ELECTRIC HEART The Don Ellis Story

[JEV1A]

I want to thank all those that have so-far purchased the ELECTRIC HEART "Special Edition" DVD as well as your great comments and reviews I have read here in this forum. My Film so far in 2009 was invited to The Library of Congress and I dedicated a special archival Library Copy as referrence material, so now we can all say the name of Don Ellis will live on. I also won Best Feature Documentary Award at The Kansas City Film Festival. I have slowed down the promotion of my film for this summer because of mainly budget constraints but have been offered to bring my film into Austin, Texas late August. Sleepy Night Records whom published the DVD has it for sale in The United Kingdom & The British Isles through Amazon, Borders and many other major outlets but you can order directly from http://www.sleepynightrecords.com or go: http://www.donellisfilm.com and click on the Amazon UK Link at the top. It normally takes about 2 weeks for shipping if you are ordering from USA and Canada. The DVD will play in all regions and will play on Computers as well. I'm in the process of a deal with MidWest Tape to get ELECTRIC HEART in public libraries as well. There is very little on Don Ellis as referrence material as you all know. I realize the love for Ellis now more than ever and since my Film has had at least a limited release, there has been great praise for a musician that deserves his due! I still don't understand exactly why Ellis is not so well known. At the very least his charts should be researched more and his music played. I asked public radio to play his music and they told me it was too "electric" for their orchestrated big band shows. I asked public television to air ELECTRIC HEART and they told me nobody would care about it! What is it with Ellis that people seem to resent? Are his musical compositions that far out that nobody gets it? People do remember The French Connection and his other Scores ( The Seven-Ups just released Soundtrack) but that only happened because his doctor said he needed to rest and get off the road. So he sat home and composed... he sent Glenn Stuart out on the road for him and then when Don was healthy enough, he came back on tour and created his final band, The Electric & Star Wars Orchestra. My favorite will always be The Tears of Joy Bands but whatever Ellis did, it all somehow seemed to work! I just wish his Producers in those days, with the likes of John Hammond and Al Kooper would have let him do his own thing and not try to gimmick him out to pursue better records sales. The Ellis story is nothing like anything I have ever imagined simply because you have this creative genius that everyone seemed to like, not only his music but the person too... a guy that stayed away from booze and hard drugs and a musician at heart but because his sounds were so odd metered he was shunned by records companies! To me Jazz needed to change to keep up with Rock & Roll and Ellis's own version of Fusion may have been the first to transform Jazz into everything else. Maybe that pissed off the Jazz fans, I don't know... but for myself when I saw Ellis play, it was like nothing I had ever experienced then and now. So that is why I decided to make a biographical film on him. But the Distributors are telling me its too hard of a sell, first musical Docs. in general, second movies about people nobody has ever heard of. So I'm still searching for a American Distributor that can at the least sell the DVD in the States. Its sad... the state of classic jazz records, jazz education and jazz oriented films and the like but I can only keep fighting for the name of Donald Johnson Ellis to stay alive and for my film not to end up being forgotton too. So if by chance this long winded message gets through to a Ellis fan that can help me with marketing, that is what I need presently.

Thanks again for all your kind thoughts...

John V. / ELECTRIC HEART

E-MAIL: centralhsd@earthlink.net

[sidewinder]

I asked public television to air ELECTRIC HEART and they told me nobody would care about it!

Sorry to hear that - it deserves to be seen. Over in the UK a possible outlet for viewing might be BBC4. Potentially this could fit in well with one of their 'jazz themed' evenings which they do occasionally - or potentially if they were to do an evening/season on big bands. Just a thought - might be worth trying the BBC. Good luck !

[mikeweil]

For France and Germany, ask http://www.arte.tv/de/70.html - they might give it a chance, but it would have to be subtitled in French and Germany, respectively. I'd volunteer to write the German subtitles for a decent fee ...

I think most jazz fans are put off by his totally unprejudiced use of any music form, some sounds corny to the avant-garde guys, some sounds too pop to the straighahead fans ... many musicians are not able to cope with his rhythms. I dunno .... I can't help but think that one factor was that he was white ...

[AndrewHill]

Surprised that art schools and museums wouldn't pick it up. The Ayler film was featured in Cleveland both at the Cinematheque and the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cinematheque also showed a film about free jazz where Don Ayler was in the audience. Maybe the theaters that show independent movies would be a good bet too like the Cedar Lee in Cleveland Heights. I don't know, just brainstormin' aloud.

[AmirBagachelles]

I would try to get distribution with Zappa.com, Dead.net, and Downtown Music Gallery (dtmgallery.com), all fertile hunting ground for electic musical tastes. What about Dusty Groove? I would forget most all retail, other than J&R (NYC) and Amoeba (Calif.), both get nice volume of tourists hungry for jazz product.

[sidewinder]

Downtown Music Gallery (dtmgallery.com

Good suggestion.