Don Ellis - ESSENCE (Mighty Quinn)

[clifford_thornton]

Man! 215(!) pages of...

of...

...(I don't know yet...)

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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.

[mikeweil]

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

[Joe G]

Very interesting discussion. I'm definitely intrigued.

[Dennis_M]

Very interesting discussion. I'm definitely intrigued.

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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).

[JohnT]

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).

[mikeweil]

There's even one more small group item, live in Poland from Oct. 1962, but perhaps that Muza release is not legit.

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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!

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"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.

[mikeweil]

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.

[mikeweil]

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.

[Guest akanalog]

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.