don ellis project
In high school, I was introduced to the music of Don Ellis. It has been a lifelong love affair since. His music and aesthetic struck a chord–no pun intended–in me that has influenced much of who I am as a musician today.
Most of you will likely not have heard of Don Ellis. (For those who are curious, here is a nice Wikipedia entry. It describes the wide range of his contributions and advancements to jazz and to big bands.) He died in 1978 at the young age of 44 due to a congenital heart condition. But before he did, I reached out and befriended him. It was a mild friendship of only a few years, but he knew me at sight and would write me little notes whenever I requested materials from his secretary.
Unless you are one of the most famous jazz musicians, once you pass, it is extremely easy to fall off the map of cultural awareness and appreciation. For a period after Don died, I assumed others closely related to him and who worked with him would continue to carry the torch and perpetuate his legacy. There were a couple efforts that came and went quickly. I saw that Don’s music was in danger of becoming forgotten. So I figured, what the hell, why shouldn’t I try since no one else was having any success?
Since then, I have employed a multi-pronged approach. ● I have been responsible for many of his albums getting a re-release on CD, often with new liner notes by myself. ● I also produced a live octet recording of Don at UCLA that had only partially been released on cassette and 8-track. The new recording (‘Pieces of Eight’) was the full concert. And I partnered with Don’s pianist and good friend, Milcho Leviev, to record an album of solo piano music of Don’s music (‘Multiple Personalities’)–many pieces which had never been recorded before.● I started the Don Ellis Critical Editions that are published through UNC Jazzpress. It is an ongoing series of various titles that I have prepared and annotated. Until now, they have been full sets of materials: full score, parts, and annotation list. I will soon be expanding the series to include titles with full score and annotations only. This is for compositions that may be of scholarly interest to individuals, but have practical limitations for performance. ● I started a YouTube channel of recordings of Don’s band, or his music, that had not been released commercially.● I administer a Facebook group– the Don Ellis Appreciation Society–that brings together fans and alumni to discuss and share Don’s music.● I have a large library of Ellis material and help disseminate it to others–at a nominal cost–worldwide for their Ellis endeavors. This is due to the limited resources at UCLA, which houses the Ellis archive. Material used to be available at a rather high duplicating cost and with a long wait time due to minimal staff availability. Now, in the interest of preserving the original materials from further degradation through excessive handling, materials are no longer available through the archive.● I serve as an advisor and clinician to others’ Ellis concerts and projects.● I have assisted in identifying and editing the content of the Ellis recordings on the Internet Archive. These were uploaded by the UCLA Ethnomusicology archive department–where Don’s collection is housed. It contains recordings and videos of various concerts that Don had in his personal collection. It is limited to California concerts due to the stipulations of the grant that made the public archiving possible in the first place.● Not least, I was enlisted by several key alumni members of the band to assist with assembling the music materials, guest solo, and lead the band itself, for various concerts.
It is my hope that the combination of these various efforts–mine and those of others worldwide–will help to establish Don as the true innovator in the development of jazz that I believe he was. It is also my hope that future recordings and concerts will also emerge and be more common, and that Don’s music becomes part of the standard jazz literature.
It is my hope that the combination of these various efforts–mine and those of others worldwide–will help to establish Don as the true innovator in the development of jazz that I believe he was. It is also my hope that future recordings and concerts will also emerge and be more common, and that Don’s music becomes part of the standard jazz literature.
nick, peter erskine, david crigger
THe band after the show!
Don Ellis Tribute Band Alumni members, Los Angeles
jimbo ross and Nick
Don Ellis Tribute Band, Los Angeles, CA
panel discussion
L.A. Jazz Institute "Groovin' Hard" festival.
Los Angeles, CA, October 13, 2012
L-R: Nick, Alan Kaplan, Rich Bullock, Jack Coan, Jimbo Ross, Ted Nash, Paula Hochhalter, Sidney Muldrow, Ann Patterson, David Crigger