THE DON ELLIS ORCHESTRA/ELECTRIC BATH BPG 63230 (-68) UK MONO

Those were the days...when a jazz band could record an experimental album and that becoming a Grammy nominee and awarded "album of the year" by a major US music magazine. It must have been a revelation in the midst of psych and early prog rock. One of a kind back then and in a way it still is. Played by a big band setting reinforced by sitar, electric keyboards and assorted exotic rythm instruments. I hear hard core modern jazz including atonal parts and rythmic gaming mixed with cool lounge music, sometimes borderline psychedelic and sometimes spiced with eastern influences. Very hard to tag - maybe genreless fits best, or a very early exemple of jazz fusion still firmly rooted in sixties music. Could it be this was one of the main influences to just fusion? I guess Frank Zappa must have listened, at least to the title track where the dissonant layers sound a lot like what he did on Burnt Weeny Sandwhich a couple of years later. I'm usually not a fan of big band jazz or fusion though this has other qualities. Don't know if it was meant to be positively playful, but that's how I get it - a happy boundary-breaking moment. This UK mono has reference to the US mono number on label and sounds great so I take it's from the US mono tapes. Premiere 1967 releases in US and Canada on Columbia (CL 2785/CS 9585). 1998 CD on Columbia Legacy (CK 65522). First UK had structured label as shown here and thin laminated cover with CBS ad inner. (CLÄZ*)