Word: mingus
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...Forefront. The son of a Quaker minister and holder of a degree in composition from Boston University, Ellis served his apprenticeship by playing and writing for groups of every musical stripe from Charlie Mingus and Woody Herman to the New York Philharmonic, with interludes of teaching and organizing jazz happenings. His band currently works only once a week regularly, at a Hollywood spot called Bonesville; between dates, he supports himself by playing studio orchestras and scoring TV sound tracks. Now he has a long string of offers from festivals in Europe and the U.S. He sees himself in the forefront...
...discipline derives from his classical training at San Francisco State College, where he is a few credits shy of a master's degree in music education. When he first unlimbered on the jazz circuit in 1958, he was a timid conformist, but a nine-month tour with Charlie Mingus' combo changed that. Midway in a number, the burly, quick-tempered Mingus would peer fearsomely from behind his bass and roar, "Go on, go on, blow something!" Recalls Handy: "I was too scared not to play something startling...
Meaningful Traces. Handy refined his style playing classically oriented jazz with small symphony orchestras on the West Coast, studied modern classical composers such as Prokofiev and Stravinsky. He has become so skilled in instrumental techniques and music theory that many jazzmen go to him for instruction. "Handy," says Mingus, "is a musician with a brain...
...first with the Charles Mingus group, I believe, that people began commenting on a drummer using counter-subjects while other instruments were playing their choruses. This was because Mingus carried the beat so strongly on the bass. But with the need for a beat gone, Milford Graves could improvise constantly, as he did so successfully in "Sonnet." At one point, where "Sonnet" became very contrapuntal, I was getting that same exciting feeling you sometimes get with Baroque music: feeling three voices going in different directions--hearing the independent movement of each--and hearing a good total sound simultaneously...
...tried some jazz on an experimental basis, but found it lost money every time. A high cover charge at the Jazz Workshop has resulted in audiences who are not really jazzlovers, and consequently performers play down to the audiences. (Jazz musicians are notoriously intolerant of audiences they dislike. Charles Mingus has been known--at college concerts--to do pushups on the keyboard and play "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling" straight.) And even Connaly's, which has been the best place in Boston for a long time, featured a big band and commercial singer a couple of weeks...