Lisle Ellis, Bass and Circuitry

Lisle Ellis is active as an acoustic and electronic musician, visual artist, and a lecturer in creative process and jazz history. As a bassist/composer/improvisor he has performed and recorded with many of the world's foremost muscians in the field of jazz, improvised, creative and new and experimental musics. Currently living in New York City, Ellis leads his own ensemble whose music often reflects his interest in electronic music and its applications in improvisational contexts as well as his ongoing relationship with the acoustic bass.
From http://www.lisleellis.com

Lisle Ellis was living in the San Francisco area when I interviewed him for the book Music Universe, Music Mind. But it turns out that for a lot of musicians who head out West (or start out West--Lisle's roots are in Vancouver), the magnetism of New York is just too strong to resist.

I found out that Lisle had moved to New York by coming across a little article about him in the magazine Electronic Musician (Murphy, Bill Pro/File: Lisle Ellis - Bass and Circuitry
Electronic Musician 25:6 (June 2009) p. 22.).

From the article:

New York City has always been a hotbed of experimentation, especially when it comes to avant-garde jazz. For bassist Lisle Ellis, who has worked with certified heavyweights (Cecil Taylor, Paul Bley) and contemporary rebels (John Zorn, Peter Brotzmann), the legacy of the city's arts and music scenes has been a near-constant source of inspiration going back to the late '70s, when he lived in the city and studied at the Creative Music Studio in Woodstock.

I consider Lisle's account of his Cecil Taylor experience at CMS to be one of the high points of Music Universe, Music Mind.

Vision Festival XIV June 9 - 15, 2009

Vision Fest, y'all!

http://www.visionfestival.org/

This year there seems to be far fewer folks from the CMS family performing at Vision Fest. Not that you should base your decision to go on that fact--I just think it's interesting to note who's there who had some involvement with the CMS community.

From the Chicago contingent: Hamid Drake, Douglas R. Ewart, Shaku Joseph Jarman, and J.D. Parran.

From the way-out-west coast: Lisle Ellis.

Bob Moses will represent New England.

I should point out Henry Grimes, too. Henry wasn't really a CMS guy, but he did have an association with Karl Berger during Karl's early days in New York, while Karl was doing what he did to lay the groundwork for CMS.

I've never been to Vision Fest, have you? If you go, drop me a line and let me know how it was.