Don Ellis

[Late]

What Ellis albums are you fond of?

(Edit: Deleted now defunct URL for Ellis fan site.)

Edited March 9, 2011 by Late

[JSngry]

AUTUMN

Not the whole album, but the two live cuts (if Columbia still has the tapes of the entire concert, what a surprise "new" release THAT would make) especially "Indian Lady", which is frightening in its intensity. Throw the usual reservations about Ellis out the door for those cuts - these guys came to rape, pillage, and plunder, and they do so with unabashed abandon. Wow.

I wish BN would reissue Ellis' Pacific Jazz album w/Paul Bley & Gary Peacock. Good luck finding THAT one.

How's the Prestige date w/Jaki Byard & Charlie Persip?

[GA Russell]

Thanks for the link Late!

My favorite is his first Orchestra album on Pacific Jazz (1966), called Live at Monterey! I first got it in '69, and bought the CD when it came out a few years ago.

I also like the Atlantic Live at Montreux and the Columbia Shock Treatment.

I picked up his second PJ album (1967) Live in 3 2/3 /4 Time two years ago, and I was disappointed compared to the others.

I believe his best selling album was his first Columbia (1968) album Electric Bath, which one day I'll get around to buying. It got good reviews at the time, but I had the suspicion that the reviewers didn't want to be caught missing the boat.

Edited October 1, 2003 by GA Russell

[sidewinder]

'Electric Bath' is a superb record - you won't be disappointed !

I've got quite a few of them on vinyl, really need to give them a spin. 'Live at the Fillmore' is pretty wild, very much of its time, must have been great to see live. 'Autumn' as Jim S says above, is also very good - quite experimental in parts, with Ellis featuring his 4-valve trumpet extensively on 'Variations for Trumpet'. Good one . I also need to give 'Essence' a bit more of a spin; my copy of this is on Dutch Fontana

:rsmile:

[Jazzmoose]

I agree; Electric Bath is just incredible. One of the "must have" albums of jazz, as far as I'm concerned...

[king ubu]

I love the Monterey album and Electric Bath. The other recent BN/Pacific reissue was a little disappointing, in my opinion, too. The early Candid album, which I have in its recent Past Perfect incarnation (it has been mentioned in the Past Perfect thread in the reissues forum), is quite interesting, too. Byard (also on alto), Carter & Persip make for a very good rhythm section.

ubu

[pryan]

I remember back in high school our jazz orchestra played an Ellis tune, entitled "Final Analysis". A very cool, trippy chart that was quite a crowd pleaser when we played it at a festival in the States.

[Larry Kart]

David, I like "New Ideas" too and had the pleasure of reviewing an excellent but apparently quite obscure Al Francis trio album (with John Neves and Joe Hunt) from the mid 1980s, "Jazz Bohemia Revisited" on the Lost Cosmic Unit label. This led to brief amiable contact with Francis -- phone conversation or by letter I don't recall. You say you knew Francis at one time. Do you know what's happened to him? He was a helluva player and an original, maybe in a class with Walt Dickerson if there were more of his work to go by.

[Larry Kart]

Ooops -- make that the Lost Cosmic Unity label. My own Cosmic Unit is, however, still missing.

[mikeweil]

I vividly remember seeing a TV recording of probably the Monterey performance on German afternoon Jazz TV for young people in the late 1960's. I didn't get a note, but I was thrilled! Three flutists walking to the soloists mic to blow fours, several percussionists, wailing rhythms - I was mesmerized. I bought every Don Ellis LP I found and got all the Columbia albums that way - Electric Bath in an awful sounding British mono pressing. Was delighted when the two Pacific Jazz albums finally were out on CD, I love them!

Yeah, I'd buy an issue of the complete Stanford performance the second it was out! But, with SONY doing only Electric Bath themselves, Bob Belden more or less retiring from producing reissues, and Koch Jazz, who did the CD of Shock Treatment, being swallowed, I do not see any more Don Ellis reissues on the horizon.

Go get the vinyl twofers Live At The Fillmore and Tears Of Joy when you can, I think they are his greatest achievements. Listening to Don Ellis (and Emil Richards' Microtonal Blues Band on Impulse) taught me counting odd meters. God bless his soul. It's an irony - but no wonder - he suffered from problems with heartbeat rhythms.

Another special item for hardcore Ellis collectors is the limited edition (3000 copies worldwide) of the complete French connection soundtracks published by Film Score Monthly:

[mikeweil]

Here's another Don Ellis website: Electric Heart.

Another vivid memory is Don Ellis rehearsing and conducting the Berlin Dream Band, a jazz orchestra made up from the best musicians from the big bands of both Berlin radio stations, for the Berlin Jazz Festival (Gil Evans was guest conductor the following year, as was George Russel one year, as far as I can remember). This was documented by German TV, with interviews and all. It was fascinating to see this wailing dervish of a jazz trumpeter teach Leo Wright, Carmell Jones et al. to play in 7/4, 13/4 and you name it! He had so much energy, he made a helluva band out of mostly young college graduates on his last tour, I heard him near Frankfurt a year or so before his death.

Dave Holland once said in an interview he found the way Ellis treated the uneven meters somewhat crude, but without him ....... even Holland wouldn't play them, I guess. He was the real pioneer and popularizer of this stuff.

[BFrank]

Don Ellis as Abe Lincoln???

Interesting about "Electric Bath". You know.....I've had vinyl of that for probably 25 years and have hardly ever listened to it. Maybe now's the time!

I also have the Fillmore set, which is a whole LOT of fun! Why has this never been on CD? The other one I have is "Soaring" on MPS/BASF which(if I remember) has a number of really nice tunes on it.

[brownie]

I have ignored the Don Ellis big bands albums. Reading the thread makes me realize I should turn my attention to them.

I was impressed with the small group 'New Ideas' and the' Essence' Pacific Jazz LPs when they came out after Ellis made his debut with the George Russell sextet (he was a good match to Dolphy in 'Ezz-Thetics').

And it would be interesting to hear what happened to Al Francis. Ellis and Francis were inventive new voices.

I caught the Don Ellis big band at the Antibes jazz festival in 1968 but was not really blown away.

Time for reevaluation probably. I'll be after some of his big band stuff now.

[JSngry]

Ellis was one og those guys who never met a gimmick he didn't like, but unlike many of that ilk, he also had a genuine curiosity and creativity. A lot of the big band stuff is just plain silly, some of it is totally wack, the kind of thing you gotta love even though you know better, and some of it sounds like the band is so wrapped up in executing that that they don't have time for letting the music breathe and live. But a bit of it is genuinely innovative, serious music, the vision of a man who definitely heard and felt things differently than the rest of us. I suspect that a lot of the silliness was a result of an inner reluctance to censor or edit for fear of missing the spark of something that could really lead to a more substantive path. A barrage of insanity and some precious nuggets of truth and beauty - I wish that the process for Ellis could have been more consistent than that, but that's just how and who he was, I guess. To that end, I remember being struck by Ellis' MPS albums, SOARING & HAIKU. The novelty had worn off for audiences, players, and I suspect, Ellis himself, and there is much meat to be had in these albums. I wish I had them...

No matter, waht I'll always remember Don Ellis MOST for was the article about the avant-garde that he wrote for Down Beat (anybody having it who can scan and post it, please do!), which included the oft-quoted statement that (and I'm paraphrasing) if "avant garde" means usuing your instrument to do things it wasn't designed to so, then Henry "Red" Allen was the most avant garde trumpeter on the scene! I've always loved the perspective of that observation.

Don Ellis might have been too interested in innovation for innovation's sake a lot of the time, but I give him major props for going his own way no matter what, and for not letting the gimmick become the gimmick, if that makes any since. A critical reevaluation of his work is overdue, I think, because there WAS some serious stuff going on with the guy. Mosaic, perhaps?

[mikeweil]

I remember a radio interview on AFN over here where he admitted his favourite big bands and/or trumpet players were Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Maynard Ferguson, Harry James, Stan Kenton - these all were some kind of entertainers and loved a gimmick and effect. I guess he liked it AND used it to sell his band, which was somewhat bigger than the others, he had to. It was tough for a big band in the rock era, I reckon Columbia took up with him because he played the Fillmore like all their great new rock acts, tracks from his albums were found on anthologies selling the new progressive rock bands. His humour is similar to that of Gillespie AND that of NRBQ, I'll take it just for the fun AND for the substance.

No wonder that band worked hard and was pretty much kept busy just with playing that stuff. He would have needed much more time to let it breathe somewhat more - he was aware of this - remember Jim, he more or less invented that stuff, and it's hard to do!

[JSngry]

No wonder that band worked hard and was pretty much kept busy just with playing that stuff. He would have needed much more time to let it breathe somewhat more - he was aware of this - remember Jim, he more or less invented that stuff, and it's hard to do!

I agree, which is why those MPS albums always appealed to me. They DO breathe.

But don't get me wrong - I love most of the Columbia stuff too (most of it anyway). The bands are SO much more into it than the earlier PJ stuff, and the brashness of players like Glen Ferris, Pete Robinson, and John Klemmer (!) is very appealing. Those guys really DO sound like they're on a mission to reinvent music from the ground up, and that kind of passion can't help but be heard and felt.

Looking back on it now, the late 60s/early 70s were a kind of mini "Golden Age" for big bands. Duke, Basie, Woody, & Kenton were still in full flower, with the latter two going in a more "contemporary" direction fairly successfully, and newer bands like Ellis' and Buddy Rich's were not going unnoticed either. Gerald Wilson was putting out records, and cats like Pat Williams and Clare Fischer were doing one-offs of no little interest. Of course, Jones-Lewis and Clarke-Boland were going strong, too. The popularity of jazz-rock horn bands certainly spurred things along, but I think that the general turbulance and vigor of the times was a factor too. It was a time in which so many different things were happening in society and in music that a big band was at once a throwback to the familiarity of earlier times AND a big blast of reality, a unit of power that gave you the loudness of rock (and for those newer listeners who haven't had the opportunity to hear a REAL big band in the flesh, not just a local rehearsal band, but a real working unit of top-shelf players, let me tell you that the energy and volume might very well scare the bejeebers out of you the first time you experience it. It's a vERY visceral experience). Well, here comes Ellis, who seemingly knows no fear when it comes to volume, electronics, and general controlled chaos. You COULDN'T ignore him once you heard him!

Those were good times for jazz, I think. And if I find Ellis' overall output to be uneven, I don't think less of him for that. If anything, I respect him more for it, because he seemed like the kind of guy who wanted to do everything all at once, and by god, he went for it! Very similar to vintage Mingus in that regard, even though they were coming from totally different places. That kind of ambition, musical and otherwise, is something I have a huge respect and admiration for. In theory, I'll take something like a Don Ellis "failure" over a failsafe snoozefest of predictability most any day. If I might sometimes LIKE the snoozefest more, it's the ambitious and sincere failure that I LOVE more.

Who do we harass to get somebody to look into that Stanford gig and see if the tapes still survive? Now THAT'S one of the major big band triumphs of the post WWII era by any standard. I have a feeling that there's a revelation waiting to be unearthed!

[BFrank]

Reading Jim's last post reminded me of Maynard Ferguson's "MF Horn 4&5 - Live at Jimmy's" set. Another album that has never seen CD production that fits well into that 60's-70's big band resurgence.

[king ubu]

Don Ellis as Abe Lincoln???

Nope, Abe Lincoln actually played the trombone. He can be heard on some sessions included in the Capitol Mosaic (Wingy Manone, 3/7/44; Eddie Miller, 2/4/44).

Dead serious, by the way,

ubu B)

[mikeweil]

Who do we harass to get somebody to look into that Stanford gig and see if the tapes still survive? Now THAT'S one of the major big band triumphs of the post WWII era by any standard. I have a feeling that there's a revelation waiting to be unearthed!

Bob Belden would be the first to come to my mind, if he still is in the reissue business. Anybody got his e-mail adress?

Or Michael Cuscuna, how about a Mosaic box set with the title (and respective contents) The Complete Columbia Live Recordings of the Don Ellis Orchestra? :tup

Edited October 3, 2003 by mikeweil

[Jazzmoose]

Or Michael Cuscuna, how about a Mosaic box set with the title (and respective contents) The Complete Columbia Live Recordings of the Don Ellis Orchestra? :tup

That would be awesome!!

[Sundog]

Up. For no other than I'm seeing lot's of Don Ellis on the racks these days and it's starting to peak my interest.

[Chuck Nessa]

I think the best way to approach his work is chronological. Small groups/sideman gigs, early PJ big band sides and proceed thru the Columbias as far as your brain will take you.

[Sundog]

Thanks for the advice.

[JSngry]

Picked this one up a few weeks ago:

A live date from 1967, it's a fascinating "in-between" type thing that goes back and forth between Ellis the intrepid explorer and Ellis the freakshow. If you're looking for clues as to, as Joe Milazzo likes to say about Don Ellis, "what happened?", you may or may not get some insight from this one.

Either way, when it's good, it's damn good.

[JSngry]

And oh yeah - I don't have them, and it's been years since I've heard them, but from what I remember, the post-Columbia MPS sides, especially Haiku were much better than most of the Columbias.