Connection: Liner Notes

[liner notes are for educational use only]

Of his own orchestra, Don Ellis says: "We went through a heavy rock phase, but now we're getting into new colors. By early 1971, I felt I had explored as much as possible within the standard orchestral framework, even with the electronics; so I added a string quartet, which helped to mellow the sound of the band when necessary, and transformed the saxes into a woodwind quintet. We don't need three basses anymore because everyone plays electric nowadays, so I switched to just one Fender player. I'm enjoying all the challenges of this revised instrumentation."

It is safe to assume that in the years immediately ahead, Ellis will continue to acquire new knowledge and impart it to a growing audience wherever jazz is heard. Toward the end of the 1960's, I ventured to prophesy that Ellis would become the Stan Kenton of the 1970's. To a substantial degree, that prediction has already been borne out.

-Leonard Feather, "From Satchmo to Miles"

After all those exploratory years in search of himself, Don Ellis seems at last to have found a definable image, one to which every audience can relate.

You will find its reflection on these sides, not only in the echoplex and wah-wah effects on Roundabout and Good-bye to Love, but in the instrumentation (discussed by Don in the quote above) and in the overall spirit of this unique orchestra.

Don, and the gifted writers who supplement his own contributions to the band's library, would appear to have found an elusive formula that can communicate to almost any listener. He has incorporated his own sounds and concepts, without any commercial compromise, into television and motion pictures (check the track here from his brilliant "French Connection" score); he has taken the word into innumerable clinics, showing the school and college audiences where it's at from his all-encompassing viewpoint.

Perhaps the most encouraging aspect of the Ellis philosophy is that in exploring the future, he has neither abandoned the present nor broken his ties with the past. There is an almost Bacharach-like melodic quality to the theme as he outlines it in Hank Levy's Chain Reaction. The protean Milcho Leviev, who gets my vote for Bulgarian Jazz Pianist of the Month, supplies a gospel touch as Bill Withers' Lean on Me gets under way. There are many more such roots from which the Ellis branches grow.

Don has begun to gain a corollary reputation as a discoverer or developer of talent. In addition to Levy and Leviev (the latter's arrangement of Superstar is a highlight of the album), there is now Dick Halligan, who finds in the orchestra a palette for broader textural concepts than were available to him in his Blood, Sweat & Tears days. Halligan has fashioned a brilliant original work in Train to Get There (with some Ellis overdubbing). His arrangement of a Carole King song offers pulsating evidence of how that sensitive lady really felt the earth move.

Whether the source of the music lies within the band or derives from such groups such as Yes (Fred Selden's reshaping of Roundabout) or Procol Harum (Hank Levy's treatment of Conquistador), everything the band now plays has the Ellis imprimatur. Perhaps my prediction should now be adjusted: he is the Don Ellis of the 1970's, rather than a shadow or echo of anyone else, and that in itself is identity enough.

-Leonard Feather