Where to Start Your Don Ellis LP/CD Collection

Don Ellis could have been a household name

Don Ellis (1934-1978) is easily one of the most underrated musicians in jazz history. A gifted trumpeter and big band leader, as well as an in demand film score composer.

Don scored the music for the William Friedkin masterpiece The French Connection.

I discovered Don through a series of albums I happened on in a bargain bin at a local used book store.

As it turned out, Electric Bath and Tears of Joy still are the quintessential albums to start with in my mind.

Of course you'll want more Ellis music with out a doubt, most of the Pacific Jazz live albums are fantastic, and the albums from the 70's like Shock treatment, The Connection, and At the Fillmore are equally as good.

Connection is more of a cover album, meaning Don is basically forced to play Columbia back catalog stuff, so he can include his own material on the albums. Everything is expertly played though, might be good place for the rock fan to get their foot into progressive big band jazz.

There is very little known by the general public about Don Ellis, worse yet, outside of jazz Don is merely a blurb on the Internet Movie Database for the aforementioned French Connection soundtrack. 

Electric Bath: 1968

 Electric Bath was the 1968 breakthrough album from Don Ellis, an album that was nominated for a Grammy award. It won the "Album of the year award "in Down Beat Magazine's Poll, and went to #8 on the Billboard Jazz album chart.

"Indian Lady" is the most famous tune from the album, with "New Horizons" and "Turkish Bath" close behind. One of the real groundbreaking songs was "Open Beauty," a spacey psychedelic type tune, with echo-plexed electronic trumpet, a real experimental feat for the time, especially on a big band jazz record.

The whole album is very cohesive, swinging like crazy, and incorporating the Indian and middle eastern musical influences Don was into at this time.

"Indian Lady" from Electric Bath

 

Tears of Joy: 1971

All of Don's Columbia albums are worth tracking down. Tears of Joy really is a diverse orchestra album, the sound quality is OK "a live album", not the best sound of all-time, but the performances are really top notch.

Tears of Joy would be the perfect example of why I love having a turntable, you can find all of these if you shop, around at very affordable prices, many times far cheaper than the out of print Compact Discs.

I purchased excellent condition copies of all of Don's Columbia albums for less the 30 bucks! Electric Bath, Shock Treatment, Connection, Underground, Tears of Joy, Autumn, and At the Fillmore.

I have every Vinyl LP Don Ellis ever released. Including some of the earlier 60's Albums. I didn't spend more than than 100 dollars on his entire discography.

I shop around, patience is the key, it is a buyers market. If you're new to record collecting, I would suggest looking for the grade of VG+ at a minimum, look for mention of deep scratches, always stay away from those.

I can not Tell you How cool it is to spin that original vinyl, and see that big original art work. The CD booklet just does not have the same emotional attachment at all.

"Strawberry Soup" from Tears of Joy

 

Soaring: 1973

As much as I like Electric Bath and Tears of Joy, Soaring is really the pinnacle of Don Ellis' orchestra music. I think all 3 with Soaring included, would be a great 3 pack to get started with The band.

The big upgrade here over the live Tears of Joy is the sound quality for one thing, that Tears of Joy really suffers from some average to below average production. It's not horrible, but compared to the crisp studio production of Soaring, it's quite noticeable.

The killer Hank Levy vehicle "Whiplash" Opens the album, and you can check that out below, I just love the mood of the piece, it has that fantastic 70's police thriller style, not unlike Ellis' own French Connection score. Levy was really a master at those odd time signature things, I'm not music theorist, but I know he makes complex ideas musically sound palatable.

The sultry "Nicole" and the multi hued "Invincible" add a depth that pushes the boundaries of big band jazz, Boy Don sure plays well on Soaring, his trumpet was so underrated, I bet if Don had gone on to Blue Note after his early George Russell Days (Ezz-thetics), and went the hard bop small group route, Don could have been a mega trumpet star in my mind.

Well, Don is already a trumpet star and band leader for those in the know. Damn it! I wish there was more Don Ellis music to listen to. These 3 albums highlighted here should get you off and running.

"Whiplash" 

*Intro photo used with permission via Amazon.com*