not quite nail it - you have to play somewhat more straight in these time signatures, especially if the tempos are fast. In slow to mid tempos, you can superimpose a triplet feeling, but in fast tempos this is getting dangerous. It's a different rhytmic conception coming from musical cultures not knowing the concept of superimposing two different pulsations, but use one of them at a time. Otherwise the subdivisions are obscured an you are risking to get lost in the rhythm. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest akanalog Posted November 18, 2005 Report Share Posted November 18, 2005 well with zappa i found humphrey stiff even on songs like montana which were just kind of rocking and straight. but i like it. i have a DVD of zappa live in '73 wth humphrey and he even looks stiff or just really tight. like his movememts are all minimal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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