Search - Don Ellis :: Electric Bath

Good, Clean Fun

El Lagarto | Sandown, NH | 07/17/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"When trumpeter-composer-arranger-bandleader Don Ellis and his 21-piece assault force stepped on stage at the '65 Monterey Jazz Festival, they dragged the big band format into the modern era. The golden age of big bands, roughly framed by World War II, was well over. Duke Ellington and Count Basie, though active, were simply refining a style perfected years before.



Young Turks like Buddy Rich and Maynard Ferguson, with whom Ellis apprenticed, reinvigorated the format but did not reinvent it. Their modernized spin on big band jazz will forever be defined, sadly, by the unmistakably slick, processed delivery of Johnny Carson's Tonight Show orchestra. Outside the walls there was a musical revolution going on; Ellis and crew were first to hit the street and help storm the barricades.



Electric Bath, recorded in 1967, showcased a relentless creativity which, when combined with precision playing and unbelievable energy levels, delivered something totally new - and wild. The Ellis Orchestra fused rock with jazz, boasted truly bizarre and technically dazzling time signatures, introduced exotic musical influences that added an otherworldly quality, and played with joyful exuberance. Ellis could show off with the best of them, using a four-valve trumpet to split notes into quartertones, bending and teasing with the panache of a rock guitarist.



The Don Ellis Orchestra was masterful at making the most of dynamics; they went from poignant, soft, and gentle to hurricane velocity with effortless ease. As a bandleader, Ellis was exacting, he had to be, when you've got 21 guys playing in 19/4 time there's little margin for error. In this regard, Ellis was a marvelous anomaly; he combined the fearless experimentation of the late 60's with a rigorous discipline conspicuously absent from most of what was in the air back then.



Discovering a more scintillating, groundbreaking CD than Electric Bath by The Don Ellis Orchestra is certainly possible, but far from easy. It is perhaps a notch below Tears Of Joy, the DEO 2-CD masterwork. But comparing the two is rather like asking which is the better Vermeer, View Of Delft or Girl With A Pearl Earring? Once you've hit that level of quality, who cares?"

A Revelation to a Generation

A. Powell | Fort Collins, CO | 02/23/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I was 17 in 1967 when I first heard this. It's the kind of album that stopped me dead in my tracks, and I thought "I didn't know you could DO that!" This was a real departure from the music of its time in terms of the use of electronics, unusual time signatures, and tricking your ear into expecting one musical idiom, then giving you something complete different - and you didn't mind at all.



This is one that should be in every jazz fan's collection."

One for the ages!

pjimmy | Poway, CA USA | 04/21/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"For anyone who wants course credit in "Don Ellis 101", Electric Bath is required study material.



I was 14 in 1969, and after being blown away at one of his performances at a local jazz festival, I proceeded at warp factor one (remember the era folks) to the record store and bought the first Ellis LP I got my hands on, which was Electric Bath. I played that sucker until it literally wore out (much to the joy and relief of my parents)!



Needless to say when the I found out the CD was available, I wasted no time in starting a new CD collection of his work starting with this gem!



As for the album, the following words come to mind: genius, energy, emotion, power, joy, and fun!



Yes, Don Ellis made jazz fun!



Give it a listen, and if you're not reaching for a metaphoric cigarette when it's over, check for a pulse!



It's sad to learn about his death at age 44. I guess it's true about the old saying: "the light that burns twice as bright lasts half as long.""