Don Ellis, Trumpet/Composer, 1934, Los Angeles, CA
After studying composition at Boston University, (BA,Music, 1956), Don played trumpet for Ray McKinley, Charlie Barnet and Maynard Ferguson among others. He spent the early '60s in New York with his own trio and also toured Europe. Ellis then spent a year as a graduate student at UCLA, where he later taught. He also formed a large jazz orchestra, with a latin percussionist, a vocal group and electric keyboards, and finally, an amplified string quartet. Ellis was the orchestra's principal trumpet soloist. The orchestra was very popular, making appearances at the Monterey Jazz Festival, Stanford University, the Newport Festival and the Montreux Festival in the mid '70s. Ellis held an important position as "creative assistant" to the composer Lukas Foss at SUNY, Buffalo, in the mid '60s, supported by a Rockefeller grant. Eventually Don made his home in Los Angeles, where he became active as a composer, performer, recording artist and writer. He received a Grammy Award for his score for the film "French Connection" in 1971. In 1975 Ellis suffered a heart attack that sidelined him for a while, but he resumed his performing career playing a "superbone", a combination valve and slide trombone that Maynard Ferguson also plays from time to time. Ellis' significance as a jazz composer lies in his use of various techniques that were also used by Hank Levy; complex meters, amplified trumpet, electric distortion of timbre, and the human voice as an instrument. As a trumpet player Don posessed a well-developed technique and a fine, full tone. Toward the end of his career, Don began working with a quarter-tone trumpet (four valves), which allowed him to achieve a new form of expression, particularly in traditional blues passage work. Don Ellis died in 1978.
Annie Ross, Singer, 1930, Mitcham, England
When she was only three or four years old, Annie was taken to Los Angeles by her aunt, Ella Logan, who was a band and club singer. She had some success there in films, not music. In 1947 she traveled to Europe and sang in clubs and with some of the bands her aunt had worked with. After again working in th U.S. in 1950, she created a sensation with her recordings of "Twisted" and "Farmer's Market". She then returned to Europe and had enormous success in the revue, "Cranks", which she also performed in New York in the mid '50s. She then joined Dave Lambert and Jon Hendricks in what would become one of the most famous vocal groups in jazz history, to record the multitracked "Sing A Song Of Basie", in which the they sang the section parts and instrumental solos with only a rhythm section for support. Strenuous tours and recording work proved too much for Ross, however, and she returned to England in 1962 to recuperate. She continued to cut records in England as a soloist, and ran her own successful club, Annie's Room, into the mid '60s. By the 1970s she was doing a great deal of film work and appearing on stage with her own production, "An Evening With Annie Ross". She has a superb technique and is able to perform in many styles. Although initially her range was wide, by the early '60s her voice had deepened to a warm contralto. Ross is considered one of the finest British jazz singers.
