Travel Pick: Jazz in United States
John Ellis & Doublewide

John Ellis grew up with a love of baseball, dewberry cobbler, and turkey and stuffing. Raised in rural tobacco country in North Carolina, he was more familiar with the sounds of hunting rifles and the dangers of snapping turtles than he was with the sounds and dangers of jazz. He was a pretty unlikely candidate for a career in music at all, as a matter of fact, but somewhere between singing hymns in his father’s church, fooling around with Scott Joplin Rags on the piano, and marching in the high school band, he began to realize that music was the only thing he really wanted to do.

As a sophomore in high school he began his serious study of music at the North Carolina School of the Arts, where his now famous brother, David Ellis, had studied a couple years earlier in the Fine Arts department. There, John apprenticed with the world-renowned saxophonist James Houlik, who is still one of his most important mentors. After four years at NCSA, John moved to New Orleans, hoping to begin a serious study of jazz.

He spent one year at the University of New Orleans under the direction of legendary jazz patriarch Ellis Marsalis, and soon after, John joined Mr. Marsalis’s band, traveling to promote the record “Whistle Stop” and performing at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.

From December of 1999 to May of 2006, John traveled and recorded with several incarnations of Charlie Hunter’s groups, appearing on four of Charlie’s albums, “Songs From The Analog Playground”, “Right Now Move”, “Friends Seen And Unseen”, and “Copperopolis”. Through Charlie’s tours and recordings John had the chance to work with a wide variety of musicians including Norah Jones, Mos Def, Theryl DeClouet, Kurt Elling, Steven Chopek, Chris Lovejoy, Jans Ingber, Dean Bowman, Curtis Fowlkes, Johnny Vidakovich, Terreon Gully, Gregoire Maret, Alan Ferber, Ron Miles, Josh Roseman, Sam Newsome, and Derrek Phillips. By the end of his time with Charlie, John was playing tenor saxophone, melodica, bass clarinet, and Wurlitzer in the band. He also made time to reenter the Thelonious Monk International Saxophone Competition in 2002, where this time he finished in second place.

In February of 2005 as John was ending his tenure with Charlie, he released his third album as a leader called “One Foot in the Swamp”. This record featured Nicholas Payton, John Scofield, Aaron Goldberg, Jason Marsalis, Roland Guerin, and Gregoire Maret, and it was his first nationally distributed record, appearing on the Hyena record label. When John left Charlie’s band in May of ’06, his departure corresponded with his second release for Hyena called “By A Thread”, which featured Mike Moreno, Terreon Gully, Reuben Rogers, and Aaron Goldberg. Both records were met with critical acclaim, and John has been touring to support these projects for the last several years.

Be on the lookout for John’s forthcoming release, “Dance Like There’s No Tomorrow” which features Jason Marsalis, Gary Versace, and Matt Perrine. It should be out sometime in late 2007 or early 2008.