Electric Heart

It was 1970 or 1971 when I stumbled onto KQED-TV's feature on Don Ellis and his orchestra performing his New Horizons at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. This was broadcast on our local affiliate of West Virginia public television and I had somehow missed the credits. Had no idea what I just seen or heard. But it grabbed me at that first hearing and I'd spend the next forty-five years trying to find out what it was. Google and PBS's web site to the rescue! The DVD starts with a series of interviews from those who knew Ellis and admired both his adventurous aesthetic and his personality. Some good music interspersed here in brief clips filmed live at jazz festivals from the late 1960s. Also included are some trailers for additional documentaries on such artists as Joe Zawinul. I haven't explored those yet.But it was the DVD "Bonus" feature that made this purchase worth the price for me. There in all their monaural glory were Ellis and his orchestra performing tracks from his "Electric Bath" album, starting with the remarkable 17/4 (or 17/8?) "New Horizons." This was what had so affected me forty-five years ago.The video quality is about what you'd expect from tapes that are almost a half-century old. We're fortunate that some few of them have survived and remained (mostly) playable. The audio is monaural and the museum acoustics must have been pretty "live." Add to that the fact that Ellis had nearly his entire ensemble miked with each section outfitted with multiple amps and speakers. The balance is not always ideal and the percussion instruments sometimes overwhelm the rest of the orchestra. And there a few dropouts here and there. But this is a minor quibble. The music sounds pretty darn good considering the venue and the age of the tapes, the orchestra plays with palpable energy, and Ellis's mastery of his instrument and those "alien" time signatures (think northern Africa, the Indian Subcontinent, the peasant dances of the Balkans) is without equal. If you're like me and groove to the rhythms of Bartok's more energetic music, there's nothing in Ellis that you'll find off-putting. On the more reflective side, the ascending stacked fifths in "Open Beauty" are reminiscent of the haunting string chorale that opens the second movement of Bartok's second piano concerto. And the musicians seem able to swing in just about any meter, be it 17, 7 ... whatever. I'd recommend this to anyone who is curious about Ellis and his experiments with world music and who wonders, as I do, why his name is so-little recognized.But please don't hold the outfits he and his musicians wear against us baby-boomers. It was the Sixties, after all. Yahadta be there.

The main documentary has interviews with some of Ellis's bandmates and Maynard Ferguson. It's mostly about Ellis' music career with not too much personal bio included. Not the best video quality on some of the rare clips from TV broadcasts and all that but the sound quality of the music is quite good. The real treat here is in the extra features, a performance of the best 1960's Ellis band at its absolute peak recorded in a San Francisco museum. This concert is mind-blowing. One of the most incredibly virtuosic bands you will ever hear. This concert alone is worth the price of admission many times over. It's no wonder that some of Ellis' musicians such as Ralph Humphrey later went on to play with Zappa.

Very well done..! One of the most creative and innovative composers in the history of jazz. It was a pleasant surprise to be able to buy this piece of history. Definitely a must-have for Don Ellis fans.

Disappointing. I've been a big fan for most of my life, and I was eager to play this for my wife, to give her a better sense of the enormous genius inside the man and his music. This video--a loose collection of video scraps haphazardly arranged--didn't do it.. To be fair, I only watched it once and even then I turned it off w/o finishing it. Want to know more about Don? Go to Youtube. There's an amazing amount of material--live concerts, recordings, etc. Search "Don Ellis new horizons" and see a video of the orchestra recording session. Great stuff

Wonderful story of a great musician/band leader who has been basically unknown since his death. I've loved his music,and now I'm finally learning more about his life.

Good Bio of a very talented and innovative musician. He needs to be remembered.

Amazing piece of history. I've been listening since the 70's.

Outstanding.

Fascinating insight into the man and the music and his amazing musicians. Sketchy in parts due to lack of archive material of the required technical quality, but if you enjoy the wide range of music that Don Ellis produced, you'll enjoy this

Extraordinary documentary of an extraordinary musician and person. Highly recommended for ANYONE wanting to know about the wealth and genius of music in our lives. How the excitement and adventerousness of the man and his band touched so many lives is only hinted at here. Having seen the band twice live while a music student I can only say that the players' recollections of the band never having been recorded well are right on! How would the recording methods of the day possibly capture that sound...that energy???? Any music lover would be intrigued by the cutting edge, open minded, open hearted way in which Don embraced ALL musical ideas as just MUSIC! This is a don't miss! Smile and enjoy the joy in it!

Don Ellis at last remembered on this dvd. The most inventive and also most forgotten trumpetplayer/bandleader/composer of the sisxties and seventies. The jazz after bebop is not always about Coltrane, Miles and those who came after, but also in a very high degree about Don Ellis.The man was simply outstandling. His band likewise. It is a great mystery that nobody else followed in his or his band steps after his untimely death. With one exception. There is a german mostly amateur big band who plays his works like Indian Lady and Turkish Bath on youtube, in a way hat sure makes Don smile up above.

ok

no good poor picture