February 2005
John
Ellis
'One Foot in the Swamp'
Hyena Records
 The
compressed experiences of John Ellis’s 30 years
of life have exposed him to a multitude of situations
that many people don’t encounter in a lifetime.
Ellis so far has lived the life of an
itinerant musician, ready at the drop of a hat to go
where the musical opportunities exist (living, for example,
in North Carolina, New Orleans, Singapore and New York
City—and traveling to such far-flug
places as Botswana, Germany, Indonesia, Madagascar,
Portugal, Kenya and Washington D.C.). Yet, his music
has remained rooted in the country life of his boyhood
and the street rhythms of New Orleans, even as he has
made it edgier through the influence of jazz jamming
musicians like Charlie Hunter or John Scofield and of
avant-garde folk like George Garzone and musical colorists
like Cyro Battista. A veritable catalyst of disparate
musical influences, Ellis remains focused on the reminiscences
and sounds that first affected him.
Thus…the
name of his latest, and Ellis’s first nationally
distributed, CD, One Foot In The Swamp. And the other
foot is where? One Foot In The Swamp achieves balance
between the South’s country music and blues to
which Ellis keeps returning and the more adventurous
harmonies and rhythms of New York.
Allowing for a ten-second introduction of electronic
effects, Ellis
bookends the CD with feel-good spirit on “Happy”
(no subtlety to that title) and “Sippin’
Cider.” Furthermore, he frames the music at the
beginning and the end with direct, simple melodies of
harmonic concision that affect listeners in a profoundly
insinuating way that spans generations. “Sippin’
Cider” itself is unpretentious as Ellis refers
to the song that his grandparents sung to him, animated
by Jason Marsalis’s rhythms unmistakably originating
from New Orleans, where the CD was recorded. Simplifying
the song even more, and clarifying its melody even more
as Ellis abandons excessive elaboration, he finishes
“Sippin’ Cider” on the ocarina.
But
in between those songs, Ellis reflects many of the other
influences that he has internalized. His overriding
intention on One Foot In The Swamp is the attainment
of an unconventional ensemble sound by combining his
reed instruments with Aaron Goldberg’s Rhodes,
Scofield’s guitar and, for the first time, Gregoire
Maret’s harmonica. Indeed, the addition of harmonica
deepens the plaintive quality of several of the songs,
such as the backroads simplicity of “Country Girls,”
an appealing song in a carefree three-four saunter.
When Scofield joins in, the proceedings adapt to his
invigorating presence, as on “One For
The Kelpers,” which alludes to apparently one
of the Ellis’s primary tenor sax influences, Eddie
Harris.
For
contrast, Ellis gets edgier on “Michael Finnegan,”
as his soprano sax work develops off-the-cuff improvisation,
including a quote from Brahm’s “Lullaby,”
connected by Marsalis’s drumwork. The underpinnings
of “Seeing Mice” consists of Goldberg’s
extended tones on the Rhodes reflecting Ellis’s
floating soprano sax lines before Maret leads into a
light swing.
A
CD of contrasts as widespread as his travels, One Foot
In The Swamp is eminently accessible and uplifting as
the rural nature of Ellis’s roots remains, and
probably will continue to remain, the defining characteristic
of his style, even as he continues to absorb the infinitude
of cultural sounds resulting from his peripatetic musical
discoveries.
http://jazzreview.com/cdreview.cfm?ID=8979
|
