Don Ellis

Click here to Support Jazz on the Tube

One of my favorite musicians, the long unheralded, forgotten trumpet virtuoso, composer, arranger, and bandleader Don Ellis, was the most futuristic jazz musician who has ever lived.

Don wrote music for the film French Connection in 1971 (actor Gene Hackman’s debut) winning a Grammy for best instrumental arrangement.

I first saw Don on PBS TV live from Tanglewood and at a Leonard Bernstein Young People’s Concert when I was a kid. Blew my mind. He combined jazz, Afro-Cuban, Brazilian, Bulgarian, East Indian, Greek rhythms, and more world rhythms, as well as electronics, stagecraft, in an incredibly creative entertaining, artistic way. Here he plays his own composition, Pussy Wiggle Stomp. It’s basically a hoe down with mambo rhythm, funk, and more in 7/4 time.

– Bobby Sanabria

Click here to Support Jazz on the Tube