{"id":10997,"date":"2019-03-16T14:30:48","date_gmt":"2019-03-16T21:30:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/?p=10997"},"modified":"2019-03-19T08:13:09","modified_gmt":"2019-03-19T15:13:09","slug":"a-reader-remembers-don-ellis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/2019\/03\/a-reader-remembers-don-ellis\/","title":{"rendered":"A Reader Remembers Don Ellis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In response to yesterday\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s <em>Mikrojazz!<\/em>&#8221;\u00a0review, reader Richard Weyuker wrote:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>&#8220;I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m surprised that you left Don Ellis off of your list of musicians who experimented with quarter-tones. He had a specially-constructed four valve quarter-tone trumpet. I think that at one point, his entire trumpet section played these.&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/Don-Ellis.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-5605\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/Don-Ellis.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"259\" height=\"194\" \/><\/a>Thanks to Mr. Weyuker for recalling the remarkable Don Ellis (1934-1978). Ellis was a virtuoso trumpeter who led a big band that thrived on innovation not only in the use of quarter tones but also the incorporation of a wide range of time signatures uncommon in jazz and such instruments \u00e2\u20ac\u201c unusual in the \u00e2\u20ac\u212260s and \u00e2\u20ac\u212270s \u00e2\u20ac\u201c as ring modulators, phasers, the clavinet and the Fender-Rhodes piano. Here is the Ellis band at Tanglewood in 1968 playing \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Indian Lady.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/l8Qy7YhFeeQ\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Don Ellis\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s early death created an absence still felt in adventuresome jazz circles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In response to yesterday\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Mikrojazz!&#8221;\u00a0review, reader Richard Weyuker wrote: &#8220;I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m surprised that you left Don Ellis off of your list of musicians who experimented with quarter-tones. He had a specially-constructed four valve quarter-tone trumpet. I think that at one point, his entire trumpet section played these.&#8221; Thanks to Mr. Weyuker for recalling the remarkable Don [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5605,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-10997","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-main","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}