February 25, 2005
John
Ellis
'One Foot in the Swamp'
Hyena Records
Old
friends keep 'One Foot in the Swamp'
 John
Ellis has traveled far afield of the North Carolina
farm that was
his childhood home. He spent three years in the mid-1990s
honing his
tenor and soprano saxophone skills in New Orleans. He
toured Europe
and Africa, logged a residency in Singapore, then moved
to New York
and joined avant-jazz guitarist Charlie Hunter's band.
Along the way
he continued to develop his own style and vision.
Ellis' extensive professional and personal experiences
inform "One
Foot in the Swamp," his new, third CD and first
to be distributed
nationally by Hyena Records. Recorded in New Orleans
with a core of
drummer Jason Marsalis, bassist Roland Guerin and keyboardist
Aaron
Goldberg, the CD is a bold statement of purpose from
a player staking
out his place at the vanguard of creative jazz.
Ellis distills nine new compositions and adapts two
folk songs
learned from his grandparents. Jazz standards were banned
from the
project, as was the acoustic piano; instead, Goldberg
deploys Rhodes
and Wurlitzer electric keyboards. Amidst the tempo shifts
of "Bonus
Round" and elsewhere, he veers off into high-pitched
effects,
emphasizing the project's freewheeling sense.
Guest star John Scofield dresses up two tracks. On a
half-dozen cuts,
Nicholas Payton conducts contemporary trumpet and fluegelhorn
experiments reminiscent of his 2003 release "Sonic
Trance." "Ostinato"
employs Payton's fluegelhorn, Ellis' bass clarinet,
Gregoire Maret's
harmonica and Goldberg's Rhodes -- hardly the typical
instrumentation
for a straight-ahead recording. The easy dialogue between
Marsalis,
Payton and Ellis' soprano sax in "Work in Progress"
is evidence of
their long-standing relationship.
A stuttering second-line rhythm runs through "One
For the Kelpers"
and a funky undercurrent tugs at the pocket of the opening
"Happy,"
hinting at Ellis' New Orleans connection. The cheery
melody of
"Sippin' Cider" is fun even before the arrival
of an ocarina, a wind
instrument that sounds like a cross between a recorder
and a riverboat
calliope.
The opening tenor meditation of "Country Girls"
soon eases into
appropriately pastoral harmonica and keyboard passages;
the following
"Bonus Round" returns to New York's urban
vibe. Ellis, both on and off
record, doesn't stay put for long.
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