On Music

...Louis Blues...

...Somewhat less robust versions of these pieces can be heard on the band's first disc, recorded in the studio, Presenting Thad Jones, Mel Lewis & "The Jazz Orchestra" (SS 18003...

...And nobody wants to leave...

...Brother Hank Jones' "A' That's Freedom" features the trombones in some punching stomp figures...

...By playing a note, waiting for its return on the tape echo, and then playing another over it, he builds up chords...

...To the man who once called the late Henry "Red" Allen "the most avant garde trumpet player in New York," these effects are obviously worthwhile...

...As disc jockey Ed Beach remarks in his exuberant liner notes, Mel Lewis' drumming provides tasteful and forceful support throughout, especially in the final extension of the theme...

...The possibilities for varying instrumental texture are endless...

...trumpeter Ellis' tone and attack leave clarity to be desired...

...certainly it is very different from the kind of slick boredom projected by the Basie organization, from which Thad came...

...After the increasingly complex interplay and counterpoint resolves, Ellis plays a series of remarkable canons with himself by means of a tape delay echo chamber...

...The reeds are prominent in this piece, with solos by Joe Farrell (tenor), Jerry Dodgion (alto), Eddie Daniels (clarinet), Pepper Adams (baritone), and finally Jerome Richardson, here playing vigorous soprano sax...

...From the Ellis records, it is clear that what has still not been achieved is the kind of spontaneity with control that characterizes the music of Jones-Lewis...

...Nevertheless, the disc by and large succeeds, thanks to some ingenious writing, powerfully played ensembles, and the fact that eight of the 21 band members sit in the rhythm section (four percussionists, three bassists, one pianist...

...Yet this is a group that constantly prods itself into new variations on its presumed cliches, head-arrangements like an impromptu blues in B-flat, or head riffs behind the soloist, who may also evoke cries, claps and hollers from the other members...

...Thad's "Little Pixie" is one of the highpoints, with its opening ensemble of tightly voiced reeds, muted brasses and far-out syncopation...

...With Electric Bath, released in March of this year, the group adds more novelties and paradoxically achieves greater depth and polish...

...Jerome Richardson, for example, developed the Parker sound with great creative energy...

...Joe Roccisano's soprano sax work is admirable, and all the solos are filigreed into shifting ensemble patterns...

...These now include amplified trumpets, saxes and flutes, and two amplified keyboard instruments: a Fender piano, "basically an electrified clavichord," and a clavinet, which sounds like a denser version of an electric guitar...

...Released about six months ago, Thad Jones and Mel Lewis: Live at the Village Vanguard (SS 18016) is the band's most representative disc...

...Based on reverberating, open fifths throughout, it develops from the eery and delicate tracery of Mike Lang's Fender piano to antiphonal statements by Don's trumpet and various sectional and solo voices...

...The band's book has grown steadily, owing to the efforts of Thad and trombonists Garnett Brown and Bob Brookmeyer, who have written and arranged most of the tunes...

...for Ellis was then relying heavily on unconventional meters for innovation...

...Part samba, part rock, and part jazz," says Ellis, it is also a driving, rhythmically integrated work that builds to a startling percussion display before the wrap-up chorus...

...There are more substantial and challenging arrangements, much firmer solos and section work, and increased facility with unusual meters, indicating that the band has been rehearsing extensively, besides perfecting its ability to make use of all the electronic goodies at its disposal...

...The structural base is extended, too, through harmonic devices like Ellis' quarter-tone trumpet (with four valves) and experimental approaches to composition...

...Also happily absent from Jones-Lewis, especially when it plays on its home ground, is the sometimes perceptible stiffness of other, newish big bands like Gerald Wilson's or Buddy Rich's...

...Ruben Leon's soprano sax meanderings are competent but dull...

...He has willingly exchanged spontaneous swing for a new rhythmic variety, head arrangements for structural control, and the kitchen for the recording studio...

...Here, between sets, leader Thad laughs with friends, arranges for recordings, dispenses vodka, and receives the press...

...Everybody seems to hear the Kenton influence in this band, but I would suggest that Jaki Byard, from Don's New York days, often figures just as strongly: Listen to "New Horizons...

...Thad and Mel have enrolled men like Richard Davis—young, black, and probably the most proficient and advanced of modern jazz bassists?and Cliff Heather, who looks like Senator Paul Douglas and gave up playing trombone with Andre Kos-telanetz-type orchestras to come to this band...

...Ellis' is also fundamentally a rehearsal band—for three years it has been playing Monday night sessions to fascinated audiences at Shelly's Manne Hole and other Hollywood clubs—but its emphasis is on a more radical experimentation with unusual rhythmic effects and time signatures, Eastern music, rock and, lately, electronics...

...It seems fair to say that after the interludes of talk and strong drink, the music improves noticeably...

...Last summer Pacific Jazz issued Live in Three and Two-Thirds Quarter Time (ST 20123), the best example of the Ellis group in its pre-electronic stage...

...In another interim discussion, Thad expressed some thoughts on the new Don Ellis Orchestra...

...Fighting clear of the sullen, dissonant ensemble and the aimless complexities of the writing, the soloists took off, each exploring echoes and suggestions of a particular great jazz instrumentalist...

...They generally provide for lots of free-swinging solos in the context of crisp, often intricately demanding ensemble writing...

...These 17 are among New York's top free-lance musicians, and they have managed to get together for over two years now—playing largely for their own kicks to capacity "off-night" crowds, making an occasional date uptown, at Newport, or on the West Coast, and recording for the Solid State label...

...After the solo he played, one had to be content to leave it at that...

...But here, and everywhere on the record, the quality of the solo work diminishes the value of the rest...

...The most impressive piece in the album is "Thetis," scored by Hank Levy, a promising new writer for the orchestra...

...The band may lead off with the swinging, medium-tempo "Three in One," built around the shifting relationships of Davis' bass, Thad's flugel-horn, and Pepper Adams' baritone sax...

...Later, in the kitchen, I told pianist Roland Hanna I had heard Monk in his solo, and he insisted this was impossible because he was quite his own man...

...It sounds as though he were playing ever-expanding duets or trios with himself, and the effect is stunning...

...What it plays is recognizable jazz overlaid with an array of sensitively used electronic effects to create an extended textural medium...

...a new recording in the same surroundings is to be made soon...

...The most striking and original work on the record is Ellis' own composition, "Open Beauty...

...The latest record, Electric Bath (Columbia CS 9585), shows the orchestra now coming into its own as the most interesting and original large contemporary group...

...Ron Myers' "Turkish Bath" creates an uncanny and brilliant theme statement by tuning the four reeds a quarter-tone apart and feeding the resulting discord through amplifiers for the distorted quality of the "Near East" sound...

...Thad's "Don't Git Sassy" highlights the trumpets of Jimmy Nottingham and Snooky Young, with exceptional solo backing by the whole band...

...Such demonstrative musical involvement is rarely seen in big jazz bands that have made it commercially...

...The band is great and Ellis has a lot of discipline, but something's not right yet...

...The album's title suggests the gimmick (why wasn't it called Live in Eleven/ Eight Time...

...He seems to enjoy reworking standards like "Willow Weep for Me" and "St...

...Don Ellis does not use this gadgetry to intensify volume (in fact, the dynamic level seems lower and less harsh than in the preceding disc), but to alter an acoustic instrument's characteristic tone color and decrease its rate of tonal decay...

...A surprising number of them have actually been realized on this first studio recording by the band...

...Again, there is some fine tightly voiced, loosely flowing sax writing before the ensemble tag...

...Max Gordon, the still-genial Vanguard proprietor, tries to get everybody back to the stand for the next set: "Imagine 17 people like this getting together for anything...

...Mel, the drummer-manager, rushes in with checks to be signed and a wad of cash to be distributed...

...The only sour notes in these proceedings are injected by the arrangements of Bob Brookmeyer, which are rhythmically heavy, melodically and texturally clogged?more the pity in that Brookmeyer is a fine soloist and section leader...

...Brookmeyer may have intended this as a capsule "history of jazz" work, but if so, the soloists, not the writing, carried it for him...

...or they may choose "Don't By John Goodman Banding Together Ever Leave Me," a bossa nova ballad full of melodic variety and tone color...

...or he can superimpose melodic lines in the same way...

...The incredible bass of Richard Davis lopes and charges underneath this, while Thad claps and urges everyone on during Roland Hanna's piano choruses...

...But much else has been accomplished...

...The latter, not yet recorded but performed the other night, was an instance of how this band's easy professionalism can overcome intractable material...

...Eddie Harris's "Freedom Dance" is cleverly transposed by Ellis from a four-beat into a seven-beat line...

...and pianist Dave Mackay is trite enough to throw in a quote from "Lullaby of the Leaves...