Saxophonist John Ellis & Quartet | “Bizet: Carmen in Jazz”

Saxophonist/Composer
John Ellis and his Quartet
to release recording
“Bizet: Carmen in Jazz”

OUT NOW!
Release Date: December 22nd, 2023

John Ellis, one of the most sought-after saxophonists and multi-reedists of his generation, has had ample opportunity to write for longform compositional settings. His chamber-jazz ensemble works The Ice Siren and MOBRO are quasi-operatic, you might say. But when it came time to deal with George Bizet’s Carmen – not simply an opera but one of the most widely known scores in the entire Western canon – Ellis saw the task as one of scaling down. He would focus on the music, less on the exoticized “gypsy” narrative. And he’d do it from a jazz quartet standpoint, enlisting a group of brilliant improvisers with distinct voices: Gary Versace on piano, Reuben Rogers on bass and Jason Marsalis on drums.

Bizet: Carmen in Jazz began as a commission from the St. Barts Music Festival, a high-level classical confab with some jazz in the mix. Ellis, a rural North Carolina native, was a repeat invitee, a celebrated artist whose musical coming-of-age took place in New Orleans. The French and Spanish cultural nexus, so integral to the Crescent City, is of course a main ingredient in Carmen from start to finish.

In early 2020, St. Barts staged its festival with an all-Carmen theme. Organizers wisely turned to Ellis for the jazz component. Reuben Rogers hails from St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, regionally close to St. Barts (Barthé-lemy). Jason Marsalis, youngest brother of Wynton and Branford, a seasoned drummer and vibraphonist in his mid-40s at this writing, shares not only the New Orleans connection but also a family name that is synonymous with classical and jazz boundary-crossing. Versace is one of jazz’s finest pianists but a highly accomplished organist and accordionist as well (the accordion being common in merengue and other Caribbean genres).

For instrumentation, Ellis kept it simple: mainly tenor sax with acoustic piano, bass and drums. Ellis is the only one doubling, as he’s done brilliantly on his own projects and in bands led by Rudy Royston, Alan Ferber, Darcy James Argue, Kendrick Scott, Helen Sung, Michael Leonhart and more. “Habanera” is a bright and bouncy soprano sax feature. “Toreador” has tenor on the initial minor-key theme, but soprano on the major-key swing section – a structure, Ellis notes, that corresponds to the New Orleans “second line” tradition. Rogers’ strong “Toreador” bass solo leads to a change of tempo via Marsalis on snare drum, in classic second line fashion.

Rogers has an even more pronounced solo on “Seguidilla,” a crowd-pleaser with a tight multilayered arrangement and wry false ending. Ellis’s premature cadenza, on tenor sax, could be described as downright operatic. “Card Song,” in contrast, is a vehicle for his sumptuous and highly refined bass clarinet, all the more striking in the absence of drums. “Gypsy Song” is pure tenor sax elegance, with defily handled mixed meter and a feeling of calm release on the “Tra-la-la” main melody. “Flower Song,” the one aria on the album for the male tenor role (Don José), is an affecting tenor sax-piano duo, with a hint of a folk or gospel flavor. In St. Barts it was performed by the full quartet; the duo version was an in-studio epiphany.

John Ellis, Saxophones and bass clarinet
Gary Versace, Piano
Reuben Rogers, Bass
Jason Marsalis, Drums

All songs composed by Georges Bizet
All songs arranged by John Ellis
Produced by John Ellis and Chan Jung

www.theblueroommusic.com

For more information visit:
www.johnaxsonellis.com

Two For The Show Media