The Man With the Multimetered, Microtonal Heart of Jazz

July 25th, 2020. Today marks what would have been the 86th birthday of a composer, educator, bandleader, entertainer, ethnomusicologist, and trumpeter of the highest caliber. This individual devoted his life to the betterment of trumpet, jazz, and all music. I personally feel as though he is one of, if not THE, most innovative musician I've ever heard. He was someone who constantly pushed the boundaries of what was considered "normal" throughout his career. There was not a modality, time signature, or culture that he backed away from incorporating into his music, and with what little time he lived on Earth, he sought to exemplify musical creativity and imagination. In my time thus far as a music student, I've spent hours listening to, researching, and practicing music of the great and well-known musicians that made music what it is. However, today I want to take a moment to share with you a musician who, while not incredibly well-known, made incredible impacts in the field of music. A musician who at the time of his prevalence, was often viewed as eccentric, or too "out there." A musician that accomplished things half a century ago that no other artist has accomplished to this day. For those of you close to me, at this point you probably already know who I'm speaking of, as I've spent the past few years listening to, analyzing, and researching him in an effort to not only increase awareness of his works among others and myself, but to better my own musicianship. The man I'm talking about is Don Ellis. Don Ellis graduated from Boston University in 1956 with a music composition degree, and quickly got his first job with the Glenn Miller Band. In 1958, after being stationed in Germany for 2 years with the army, Ellis came home to begin the life of a professional trumpet player. He briefly toured with Maynard Ferguson in the Spring of 1959 before moving to NYC and getting involved in the avant-garde jazz scene. During his time experimenting in various ensembles around town, he appeared on albums by Charles Mingus, Eric Dolphy, and George Russell. Ellis spent 2 years in Russell's sextet during which time he easily picked up and incorporated the bandleader's theory of "Lydian Chromaticism." Russell spoke very highly of Ellis, saying that while many members of the group could not adhere to the stylistic traits of the Lydian Chromaticism in his writing, Ellis understood both the jazz idiom and Russell's theory enough to competently improvise alongside Russell. In 1964, Ellis began his graduate studies at UCLA in ethnomusicology where he studied with Indian musician Harirar Rao. Greatly inspired by Rao, 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." Ellis wrote numerous articles and several books over the years pertaining to aspects of music about which he became increasingly knowledgeable. "The New Rhythm," published in 1972, presents methods of practice and performance in unusual meters and features a play-along LP/cassette entitled "New Rhythms." His second book, "Quarter Tones," published in 1975, is a theoretical guide to more eloquently use quarter tones. Both books provide a great deal of historical, cultural, and theoretical significance to their subjects. He also composed several supplemental etudes and exercises to aid readers' understanding of these complex topics. The Don Ellis Library Collection resides in the Ethnomusicology Archives at UCLA and contains not only the aforementioned documents but many other manuscripts, articles, books, compositions, and several works by, about, or otherwise related to Ellis. "If one takes all the styles in [Western] jazz from the earliest beginnings to the latest experiments, he still has a rather limited scope when compared to the rest of music in the world." - Don Ellis With Rao's help, Ellis established The Hindustani Jazz Sextet, which featured his mentor Rao. Ellis continued writing arrangements for and performing with this ensemble, and soon transformed it into The Don Ellis Orchestra. Following the rebranding, the group played every Monday night for almost a year at Club Havana in Hollywood. After gaining a small following, some of the members began a successful letter-writing campaign that resulted in an invitation to the 1966 Monterey Jazz Festival, which would truly spring forward Ellis' career. The Don Ellis Orchestra was very different from other ensembles not only due to its instrumentation, but due to its incorporation of Eastern musical elements into modern jazz music. Drawing from his compositional and arranging experience, as well as from his studies of Indian music, Ellis began to write charts with time signatures and modalities similar to the music he studied with Rao. As Ellis' ethnomusicological interests expanded to include Eurasian folk music, such as that of Greece, Bulgaria, and Turkey, so too did the time signatures and microtonality in his compositions. To further his constant implementation of unique rhythm and tonality, Ellis consistently experimented with electronics and new, unique instruments throughout his career. His pianist used the Fender-Rhodes electric piano, clavinet, and electric harpsichord. He began adding a string quartet to his orchestra which were amplified using newly developed microphones/rigs so that they could be heard over the horns. Ellis explained, "People spend whole evenings listening to a brass quintet, a woodwind or string quartet, so I reasoned that having ALL of these in the context of a big band should give us a fantastic variety of colors from which to draw." Ellis himself started using what he called the "electrophonic trumpet," which is a trumpet amplified and often routed through various effect processors or producers. Among these were an Echoplex and a Ring Modulator, the latter of which was built for him by Tom Oberheim. In his attempt to further fuse the tonalities of the West and East, he worked with Holton to customize a new type of trumpet. In September 1965, he unveiled Holton's first quarter tone trumpet, which featured an additional fourth valve enabling it to produce quartertones. To briefly explain quarter tones to those unfamiliar with them, it is a type of microtonality that lends itself well to incorporation in Western equal temperament. Whereas Western equal temperament divides the octave into 12 pitches that we refer to as being minor 2nds, or, "half steps" apart, quarter tonality further bifurcates the 12 into 24 pitches between the octaves allowing the musician to play "the notes in between the notes." Ellis' involvement with avant-garde Western composers as well as traditional Eastern composers further necessitated the construction of the quarter tone trumpet. The final two unique instruments in Ellis' collection worth noting were the Holton TR-395 "Superbone" and the Holton ST-302/303 "Firebird" (my personal fave). These were instruments which combined the valves of a trumpet with the slide of a trombone allowing for enhanced effects and accessibility to microtonality. "Why should a craftsman not make use of all his tools if they will promote greater communication and expressiveness? This is not to deny that beautiful things can be fashioned out of very modest means, but what objection can there be towards an artist trying to be more resourceful?" - Don Ellis All of these unusual elements combined to create a musical experience unlike anything the audience at the aforementioned 1966 Monterey Jazz Festival had ever seen or heard. Following the feedback and commercial success of this live performance, Ellis was launched into the height of his career. After nearly a decade of album releases, California-based performances, and multinational tours, Ellis had to postpone many of his musical pursuits due to health problems. Following a particular instance in which he felt "out of breath after walking up a single flight of stairs," he checked himself in at 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. He was prescribed medication and was instructed to return home to Los Angeles and take a break. Unfortunately, he started feeling strange again and went to a local hospital where he was then diagnosed with an atrial septal defect. More tests were run and finally a third and more severe diagnosis was made: cardiomyopathy. Ellis was prescribed an increasing number of pharmaceuticals, but his condition continued to worsen until he went into ventricular fibrillation early one morning in May 1975. Doctors struggled to keep him alive following this heart attack, but managed to save him. In a short matter of time, he recovered and was released. By 1976, Ellis returned to the music scene although, much of this part of his career is undocumented in part due to his hiatus. Ellis' last known public performance took place on April 21, 1978, in Century City, Los Angeles. After this, his doctor ordered him to refrain from touring and playing trumpet because of the stress it caused on his heart. On December 17, 1978, at only 44 years old, Ellis suffered a fatal cardiac-arrhythmic heart attack at his North Hollywood home. Don Ellis left behind a legacy of innovations and enhancements to the world of music, the likes of which had never before been seen and have not to this day been replicated. He left behind his music that, while sometimes sounding as though it was about to fall apart, truly demonstrates the power of music to bring cultures and people of different identities together. "To be a true artist you have to play the way you feel - not the way others think you should feel." - Don Ellis "The virtuosity of one's own musicianship measures not one's talent, creativity, or artistry, but the level of eloquence with which one can communicate and share the gift of music to others." - Andrew Wilson