52 Facts About Don Ellis

Donald Johnson Ellis was an American jazz trumpeter, drummer, composer, and bandleader.

Don Ellis is best known for his extensive musical experimentation, particularly in the area of time signatures.

Don Ellis's father was a Methodist minister and his mother a church organist.

Don Ellis graduated from Boston University in 1956 with a music composition degree.

Don Ellis stayed with the band until September 1956, when he joined the US Army's Seventh Army Symphony Orchestra and the Soldiers' Show Company.

Don Ellis was able to get some work, but mainly with dance bands and other local work.

Don Ellis toured briefly with bandleader Charlie Barnet and joined the Maynard Ferguson band in spring of 1959.

Shortly thereafter, Don Ellis became involved in the New York City avant-garde jazz scene.

Under his own name, Don 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.

On 3 June 1962, Don Ellis performed the jazz liturgy Evensong, composed by Edgar Summerlin.

In October 1962, Don Ellis traveled to Poland to take part in the 1962 Jazz Jamboree in Warsaw; his quartet performance was partially documented on a Polish-only 10-inch EP.

Don Ellis chronicled his experience in an article called Warsaw Diary, which was printed in the January 3rd, 1963 issue of DownBeat magazine.

In December, Don Ellis participated in the NDR Jazz Workshop in Hamburg, Germany, and in early 1963, traveled to Stockholm, Sweden.

Back in New York, Don Ellis formed the Improvisational Workshop Orchestra, which gave its debut performance on February 10,1963 at the Five Spot.

In 1964, Don Ellis began graduate studies in ethnomusicology at UCLA where he studied with Indian musician Harihar Rao.

Greatly inspired by Rao, Don 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".

Don 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.

Don Ellis 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".

The Don Ellis Orchestra was different from most other big bands in several ways; most obviously in its instrumentation, but in Ellis's incorporation of Indian musical elements into modern big-band writing.

Don Ellis had a customized trumpet made for him by the Holton company, which he received in September 1965.

Don 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.

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.

Accordingly, Don Ellis taught many clinics and played with many school bands.

In May 1971, Don Ellis added a string quartet to the Orchestra.

Don Ellis hired Bulgarian piano virtuoso Milcho Leviev who was able to improvise fluently in time signatures that would initially be intimidating to most American improvisers.

Don Ellis was an important asset to Ellis's band, and stayed with Ellis for five years.

Around this time, Don Ellis was approached by film director William Friedkin to compose the music to his film The French Connection.

Don Ellis accepted the project and wrote the music to be performed by his own Orchestra.

Don Ellis later won a Grammy for this project, and was asked to write the music to the film's sequel, French Connection II in 1975.

The arrangements were generally tongue in cheek; often Don Ellis arranged them in different meters than the original, or arranged for the melody to be played in a humorous way.

In 1974, Don Ellis became interested in the music of Brazil, even studying Portuguese so as to better communicate with indigenous musicians.

Don Ellis led a live band around this time called the Organic Band, which was a stripped-down version of the Orchestra that had no electronic instrumentation or modification.

Don Ellis checked himself into a hospital in New York City where a doctor diagnosed him with mitral stenosis, a condition which caused his heart to beat in odd rhythms.

Don Ellis was prescribed medication and went home to Los Angeles.

Don Ellis was prescribed more drugs, but his condition worsened and he went into ventricular fibrillation early one morning in May 1975.

In 1977, Don Ellis was signed to Atlantic Records, which promised to fund the Orchestra's upcoming trip for the band's performance at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Montreux, Switzerland in exchange for a live recording of said performance.

Don Ellis had to do this before his band left to perform in Montreux in about a week.

Don Ellis's last known public performance took place on April 21,1978, at the Westside Room in Century City.

On December 17,1978, after seeing a Jon Hendricks concert, Don Ellis suffered a fatal heart attack at his North Hollywood home where his parents were staying with him.

Don Ellis was buried in the Sheltering Hills section of Forest Lawn Memorial Park, in Hollywood Hills, California.

Don Ellis had a strong influence on those with whom he worked.

Former sideman Stu Blumberg credited Don Ellis for preparing him for the idiosyncrasies of unconventional music in film soundtracks.

Don Ellis's second book, Quarter Tones, published in 1975, is a theoretical guide to using quarter tones.

Don Ellis's pianist started using the Fender-Rhodes electric piano, clavinet, and electric harpsichord.

Don Ellis himself started using what he called the "electrophonic trumpet"; that is, a trumpet whose sound was amplified and often routed through various effects processors.

The first appearance of this innovation is on "Open Beauty" from 1967's Electric Bath, in which Don Ellis takes an extended solo with his trumpet being processed through an echoplex.

Don Ellis used the ring modulator on several occasions, which was built for him by Tom Oberheim.

In 1968, Don Ellis replaced his double bassists with a single electric bassist, at first Joe Julian, then Dennis Parker, and finally Dave McDaniel.

Don Ellis hired guitarist Jay Graydon who remained with the band for several years.

In 1971, for the Tears of Joy tour, Don Ellis added a string quartet to his band.

Don Ellis began playing two new instruments, the superbone and the firebird, which were a combination valve-slide trombone and trumpet, respectively.