Lisle Ellis
Encyclopedia
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
and bassist
Bassist
A bass player, or bassist is a musician who plays a bass instrument such as a double bass, bass guitar, keyboard bass or a low brass instrument such as a tuba or sousaphone. Different musical genres tend to be associated with one or more of these instruments...
who is known for his improvisation
Improvisation
Improvisation is the practice of acting, singing, talking and reacting, of making and creating, in the moment and in response to the stimulus of one's immediate environment and inner feelings. This can result in the invention of new thought patterns, new practices, new structures or symbols, and/or...
al style and use of electronics
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
.
Biography
Born in Campbell RiverCampbell River, British Columbia
Campbell River is a coastal city in British Columbia on the east coast of Vancouver Island at the south end of Discovery Passage, which lies along the important coastal Inside Passage shipping route...
, British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
, Ellis began playing electric bass
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
in his teens and worked professionally from an early age in numerous environments including studios, radio & TV shows, and even strip clubs.
Ellis studied at the Vancouver Academy of Music
Vancouver Academy of Music
The Vancouver Academy of Music is a Canadian music conservatory located in Vancouver, British Columbia. The school was founded as the Community Music School of Greater Vancouver in 1969 through efforts made by the Vancouver Community Arts Council. The school was originally located on West 12th...
with Walter Robertson and also attended Douglas College
Douglas College
Established in 1970, Douglas College is one of the largest public colleges in British Columbia, Canada serving 14,000 credit students, 9,000 continuing education students and 1,000 international students each year.-Programs:...
in Vancouver. He later studied at the Creative Music Studio
Creative Music Studio
The Creative Music Studio was a premier study center for contemporary creative music during the 1970s and 1980s, based in Woodstock, New York. Founded in 1971 by Karl Berger, Ingrid Sertso, and Ornette Coleman, it brought together leading innovators in the jazz and world music communities...
in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
from 1975-1979.
Ellis lived in Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
, Canada from 1982 until 1983 and then Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
, Canada from 1983 until 1992.
In 1986 Ellis was the first recipient of Canada's Fred Stone Award—given annually to a musician for integrity and innovation. In the early 1980s in Vancouver, and the late 80's in Montreal, Ellis was a conspicuous activator of musician alliance organizations, performance venues, and concert series presentations. One collective in particular, Vancouver's New Orchestra Workshop, is still active nearly thirty years later.
He relocated to the United States in 1992, living first in San Francisco where he worked with Glenn Spearman
Glenn Spearman
Glenn Spearman was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. He was specifically associated with free jazz and experimental music....
from 1992 until 2001, San Diego from 2001 until 2005, and New York, 2005 to the present. In 1994, he was a member of the Cecil Taylor
Cecil Taylor
Cecil Percival Taylor is an American pianist and poet. Classically trained, Taylor is generally acknowledged as one of the pioneers of free jazz. His music is characterized by an extremely energetic, physical approach, producing complex improvised sounds, frequently involving tone clusters and...
Unit for a brief tour of California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
.
Ellis's discography includes performances with, Peter Brotzmann
Peter Brötzmann
Peter Brötzmann is a German artist and free jazz saxophonist and clarinetist.Brötzmann is among the most important European free jazz musicians. His rough, lyrical timbre is easily recognized on his many recordings.-Early life:...
, Andrew Cyrille
Andrew Cyrille
Andrew Charles Cyrille is an avant-garde jazz drummer.Cyrille was born in Brooklyn, New York into a family with a mother from Haiti. He began studying science at St...
, Joe McPhee
Joe McPhee
Joe McPhee is an American jazz multi-instrumentalist born in Miami, Florida, a player of tenor, alto, and soprano saxophone, the trumpet, flugelhorn and valve trombone...
, Dave Douglas, Glenn Spearman
Glenn Spearman
Glenn Spearman was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. He was specifically associated with free jazz and experimental music....
and about 40 recordings for international labels such as Black Saint, DIW
DIW
DIW can mean:* DIW Records, a Japanese record labeL* "Doing It Wrong", a term used by some scuba divers about practices which do not accord with the set of safety rules called "Doing It Right"*Deionised water, a type of Purified water....
, Hat Art, New World
New World
The New World is one of the names used for the Western Hemisphere, specifically America and sometimes Oceania . The term originated in the late 15th century, when America had been recently discovered by European explorers, expanding the geographical horizon of the people of the European middle...
and Victo. His 1989 recording, Kaleidoscopes: The Ornette Coleman
Ornette Coleman
Ornette Coleman is an American saxophonist, violinist, trumpeter and composer. He was one of the major innovators of the free jazz movement of the 1960s....
Songbook, with pianist Paul Plimley
Paul Plimley
Paul Plimley is a free jazz pianist and vibraphonist. He is one of the doyens of the Canadian jazz avant-garde, a co-founder of the New Orchestra Workshop Society and frequent collaborator with the bassist Lisle Ellis...
, was given five stars in Down Beat
Down Beat
Down Beat is an American magazine devoted to "jazz, blues and beyond" to indicate its expansion beyond the jazz realm which it covered exclusively in previous years. The publication was established in 1934 in Chicago, Illinois...
magazine.
Since the late 1990s, Ellis has been primarily focused on developing an electro-acoustic
Electroacoustic music
Electroacoustic music originated in Western art music during its modern era following the incorporation of electric sound production into compositional practice. The initial developments in electroacoustic music composition during the mid-20th century are associated with the activities of composers...
interface he calls bass & circuitry. By 2008, with the completion of a template for this interface Ellis turned his attention back to acoustic music
Acoustic music
Acoustic music comprises music that solely or primarily uses instruments which produce sound through entirely acoustic means, as opposed to electric or electronic means...
projects with an emphasis on jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
based improvisation and to finding a balance between his electronic and acoustic music interests.
Central to Ellis's music, and a vehicle for both his electronic and acoustic experiments, has been his long standing trio with Larry Ochs
Larry Ochs (musician)
Larry Ochs is an American jazz saxophonist and composer.Ochs studied trumpet briefly but concentrated on tenor and sopranino saxophones. He worked as a record producer and founded his own label, Metalanguage Records, in 1978, in addition to operating the Twelve Stars studio in California...
and Donald Robinson called What We Live. Di Terra, an Italy based trio with Alberto Braida (piano), and Fabrizio Spera (drums), has been an exclusively acoustic music vehicle for Ellis. His experimental trio Audible Means with Ellery Eskelin
Ellery Eskelin
Ellery Eskelin American tenor saxophonist. Born in Wichita, Kansas, raised in Baltimore, Maryland from the age of two. His parents, Rodd Keith and Bobbie Lee, were also musicians. Rodd Keith died in 1974 in Los Angeles, California and became a cult figure after his death in the little known...
(saxophone), and Erik Deutsch (keyboards), was active on the New York scene in 2006 and 2007 and was a focal point for Ellis's bass & circuitry explorations. Since his arrival in New York, collaborations and interactions with composer/electronic musician Tom Hamilton have also been important to Ellis's work in electronic music.
Discography
- 1994 - Paul Plimpley: Density of the Lovestruck Demons (Music & ArtsMusic & ArtsMusic & Arts is an American record label based in Kensington, California.Music & Arts is owned and operated by Music and Arts Programs of America, Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to informal education in the arts, established in California in 1984...
) mit Donald Robinson - 1995 - ROVA: John Coltrane's Ascension (Black Saint)
- 1996 - Ben Goldberg: Eight Phrases for Jefferson Rubin (Victo)
- 1999 - Patrick BrennanPatrick BrennanPatrick Brennan may refer to:*Patrick Brennan , Irish politician, TD 1921–1923, Assistant Commissioner of the Gárda Síochána* Paudge Brennan , Irish Fianna Fáil TD and Senator...
: Saunters, Walks, Ambles (CIMP)
External links
- Official Site of Lisle Ellis
- PUNKCAST#1255 live @ The Living Theatre NYC, Jan 19 2008.(RealPlayerRealPlayerRealPlayer is a cross-platform media player by RealNetworks that plays a number of multimedia formats including MP3, MPEG-4, QuickTime, Windows Media, and multiple versions of proprietary RealAudio and RealVideo formats.-History:...
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)