Ellis, Don(ald Johnson)

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Ellis, Don(ald Johnson)

Ellis, Don(ald Johnson), innovative jazz trumpeter, composer, leader, also trombonist; b. Los Angeles, July 25, 1934; d. Hollywood, Dec. 17, 1978. He led groups from an early age. He studied composition at Boston Univ. with Gardner Read, earning a B.M. He worked with Herb Pomeroy and was influenced by Jaki Byard, who often worked with Pomeroy. He took trumpet lessons in Boston, N.Y., and Los Angeles. He studied composition at the Univ. of Calif., Los Angeles, with John Vincent. He worked in Army bands. At various times he played with Jesse Smith, the Glenn Miller Orch. (under Ray McKinley), Charlie Barnet, Sam Donahue, Claude Thornhill, Maynard Ferguson (touring in 1958–59, Byard also was a member), Woody Herman, and Lionel Hampton. He recorded with Mingus in 1959; led a trio at the Village and elsewhere in the summer of 1960; then attended the Lenox School of Jazz in August 1960, where he met composer Don Heckman and studied with George Russell. He returned to N.Y. and Heckman introduced him to composer John Benson Brooks, who instructed him in applications of 12-tone rows. He used a 12-tone row when he recorded his first album as a leader that October, with Byard. He played with a quartet at Wells’s in Harlem, performed and recorded with Russell in 1961–62. He played at the Warsaw Jazz Jamboree in 1962 with a Polish trio and in Scandinavia in 1963. On Feb. 10, 1963 his Improvisational Workshop made its debut at the Five Spot in Manhattan, using methods associated with John Cage, such as choosing random cards from a deck to structure the music; they also improvised in response to a painter in action. This group performed at other clubs and on TV. He performed with Eric Dolphy and others on April 18, 1963, at Carnegie Hall as part of the Twentieth-Century Innovations series organized by Gunther Schuller (recorded by Schuller and partly issued). He was a trumpet soloist in Larry Austin’s “Improvisations for Orch. and Jazz Soloists” performed by the N.Y. Philharmonic in January 1964, including a TV special with the conductor Leonard Bernstein. After that, Ellis returned to L.A. and began graduate studies at UCLA. While there, he studied tabla drumming with Hari Har Rao, and later in 1964 founded the Hindustani Jazz Sextet, with Rao, to apply his interests in Indian music, and he and Rao wrote about their concepts. (Ellis was the author of a number of articles and short mono-graphs.) The group performed in Hollywood Clubs, in a joint appearance with Stan Kenton in 1966, and on July 14, 1966, at the Fillmore, on a bill with the Grateful Dead and Big Brother & the Holding Co. He also became interested in quartertones in early 1965; learning that a Soviet-bloc composer had written a piece for a trumpet with a special fourth valve that produced reliable quartertones; he persuaded the Holton company to build him such a trumpet, which he used exclusively from September 1965. Meanwhile he began leading his own big band, incorporating influences of Indian music and unusual meters, first at a rehearsal group in 1964 and then in 1965 working one night a week at a club. By 1966 the group was appearing regularly at Bonesville in Hollywood. Most of the charts were written and arranged by Ellis, but several band members and Hank Levy also contributed pieces. The group developed a following and had a very successful appearance at the Monterey festival in September 1966 (released on LP). Ellis was a talented crowd-pleaser and promoted the group by using such tactics as distributing bumper stickers that asked “Where is Don Ellis?” The band appeared at the jazz festival in West Berlin in late 1967. Rock and blues artist Al Kooper was such a fan that in 1968 he used the band on a cut of one of his albums and produced the band’s LP Autumn. From June 18–21,1970, the band performed at the Fillmore, where they recorded live. Ellis also wrote large classical works, including Contrasts for two orchs. and trumpet, which was performed by the L.A. Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta (composed 1965; premiered around Thanksgiving 1967) and his Music for Big Band and Symphony Orch. (1966). He did studio work and played on film soundtracks; he won a Grammy Award in 1972 for his arrangement of the theme to The French Connection, which appeared on his album Connection. From 1971 on his groups usually included an amplified string quartet. In the early 1970s he regularly presented clinics at high schools and colleges. He had a serious heart attack in 1975. He took up the Superbone (combined slide/valve trombone) in 1976 and formed a new 21-member band named Survival. He appeared on a Shirley MacLaine TV special around 1976, demonstrating his echoplex and other electronic effects. In the summer of 1977 he appeared at Montreux as part of an Atlantic Records showcase and returned there in 1978 with his big band (released on his last LP). A second heart attack on the evening of Dec. 17 took his life. The Don Ellis Memorial Library in Mesquite, Tex., at Eastfield Coll. houses his works and memorabilia, and distributes Ellis sheet music and videos. He played on soundtracks for numerous TV shows and movies; some listeners have noted that the trumpet solos heard on the Klute soundtrack bear Ellis’s style.

Discography

How Time Passes (1960; with Byard); New Ideas (1961); Out of Nowhere (1961); Essence (1962); Don Ellis and the Karolak Trio (1962); Don Ellis at Monterey (1966); Live in 3 2/3 4; Time (1966); Electric Bath (1967); Autumn (1968); Shock Treatment (1968); New Don Ellis Band Goes Underground (1969); Don Ellis at Fillmore (1970); Tears of Joy (1971); Connection (1972); Haiku (1973); Soaring (1974); Live at Montreux (1977); Music from Other Galaxies and Planets (1977). Music for Big Band and Symphony Orchestra. Charles Mingus: Nostalgia in Times Square (1959; uncut version of “Mingus Dynasty” including an Ellis trumpet solo). Maynard Ferguson: A Message from Birdland (1959); MF Plays Jazz for Dancing (1959); Newport Suite (1960). George Russell: Ezz-thetics (1961); The Stratus Seekers (1962); The Outer View (1962). Eric Dolphy: Vintage Dolphy (1963). Frank Zappa/Mothers of Invention: Absolutely Free (1967; Ellis on one track). Al Kooper: I Stand Alone (1968; features the Don Ellis Orch. on “Coloured Rain”). Leonard Bernstein: Conducts Music for Our Time (includes Larry Austin “Improvisations for Orch. and Jazz Soloists” with Ellis, recorded on Jan. 13, 1964 in Philharmonic Hall, now Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center, N.Y.C.). Red Mitchell: “Where’s Don Ellis Now?” on Simple Isn’t Easy is a spoof of Ellis’s style.

Writings

With Milcho Leviev, Dave McDaniel, and Ralph Humphrey, The New Rhythm Book (North Hollywood, Calif., 1972); Quarter Tones: A Text with Musical Examples, Exercises, and Etudes (Plainview, Long Island, N.Y.: c. 1975).