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| Heroes - John Ellis with Gary Versace, Reuben Rogers, Mike Rodriguez, & Kush Abadey John Ellis devoted his previous Blue Room Music outing, Bizet: Carmen in Jazz, to spirited adaptations and arrangements from that renowned late 19th-century opera. For the follow-up, Heroes, the acclaimed saxophonist and multi-reedist shifts focus back to original music: a program of eight compositions inspired in various ways by mentors, legends, friends, family—"heroes" broadly defined. Pianist Gary Versace and bassist Reuben Rogers, longtime Ellis collaborators who played with characteristic beauty on the Bizet recording, remain in the fold here, joining the extraordinary trumpeter Mike Rodriguez (SFJazz Collective) and the in-demand Kush Abadey (Melissa Aldana, Ethan Iverson) on drums. The lineup in some ways echoes that of Rodriguez's own 2021 quintet release, Pathways, which also featured Ellis and Versace. Ellis embraced the challenge of working in this classic quintet idiom, his first musical love. "I'm 50 years old now, " he says, "and this is the music that got me, that made me want to play jazz for a living. And yet most of the things I've done as a leader are not so directly in this vein." He's alluding, for instance, to genre-defying larger group projects such as The Ice Siren and MOBRO, or the sousaphone-driven Double Wide, which featured Versace on organ. Consider his work as well with Rudy Royston, Alan Ferber, Darcy James Argue, Kendrick Scott, Helen Sung, Michael Leonhart and other major jazz composers of our time: Ellis has explored many musical worlds, yet the sax/trumpet quintet model endures in his imagination, impelling him and the band toward a broad and swinging lyricism. A rural North Carolina native, Ellis came of age musically in New Orleans, so those experiences inform the tenorist's writing as well. Speaking of the tenor: Ellis is a proficient doubler, mastering bass clarinet, excelling on soprano sax, even ocarina, and yet Heroes is a tenor showcase straight through. Rodriguez, however, gets roughly equal solo and lead melody room on the album. There's a fullness in the Ellis-Rodriguez unison sound, in the way they blend this music's lush harmonies, almost conjuring the illusion of a larger band. "Slingshot, " in a propulsive 5/4, leads off with an evocation of the tale of David and Goliath. Yet there's more: "This is a tune written on a tune that was written on a tune, " Ellis reveals. "One of Mike's mentors in Florida is pianist Ron Miller, who has a song called 'Small Feats' which is a reharmonization of Coltrane's 'Giant Steps.' I took 'Small Feats' and wrote another song based on Ron's chords." The appearance of Goliath—a giant—in this non-linear Coltrane tribute is no coincidence. "Beautiful Day, " which alludes to "It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood, " is a callback of sorts to Ellis's 2012 release It's You I Like, which was comprised largely of songs by Fred Rogers, the innovative and sorely missed children's TV host. This swinging original has boppish modulations and an atmosphere perhaps akin to Sonny Rollins, Hank Mobley or the recently departed Benny Golson. The fact that Fred Rogers was an ordained Presbyterian minister is relevant: "These are the people I came from, " Ellis declares. "My father was a Presbyterian minister, my mom's father, and it goes back farther than that. So everything about Mr. Rogers really resonates. On this song I pretty much steal some of his theme song and take it someplace else." "Three Jewels, " "Fort Worth" and "Color Wheel" are musician-specific tributes. The first, also for Coltrane, touches on Buddhism as well as the Trinity, while "Fort Worth" (not to be confused with Joe Lovano's song of that name) gives it up to Ornette Coleman and Dewey Redman, both sons of Texas. "Color Wheel" is for Bill Evans and takes inspiration from "Blue in Green." On that classic piece from Kind of Blue, the soloists expand and compress the harmonic rhythm to create interest, Ellis notes. "I love that idea. So on 'Color Wheel' Gary and I solo over the same chords but he has twice as much time on each one." "El Cid, " "Linus and the Lyre" and "Other Saints" come at the Heroes theme from different angles. The first is named for the medieval Castilian ruler Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar (subject of the 1961 epic film El Cid starring Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren). "Linus and the Lyre" references the Greek Heracles legend, in particular a scene right out of Tarantino where young Heracles slays the great music teacher Linus using a lyre as a weapon. "I guess it's a dedication to all music teachers, " quips Ellis. The closing "Other Saints" evokes not only Ellis's former NOLA stomping ground but the Caribbean as a whole (St. Barts, St. Croix, St. Kitts, of course the Sonny Rollins-linked St. Thomas, where Reuben Rogers is from). The loping beat, somewhat akin to Al Foster's famous "Fungii Mama" feel from Blue Mitchell's 1964 The Thing to Do, sparks a round of incisive tenor/trumpet trading, followed by eloquent full-fledged solos by Versace and Rogers. "I mean, who could be bigger heroes than saints?" asks Ellis. "We make saints, right?" Sonny Rollins, in the view of many including Ellis, certainly qualifies. "Other Saints, " while it channels that Newkian spirit, also makes plain the qualities that have set John Ellis apart, from his earliest days on the New York scene to the here and now. About John Ellis: If that Dickens chap hadn't already snagged it, "A Tale of Two Cities" would make the ideal title for the John Ellis story. The gifted, versatile saxophonist/clarinetist/composer occupies an imaginary (and extremely imaginative) space directly between the celebratory, welcoming spirit of New Orleans and the edgy, frantic streets of New York City. Both as the leader of his own eclectic projects and as an in-demand sideman for a mind-boggling number and variety of artists, Ellis expresses a keen intellect and easy virtuosity while maintaining a mischievous gleam in his eye and never letting tongue stray far from cheek. That combination is best showcased in Ellis' eccentric combo Double-Wide, which recently released its third album, Charm, on Ellis' own Parade Light Records. While the title is an apt descriptor of the band's inviting, joyous vibe, its soul is even better captured by the song that gives the album its name: "Charm is Nearly Always Sinister." That dichotomy perfectly encapsulates Double-Wide's split metropolitan personality, with a chainsaw-juggling balance of bayou brass, raucous gospel, and devil-may-care modern jazz. Ellis' band of merry pranksters includes Gary Versace (organ/piano/accordion), Alan Ferber (trombone), Matt Perrine (sousaphone), and Jason Marsalis (drums). Ellis also leads his own quintet of A-list players, whose most recent album was the 2012 Criss Cross release It's You I Like. Featuring Mike Moreno (guitar), Aaron Goldberg (piano), Matt Penman (bass), and Rodney Green (drums), the album definitely leans more toward the NYC end of Ellis' playing spectrum, though its two dedicatees still show off his "serious fun" duality: the repertoire includes songs by moody singer-songwriter Elliott Smith and legendary kids' TV host Mr. Rogers. An ambitious composer as well as an agile musician, Ellis in recent years has composed three large-scale narrative pieces commissioned by The Jazz Gallery in collaboration with playwright Andy Bragen. The most recent, MOBRO (released in 2014 on Parade Light), looks at environmental issues through the story of the infamous MOBRO 4000 trash barge. As if those three wide-ranging projects weren’t enough to occupy his time and talents, Ellis also maintains an impossibly busy schedule as a first-call sideman. Having established himself as one of New York’s premier tenor saxophonists since his arrival in 1997, he’s since worked with artists as diverse as bass great John Patitucci, organ legend Dr. Lonnie Smith, MacArthur Fellow Miguel Zenón, the Brooklyn-bred big band led by composer Darcy James Argue, guitar groove master Charlie Hunter, and pop icon Sting. His discography lists more than 100 album credits as a sideman, with more than a dozen released in 2014 alone, including acclaimed albums by Zenón, drummer Otis Brown III, pianists Helen Sung and Edward Simon, and blues/gospel/soul trio The Holmes Brothers. While New Orleans and New York are Ellis’ two spiritual (and, over the last 22 years, actual) homes, he doesn’t hail from either city – or any city at all, for that matter. He grew up in rural North Carolina, two and a half miles outside of a tiny town populated by only 200 people. But his mother, an English teacher at the local community college, insisted that her sons be exposed to culture, and the love of music took hold in young John, who pursued that love to the University of North Carolina School of the Arts in the relatively big city of Winston-Salem. In 1993, Ellis moved to New Orleans to study with renowned jazz family patriarch Ellis Marsalis, eventually playing in the pianist’s band while jamming with local peers like trumpeter Nicholas Payton. He released his debut album, The Language of Love, in 1996 and a year later relocated to New York City. Despite the move, the name of his 2005 album One Foot in the Swamp captures his continuing ties to the Bayou, which shines through in the southern-accented, gospel-tinged funk grooves of his music. Ellis has released nine albums as a leader, three of those featuring his urban carnival band Double-Wide, which has toured extensively and was featured on the Main Stage of the 2012 Newport Jazz Festival. While his presence on countless recordings and stages attests to the esteem in which Ellis is held by his peers, he’s also received numerous more official accolades. Most prominently, he was the second place winner of the prestigious Thelonious Monk International Saxophone Competition in 2002. He was the recipient of three composition grants through The Jazz Gallery for his collaborations with playwright Andy Bragen (“Dreamscapes”, “The Ice Siren”, and “MOBRO”) and was selected as the 2014 Make Jazz Fellow by the 18th Street Arts Center in Santa Monica, leading to the composition of music for Charm. write your comments about the article :: © 2025 Jazz News :: home page |