Don Ellis
Donald Johnson Ellis was an American jazz trumpeter, drummer, composer, and bandleader. He is best known for his extensive musical experimentation, particularly in the area of time signatures. Later in his life he worked as a film composer, contributing a score to 1971's The French Connection and 1973's The Seven-Ups.
Early life
Ellis was born in Los Angeles, California, on July 25, 1934. His father was a Methodist minister and his mother a church organist. He attended West High School in Minneapolis, MN. After attending a Tommy Dorsey Big Band concert, he first became interested in jazz. Other early inspirations were Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie. He graduated from Boston University in 1956 with a music composition degree.Early career
Ellis's first job was with the late Glenn Miller's band, then directed by Ray McKinley. He stayed with the band until September 1956, when he joined the U.S. Army's Seventh Army Symphony Orchestra and the Soldiers' Show Company. Ellis was transferred to Frankfurt, Germany for duty. In the Army band, Ellis met pianist Cedar Walton, and saxophonists Eddie Harris and Don Menza. While in that band Ellis had his first opportunity to compose and arrange for a big band.After two years, Don Ellis left the Army band and moved to Greenwich Village in New York City. He was able to get some work, but mainly with dance bands and other local work. He toured briefly with bandleader Charlie Barnet and joined the Maynard Ferguson band in spring of 1959. He remained with Ferguson for nine months.
The New York Avant-Garde
Shortly thereafter, Ellis became involved in the New York City avant-garde jazz scene. He appeared on albums by Charles Mingus, Eric Dolphy, and George Russell, working in that sextet for two years. Under his own name, Ellis led several sessions with small groups between 1960 and 1962, which featured, among others, Jaki Byard, Paul Bley, Gary Peacock, Ron Carter, Charlie Persip, and Steve Swallow. The last one, Essence, was recorded in mid-July 1962.On 3 June 1962, Ellis performed the jazz liturgy Evensong, composed by Edgar Summerlin. The performance took place at the First International Jazz Festival in Washington, D.C., and was broadcast on Look Up and Live on 12 August 1962. Ellis performed alongside Lou Gluckin on trumpet, J. R. Monterose on tenor saxophone, Eric Dolphy on flute, Slide Hampton on trombone, Dick Lieb on bass trombone, Barry Galbraith on guitar, Ron Carter on bass, and Charlie Persip on drums.
Europe and America
In October 1962, Ellis traveled to Poland to take part in the 1962 Jazz Jamboree in Warsaw; his quartet performance was partially documented on a Polish-only EP. Ellis chronicled his experience in an article called Warsaw Diary, which was printed in the January 3rd, 1963 issue of DownBeat magazine. In December, Ellis participated in the NDR Jazz Workshop in Hamburg, Germany, and in early 1963, traveled to Stockholm, Sweden. While there, he became somewhat well known for his experimentation with happenings, similar to those used by members of the Fluxus art movement.Back in New York, Ellis formed the Improvisational Workshop Orchestra, which gave its debut performance on February 10, 1963 at the Five Spot. The performance had a quality similar to those Ellis gave in Sweden: unusual artistic devices were employed, such as performers using cards to determine event orders, and musicians using their instruments to interpret a painter's work. Some uncommon musical elements were employed, such as the use of Arabian rhythms and scales, and foot shuffling.
New Rhythms and the Third Stream
In 1964, Ellis began graduate studies in ethnomusicology at UCLA where he studied with Indian musician Harihar Rao. Greatly inspired by Rao, Ellis sought to implement odd meters in a Western improvised context and co-authored the 1965 article "An Introduction to Indian Music for the Jazz Musician". Ellis briefly formed the first version of his big band at this time but disbanded it when he received a Rockefeller Grant to work at SUNY Buffalo for a year.While in New York, Ellis was involved with several Third Stream projects. A live performance from February 8, 1964, at the Lincoln Center was filmed for Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concerts series. He performed with other jazz musicians alongside the New York Philharmonic on Larry Austin's "Improvisations for Orchestra and Jazz Soloists" and Gunther Schuller's "Journey Into Jazz". A later recording of Austin's piece, featuring Ellis, bassist Barre Phillips, drummer Joe Cocuzzo, and the New York Philharmonic was released on an album entitled Leonard Bernstein Conducts Music Of Our Time.
In November 1967, Ellis's first symphony, "Contrasts for Two Orchestras and Trumpet", was debuted by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra under Zubin Mehta.
The Hindustani Jazz Sextet
Returning to the West Coast, Ellis formed The Hindustani Jazz Sextet, which explored some of the concepts he had learned at UCLA. The Sextet is generally considered to be the first band of its kind in America. The Sextet centered on Ellis and his mentor Harihar Rao, who played sitar and tabla, but also featured vibraphonist Emil Richards, drummer Steve Bohannon, bassists Chuck Domanico and Ray Neapolitan, and pianist Dave Mackay. At least one performance also featured saxophonist Gabe Baltazar. The band performed mainly original compositions which had titles like "Sweet Nineteen", "Turks Works", and "Bombay Bossa Nova".The Sextet became somewhat well known around Los Angeles, despite having no recordings commercially available. Perhaps the greatest exposure the group had was "Synthesis", a composition by Ellis in which the Sextet performed alongside Stan Kenton's Neophonic Orchestra. The concert took place in February 1966 at the Los Angeles Music Center.
On July 14 of that year, the Sextet performed at Bill Graham's Fillmore Auditorium, opening for the Grateful Dead and Big Brother and the Holding Company.
Don Ellis Orchestra
In addition to working with the Hindustani Jazz Sextet, Ellis continued writing arrangements for and rehearsing what would grow into the Don Ellis Orchestra. This rehearsal/workshop band played every Monday night for almost a year, first at a venue called Club Havana and later relocating to a club called Bonesville in Hollywood, where they began to gain a significant following. The group started making money by charging a small admission fee to the rehearsals, and began a letter-writing campaign to get the band a spot at the 1966 Monterey Jazz Festival. The campaign eventually succeeded, and the band was scheduled to perform that September.The Don Ellis Orchestra was different from most other big bands in several ways; most obviously in its instrumentation, but also in Ellis's incorporation of Indian musical elements into modern big-band writing. Drawing from his compositional and arranging experience, as well as from his studies of Indian music, Ellis began to write jazz-based music with the time signatures he had studied with Rao. These included not only,, and, but also more complex rhythmic cycles like and. In the future, Ellis would use many more complex meters, as well as complex subdivisions of more standard meters. Many of these more complex cycles were inspired by Ellis's later interest in Eastern European folk music, such as that of Greece and Bulgaria.
Ellis also had a customized trumpet made for him by the Holton company, which he received in September 1965. Its additional valve enabled it to produce quarter tones. Some claim that this might have been inspired by his studies of Indian music, as it contains bent pitches that some ethnomusicologists refer to as "microtones". However, it was probably more the result of Ellis's previous involvement with avant-garde classical music, in which many composers were experimenting with Western tonality and intervals, especially Harry Partch, with whom Ellis is known to have met and discussed ideas.
All of these unusual elements combined to create a musical experience unlike anything the Monterey audience had ever seen. The Orchestra received thunderous applause and a standing ovation at the conclusion of their first tune, titled "33 222 1 222" in accordance with its subdivision of 19. The band went on to play tunes in 7, 9, and 27, as well as a couple in more standard meters. Portions of the concert were released on Pacific Jazz the following year. The 1998 CD reissue includes several other tunes from the concert; the CD's notes also reveal that one number, "Concerto for Trumpet", was actually recorded a month later at a "Pacific Jazz Festival" in Costa Mesa.
Following this successful breakthrough performance, the band performed at the Pacific Jazz Festival in October 1966, and at Shelly's Manne Hole in March 1967, releasing segments of each on 1967's Live in /4 Time.
Columbia Records
Around this time, Columbia Records producer and A&R man John Hammond sought to recruit the band for the label. The band was signed, and was in the studio in September 1967 to record Electric Bath, which was released the following year to wide acclaim, was nominated for a Grammy award, won the 1968 Down Beat "Album of the Year" award, reaching No. 8 on the Billboard jazz charts. The song "Indian Lady" became one of the band's most popular tunes. "Open Beauty" featured Ellis in an echoplex trumpet solo, an innovative combination of acoustic instruments and electronic technology. Ellis would continue to develop the "electrophonic trumpet" over the next five years.In February 1968 the Don Ellis Orchestra was back in the studio to record a second album, which would become Shock Treatment. However, miscommunications arose, and the album was released with poor edits and inferior alternate takes that Ellis did not approve of. In Ellis's own words:
"Upon completion of the album, I did the mixing and editing here in California and then sent the finished product to New York. It wasn't until the album was already released that I heard a pressing. Much to my horror, I found that, without consulting me, the whole album had been changed around--rejected masters and unapproved takes were used, the wrong tunes were on the album, unauthorized splices were made which disturbed the musical flow of some of the compositions, whole sections were cut out, some of these being the high points of the album. Therefore the liner notes, which were done to the original album, do not agree with what is actually on the album, calling attention to solos and high spots which are not there. Also, the wrong personnel is listed on the jacket.
When I discovered what had happened, I was, naturally, disturbed and asked Columbia to redo the album. They graciously consented and I was able to change the album back to its original form except that I left Mercy Maybe Mercy, which my producer particularly liked, in place of Zim, which I hope will appear in a future album."
Throughout late 1968, the Orchestra returned to the studio several times to record songs for what would become Autumn. The album contained the twenty-minute opus "Variations for Trumpet" that showcased Ellis's virtuosic trumpet playing. Also on the record was "Pussy Wiggle Stomp", the song that would succeed "Indian Lady" as the Orchestra's signature tune. Side two of the record contained two lengthy tunes from a concert at Stanford University from August 1968. The tracks are notable for their revelations of the Ellis band's contemporary live sound, which was far more raucous than either of their previous live recordings.
In early 1969, the Orchestra was back in Columbia Studios to record The New Don Ellis Band Goes Underground, a collection of several pop songs and some Ellis originals. The album features vocalist Patti Allen on songs by Laura Nyro, The Isley Brothers, and Sly Stone; it also includes "Bulgarian Bulge", a composition based on a Bulgarian folk tune in time.
The band's energetic live performances such as the one at Stanford caused its popularity among college crowds to increase. In June 1970, the Orchestra performed for three nights at Bill Graham's Fillmore West auditorium, opening for the Quicksilver Messenger Service and Leon Russell. The resulting recording was made into a double LP and released by Columbia in late 1970. "Live at Fillmore" was a happy return to original material, and even included one Beatles cover, a highly experimental rendition of "Hey Jude", as well as another version of "Pussy Wiggle Stomp".
Around this time, Ellis's popularity among educators was also climbing; copies of his band's charts were being published and played by many high school and college big bands. Accordingly, Ellis taught many clinics and played with many school bands.
In May 1971, Ellis added a string quartet to the Orchestra. He also hired Bulgarian piano virtuoso Milcho Leviev who was able to improvise fluently in time signatures that would initially be intimidating to most American improvisers. He was an important asset to Ellis's band, and stayed with Ellis for five years. The Orchestra was recorded in late May at Basin Street West in San Francisco. The resulting album, Tears of Joy, was another live double-LP and was released in late 1971.
The Exotic Rhythms of Don Ellis, a dissertation submitted to The Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Musical Arts. The album featured a composition called "Strawberry Soup" that has been the subject of several doctoral dissertations due to its metric intricacy, its simple theme and complex variations, and the sheer timbral spectrum that it covers.