Donald Johnson Ellis (July 25, 1934 – December 17, 1978) was an American jazz trumpeter, drummer, composer, and bandleader. He is best known for his extensive musical experimentation, particularly in the area of time signatures . Later in his life he worked as a film composer, contributing a score to 1971's The French Connection and 1973's The Seven-Ups .
191-545: Ellis was born in Los Angeles, California , on July 25, 1934. His father was a Methodist minister and his mother a church organist. He attended West High School in Minneapolis, MN. After attending a Tommy Dorsey Big Band concert, he first became interested in jazz. Other early inspirations were Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie . He graduated from Boston University in 1956 with a music composition degree. Ellis's first job
382-593: A gross metropolitan product of over $ 1.0 trillion, making it the city with the third-largest GDP in the world, after New York and Tokyo . Los Angeles hosted the Summer Olympics in 1932 and 1984 , and will also host in 2028 . Despite a business exodus from Downtown Los Angeles since the COVID-19 pandemic , the city's urban core is evolving as a cultural center with the world's largest showcase of architecture designed by Frank Gehry . On September 4, 1781,
573-641: A metropolitan area of 12.8 million people (2023). Greater Los Angeles , which includes the Los Angeles and Riverside–San Bernardino metropolitan areas, is a sprawling metropolis of over 18.3 million residents. The majority of the city proper lies in a basin in Southern California adjacent to the Pacific Ocean in the west and extending partly through the Santa Monica Mountains and north into
764-428: A 1994 book, May it Fill Your Soul: Experiencing Bulgarian Music , Timothy Rice uses enlightenment philosophy to substantiate his opinion that fieldwork cannot be used as fact. The philosophy he works with involves theorizing over the distinction between objectivity and subjectivity. In order to ground those debates in ethnomusicology, he equates musicology to objectivity and musical experience to subjectivity. Rice uses
955-1008: A big band. After two years, Don Ellis left the Army band and moved to Greenwich Village in New York City . He was able to get some work, but mainly with dance bands and other local work. He toured briefly with bandleader Charlie Barnet and joined the Maynard Ferguson band in spring of 1959. He remained with Ferguson for nine months. Shortly thereafter, Ellis became involved in the New York City avant-garde jazz scene. He appeared on albums by Charles Mingus , Eric Dolphy , and George Russell , working in that sextet for two years. Under his own name, Ellis led several sessions with small groups between 1960 and 1962, which featured, among others, Jaki Byard , Paul Bley , Gary Peacock , Ron Carter , Charlie Persip , and Steve Swallow . The last one, Essence ,
1146-481: A college student's personal letter, he recommended that potential students of ethnomusicology undertake substantial musical training in the field, a competency that he described as " bi-musicality ." This, he explained, is a measure intended to combat ethnocentrism and transcend problematic Western analytical conventions. Seeger also sought to transcend comparative practices by focusing on the music and how it impacted those in contact with it. Similar to Hood, Seeger valued
1337-420: A combination of a standardized, scientific approach and a more free-form analytical approach because the most fruitful work he has done has come from combining those two rather than separating them, as was the trend among his contemporaries. Even Merriam's once progressive notion of a balanced approach came into question as time passed. Specifically, the idea that ethnomusicology is or can be at all factual. In
1528-670: A customized trumpet made for him by the Holton company, which he received in September 1965. Its additional (fourth) valve enabled it to produce quarter tones . Some claim that the inspiration for this may have been due to his studies of Indian music, which includes bent pitches that some ethnomusicologists refer to as "microtones". However, it was probably more the result of Ellis's previous involvement with avant-garde classical music , in which many composers were experimenting with Western tonality and intervals, especially Harry Partch , with whom Ellis
1719-494: A dissertation submitted to The Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Musical Arts. The album featured a composition called "Strawberry Soup" that has been the subject of several doctoral dissertations due to its metric intricacy, its simple theme and complex variations, and the sheer timbral spectrum that it covers. Around this time, Ellis
1910-473: A diverse economy with a broad range of industries. Despite a steep exodus of film and television production since the COVID-19 pandemic , Los Angeles is still one of the largest hubs of American film production , the world's largest by revenue; the city is an important site in the history of film . It also has one of the busiest container ports in the Americas. In 2018, the Los Angeles metropolitan area had
2101-566: A fieldworker decides to use to conduct research, fieldworkers are expected to "show respect for their material and for the people with whom they work." As Nettl explains, ethnomusicology is a field that heavily relies on both the collection of data and the development of strong personal relationships, which often cannot be quantified by statistical data. He summarizes Bronisław Malinowski 's classification of anthropological data (or, as Nettl applies it, ethnomusicological data) by outlining it as three types of information: 1) texts, 2) structures, and 3)
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#17331255630012292-436: A fusion between musicology and cultural anthropology. He focused on the scientific study of music and the interpretation of the cultural phenomena within. However, he called for a broader view that emphasizes "music as an emotional expression." This notion is highly similar to that of Merriam's 1960 extension of ethnomusicology, which views it as "the study of music in culture," that emphasized its pivotal role in human nature and
2483-597: A group of 44 settlers known as " Los Pobladores " founded the pueblo (town) they called El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles , 'The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels';. The original name of the settlement is disputed; the Guinness Book of World Records rendered it as "El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río Porciúncula "; other sources have shortened or alternate versions of
2674-524: A highly experimental rendition of " Hey Jude ", as well as another version of "Pussy Wiggle Stomp". Around this time, Ellis's popularity among educators was also climbing; copies of his band's charts were being published and played by many high school and college big bands. Accordingly, Ellis taught many clinics and played with many school bands. In May 1971, Ellis added a string quartet to the Orchestra. He also hired Bulgarian piano virtuoso Milcho Leviev who
2865-580: A holistic investigation of music in its cultural contexts. The term ethnomusicology itself can be broken down as such: 'ethno' = people, and 'musicology' = the study of music. Thus, in the process of developing the study of music and people, the field of ethnomusicology combines perspectives from a wide variety of disciplines such as folklore, psychology, cultural anthropology, linguistics , comparative musicology, music theory , and history. This disciplinary variety has resulted in several distinct definitions of ethnomusicology. As follows, there has not often been
3056-427: A known whole according to a definite plan, whereas synthesis starts with small elements and combines them into one entity by tailoring the process to the musical material. Herndon also debated on the subjectivity and objectivity necessary for a proper analysis of a musical system. Kolinski, among those scholars critiqued by Herndon's push for a synthetic approach, defended the benefits of analysis, arguing in response for
3247-586: A model. Perhaps the first of these objective systems was the development of the cent as a definitive unit of pitch by phonetician and mathematician Alexander J. Ellis (1885). Ellis made notable contributions to the foundations of comparative musicology and ultimately ethnomusicology with the creation of the cents system; in fact, the ethnomusicologist Hornbostel "declared Ellis the 'true founder of comparative scientific musicology.'" Prior to this invention, pitches were described by using measurements of frequency , or vibrations per second. However, this method
3438-568: A musical and performative lens. Seeger's analysis exemplifies the inherent complexity of ethical practices in ethnomusicological fieldwork, implicating the importance for the continual development of effective fieldwork in the study of ethnomusicology. In his 2005 paper "Come Back and See Me Next Tuesday," Nettl asks whether ethnomusicologists can, or even should practice a unified field methodology as opposed to each scholar developing their own individual approach. Nettl considers several factors when sampling music from different cultures. The first thing
3629-415: A musical and performative lens. Seeger's analysis exemplifies the inherent complexity of ethical practices in ethnomusicological fieldwork, implicating the importance for the continual development of effective fieldwork in the study of ethnomusicology. In recent decades, ethnomusicologists have paid greater attention to ensuring that their fieldwork is both ethically conducted and provides a holistic sense of
3820-428: A myriad of factors, many of which exist beyond the researcher's comprehension, that prevent a precise and accurate representation of what one has experienced in the field. As Nettl notices, there is a current trend in ethnomusicology to no longer even attempt to capture a whole system or culture, but to focus on a very specific niche and try to explain it thoroughly. Nettl's question, however, still remains: should there be
4011-425: A native ensemble, or inclusion in a myriad of social customs. In the past, local musical transcription was required to study music globally, due to the lack of technology such as phonographs or videographing technology. Similarly, Alan Merriam defined ethnomusicology as "music as culture," and stated four goals of ethnomusicology: to help protect and explain non-Western music, to save "folk" music before it disappears in
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#17331255630014202-429: A painter's work. Some uncommon musical elements were employed, such as the use of Arabian rhythms and scales, and foot shuffling. In 1964, Ellis began graduate studies in ethnomusicology at UCLA where he studied with Indian musician Harihar Rao . Greatly inspired by Rao, Ellis sought to implement odd meters in a Western improvised context and (with Rao) co-authored the 1965 article "An Introduction to Indian Music for
4393-410: A product of Western thinking, proclaiming that "ethnomusicology as western culture knows it is actually a western phenomenon." Later, in 1992, Jeff Todd Titon simply described ethnomusicology as the study of "people making music". While there still is not a unified, authoritative definition for ethnomusicology, a number of constants appear in the definitions frequently adopted by leading scholars in
4584-425: A profit; the other, according to an analysis of contemporary newspaper reports, was the 1932 Summer Olympics , also held in Los Angeles. Racial tensions erupted on April 29, 1992, with the acquittal by a Simi Valley jury of four Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers captured on videotape beating Rodney King , culminating in large-scale riots . In 1994, the magnitude 6.7 Northridge earthquake shook
4775-649: A psychologist and philosopher, founded the Berlin Phonogramm-Archiv, which became one of the first archives dedicated to the systematic collection and preservation of non-Western music. This archive enabled researchers to record and analyze diverse musical forms with scientific precision, marking a significant advancement in the field. Hornbostel, a student of Stumpf, expanded on this scientific approach by developing comparative musicology methods that emphasized objective analysis of elements such as pitch, rhythm, and timbre across musical traditions. His work promoted
4966-543: A reflection of culture and investigate the act of musicking through various immersive, observational, and analytical approaches drawn from other disciplines such as anthropology to understand a culture’s music. This discipline emerged from comparative musicology , initially focusing on non-Western music, but later expanded to embrace the study of any and all different kinds of music of the world. Ethnomusicology development resembled that of Anthropology very closely. Stated broadly, ethnomusicology may be described as
5157-440: A researcher's field work will always be personal because a field researcher in ethnomusicology, unlike a field researcher in a hard science, is inherently a participant in the group they are researching just by being there. To illustrate the disparity between those subjective, participatory experiences that ethnomusicological fieldworkers have and what typically gets published as ethnomusicological literature, Barz and Cooley point out
5348-603: A series of battles, culminating with the signing of the Treaty of Cahuenga on January 13, 1847. The Mexican Cession was formalized in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, which ceded Los Angeles and the rest of Alta California to the United States. Railroads arrived with the completion of the transcontinental Southern Pacific line from New Orleans to Los Angeles in 1876 and the Santa Fe Railroad in 1885. Petroleum
5539-423: A single flight of stairs". He checked himself into a hospital in New York City where a doctor diagnosed him with mitral stenosis , a condition which caused his heart to beat in odd rhythms. He was prescribed medication and went home to Los Angeles. Shortly thereafter, he started feeling strange again, and went to a local hospital where he was re-diagnosed with an atrial septal defect . More tests were run and finally
5730-507: A single type, where industrial uses were prohibited. The proscriptions included barns, lumber yards, and any industrial land use employing machine-powered equipment. These laws were enforced against industrial properties after the fact. These prohibitions were in addition to existing activities that were already regulated as nuisances. These included explosives warehousing, gas works, oil drilling, slaughterhouses, and tanneries . Los Angeles City Council also designated seven industrial zones within
5921-521: A third diagnosis was made: cardiomyopathy . Ellis was prescribed more drugs, but his condition worsened and he went into ventricular fibrillation early one morning in May 1975. Ellis later described being on the verge of death, as doctors struggled to save his life: "It sounds weird, I know, but it was a remarkably beautiful experience, maybe the ultimate high." By 1976, Ellis was back in action, although these activities are little documented. On December 3, 1976,
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6112-593: A trend in California to give places Spanish, or Spanish-sounding, names and pronunciations. In 1908, librarian Charles Fletcher Lummis , who argued for the name's pronunciation with a hard g ( / ɡ / ), reported that there were at least 12 pronunciation variants. In the early 1900s, the Los Angeles Times advocated for pronouncing it Loce AHNG-hayl-ais ( / l oʊ s ˈ ɑː ŋ h eɪ l eɪ s / ), approximating Spanish [los ˈaŋxeles] , by printing
6303-461: A unified definition of ethnomusicology within the field itself. Attitudes and foci of ethnomusicologists have evolved since initial studies in the area of comparative musicology in the early 1900s. For example, in 1956, Willard Rhodes provided his perspective on the definition of ethnomusicology, stating that it is a theoretical and empirical study amalgamating both musicology and anthropology. Then, in 1983, Bruno Nettl characterized ethnomusicology as
6494-429: A uniform method for going about this type of fieldwork? Alan Merriam addresses issues that he found with ethnomusicological fieldwork in the third chapter of his 1964 book, The Anthropology of Music . One of his most pressing concerns is that, as of 1964 when he was writing, there had been insufficient discussion among ethnomusicologists about how to conduct proper fieldwork. That aside, Merriam proceeds to characterize
6685-470: A virtual community. Heightened awareness of the need to approach fieldwork in an ethical manner arose in the 1970s in response to a similar movement within the field of anthropology. Mark Slobin writes in detail about the application of ethics to fieldwork. Several potential ethical problems that arise during fieldwork relate to the rights of the music performers. To respect the rights of performers, fieldwork often includes attaining complete permission from
6876-592: A wide scope of musical genres, repertories, and styles, some scholars have favored an all-encompassing "objective" approach, while others argue for "native" or "subjective" methodologies tailored to the musical subject. Those in favor of "objective" analytical methods hold that certain perceptual or cognitive universals or laws exist in music, making it possible to construct an analytical framework or set of categories applicable across cultures. Proponents of "native" analysis argue that all analytical approaches inherently incorporate value judgments and that, to understand music it
7067-438: Is Mount San Antonio , locally known as Mount Baldy, which reaches 10,064 feet (3,068 m). Further afield, the highest point in southern California is San Gorgonio Mountain , 81 miles (130 km) east of downtown Los Angeles, with a height of 11,503 feet (3,506 m). The Los Angeles River , which is largely seasonal, is the primary drainage channel . It was straightened and lined in 51 miles (82 km) of concrete by
7258-645: Is a common problem in this population. Although Serieys et al. 2014 find selection of immune genetics at several loci they do not demonstrate that this produces a real difference which helps the bobcats to survive future mange outbreaks . Los Angeles is subject to earthquakes because of its location on the Pacific Ring of Fire . The geologic instability has produced numerous faults , which cause approximately 10,000 earthquakes annually in Southern California, though most of them are too small to be felt. The strike-slip San Andreas Fault system, which sits at
7449-507: Is a theoretical guide to using quarter tones. Both books are thorough, providing a great deal of historical and cultural background to their subjects. Quarter Tones also provides readers with etudes and exercises. Both books are hard to find, as they have presumably not been printed since their first editions. The Don Ellis Library and Collection resides in the Ethnomusicology Archives at UCLA. Prior to that, (from 1981 to 2000) it
7640-516: Is also worth seeing who a community recommends as informants. People may direct a fieldworker to the best musicians, or they may suggest many "simply good" musicians. This attitude is reflective of the culture's values. As technology advanced, researchers graduated from depending on wax cylinders and the phonograph to digital recordings and video cameras, allowing recordings to become more accurate representations of music studied. These technological advances have helped ethnomusicologists be more mobile in
7831-452: Is complicated by rugged terrain, which has necessitated having different grids for each of the valleys that Los Angeles covers. Major streets are designed to move large volumes of traffic through many parts of the city, many of which are extremely long; Sepulveda Boulevard is 43 miles (69 km) long, while Foothill Boulevard is over 60 miles (97 km) long, reaching as far east as San Bernardino. Drivers in Los Angeles suffer from one of
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8022-539: Is crucial to construct an analysis within cultural context. This debate is well exemplified by a series of articles between Mieczyslaw Kolinski and Marcia Herndon in the mid-1970s; these authors differed strongly on the style, nature, implementation, and advantages of analytical and synthetic models including their own. Herndon, backing "native categories" and inductive thinking, distinguishes between analysis and synthesis as two different methods for examining music. By her definition, analysis seeks to break down parts of
8213-437: Is divided into many different districts and neighborhoods, some of which had been separately incorporated cities that eventually merged with Los Angeles. These neighborhoods were developed piecemeal, and are well-defined enough that the city has signage which marks nearly all of them. The city's street patterns generally follow a grid plan , with uniform block lengths and occasional roads that cut across blocks. However, this
8404-491: Is expected to continue to drop in the coming years because of aggressive steps to reduce it, which include electric and hybrid cars, improvements in mass transit , and other measures. The number of Stage 1 smog alerts in Los Angeles has declined from over 100 per year in the 1970s to almost zero in the new millennium. Despite improvement, the 2006 and 2007 annual reports of the American Lung Association ranked
8595-491: Is known to have met and discussed ideas. All of these unusual elements combined to create a musical experience unlike anything the Monterey audience had ever seen. The Orchestra received thunderous applause and a standing ovation at the conclusion of their first tune, titled "33 222 1 222" in accordance with its subdivision of 19. The band went on to play tunes in 7, 9, and 27, as well as a couple in more standard meters. Portions of
8786-482: Is rich in native plant species partly because of its diversity of habitats, including beaches, wetlands , and mountains. The most prevalent plant communities are coastal sage scrub , chaparral shrubland, and riparian woodland . Native plants include: the California poppy , matilija poppy , toyon , Ceanothus , Chamise , Coast Live Oak , sycamore , willow and Giant Wildrye . Many of these native species, such as
8977-588: Is some correlation between musical traits or approaches and the traits of the music's native culture. Cantometrics involved qualitative scoring based on several characteristics of a song, comparatively seeking commonalities between cultures and geographic regions. Mieczyslaw Kolinski measured the exact distance between the initial and final tones in melodic patterns. Kolinski refuted the early scholarly opposition of European and non-European kinds of music, choosing instead to focus on much-neglected similarities between them, what he saw as markers of "basic similarities in
9168-418: Is that in order to discover the best representation of any culture, it is important to be able to "discern between ordinary experience and ideal," all while considering the fact that "the 'ideal' musician may also know and do things completely outside the ken of the rest." Another factor is the process of selecting teachers, which depends on what the fieldworker wishes to accomplish. Regardless of whatever method
9359-411: Is the most populous city in the U.S. state of California . With an estimated 3,820,914 residents within the city limits as of 2023 , it is the second-most populous city in the United States, behind only New York City ; it is also the commercial, financial and cultural center of Southern California . Los Angeles has an ethnically and culturally diverse population, and is the principal city of
9550-413: The 1916 New York City Zoning Ordinance did. Second, the residential zones did not distinguish types of housing; they treated apartments, hotels, and detached-single-family housing equally. In 1910, Hollywood merged into Los Angeles, with 10 movie companies already operating in the city at the time. By 1921, more than 80 percent of the world's film industry was concentrated in L.A. The money generated by
9741-762: The Army Corps of Engineers to act as a flood control channel. The river begins in the Canoga Park district of the city, flows east from the San Fernando Valley along the north edge of the Santa Monica Mountains, and turns south through the city center, flowing to its mouth in the Port of Long Beach at the Pacific Ocean. The smaller Ballona Creek flows into the Santa Monica Bay at Playa del Rey . Los Angeles
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#17331255630019932-639: The Berliner Phonogramm-Archiv at the Berlin school of comparative musicology , which was founded by Carl Stumpf , his student Erich M. von Hornbostel , and medical doctor Otto Abraham. Stumpf and Hornbostel studied and preserved these recordings in the Berlin Archiv, setting the foundation for contemporary ethnomusicology. But, the "armchair analysis" methods of Stumpf and Hornbostel required very little participation in fieldwork themselves, instead using
10123-501: The Fender-Rhodes electric piano , clavinet , and electric harpsichord . Ellis himself started using what he called the "electrophonic trumpet"; that is, a trumpet whose sound was amplified and often routed through various effects processors. The first appearance of this innovation is on "Open Beauty" from 1967's Electric Bath , in which Ellis takes an extended solo with his trumpet being processed through an echoplex . Ellis also used
10314-864: The Fluxus art movement. Back in New York, Ellis formed the Improvisational Workshop Orchestra, which gave its debut performance on February 10, 1963 at the Five Spot . (Another tape of the same group is listed in the Don Ellis Collection as being recorded on Feb. 9th, but it may be a rehearsal tape.) The performance had a quality similar to those Ellis gave in Sweden: unusual artistic devices were employed, such as performers using cards to determine event orders, and musicians using their instruments to interpret
10505-529: The Hillside Stranglers murder cases in 1977–1978. In early 1984, the city surpassed Chicago in population, thus becoming the second largest city in the United States. In 1984, the city hosted the Summer Olympic Games for the second time . Despite being boycotted by 14 Communist countries , the 1984 Olympics became more financially successful than any previous, and the second Olympics to turn
10696-483: The Los Angeles sunflower , have become so rare as to be considered endangered. Mexican Fan Palms , Canary Island Palms , Queen Palms , Date Palms , and California Fan Palms are common in the Los Angeles area, although only the last is native to California, though still not native to the City of Los Angeles. Los Angeles has a number of official flora: The city has an urban population of bobcats ( Lynx rufus ). Mange
10887-624: The New York Philharmonic on Larry Austin 's "Improvisations for Orchestra and Jazz Soloists" (1961) and Gunther Schuller 's "Journey Into Jazz" (1962). A later recording of Austin's piece, featuring Ellis, bassist Barre Phillips , drummer Joe Cocuzzo , and the New York Philharmonic (directed by Bernstein) was released on an album entitled Leonard Bernstein Conducts Music Of Our Time (1965). In November 1967, Ellis's first symphony, "Contrasts for Two Orchestras and Trumpet",
11078-550: The San Fernando Valley , with the city bordering the San Gabriel Valley to its east. It covers about 469 square miles (1,210 km ), and is the county seat of Los Angeles County , which is the most populous county in the United States with an estimated 9.86 million residents as of 2022 . It is the third-most visited city in the U.S. with over 2.7 million visitors as of 2023. The area that became Los Angeles
11269-611: The University of Illinois , defines fieldwork as "direct inspection [of music, culture, etc] at the source," and states that "It is in the importance of fieldwork that anthropology and ethnomusicology are closest: It is a 'hallmark' of both fields, something like a union card." However, he mentions that ethnomusicological fieldwork differs from anthropological fieldwork because the former requires more "practical" information about "recording, filming, video-taping, [and] special problems of text-gathering." The experience of an ethnomusicologist in
11460-496: The respelling under its masthead for several years. This did not find favor. Since the 1930s, / l ɔː s ˈ æ n dʒ əl ə s / has been most common. In 1934, the United States Board on Geographic Names decreed that this pronunciation be used by the federal government. This was also endorsed in 1952 by a "jury" appointed by Mayor Fletcher Bowron to devise an official pronunciation. Common pronunciations in
11651-562: The ring modulator on several occasions, which was built for him by Tom Oberheim . In 1968, Ellis replaced his double bassists with a single electric bassist, at first Joe Julian, then Dennis Parker, and finally Dave McDaniel. He also hired guitarist Jay Graydon who remained with the band for several years. In 1971, for the Tears of Joy tour, Ellis added a string quartet to his band. The instruments were amplified using newly developed pick-ups made by Barcus-Berry so that they could be heard over
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#173312556300111842-513: The "electrophonic trumpet" over the next five years (see below). In February 1968 the Don Ellis Orchestra was back in the studio to record a second album, which would become Shock Treatment . However, miscommunications arose, and the album was released with poor edits and inferior alternate takes that Ellis did not approve of. In Ellis's own words: "Upon completion of the album, I did the mixing and editing here in California and then sent
12033-452: The 1950s, Jaap Kunst wrote about fieldwork for the purpose of recording and transcribing sound. Kunst lists various "phonogram-archives," collections of recorded sound. They include the archives founded by Stumpf. A pioneering study in fieldwork was conducted by David McAllester of Navajo music , particularly the music of the Enemy Way ceremony. In it, McAllester details the procedures of
12224-608: The 1950s. The new term aimed to emphasize a descriptive, culture-sensitive approach that respected each musical tradition on its own terms. Over time, the scope of ethnomusicology broadened to encompass the study of music from all cultural contexts, including Western traditions. This shift reflects a more human-centric approach, where music is seen not only as an art form but as a social and cultural phenomenon deeply connected to identity, tradition, and daily life. Folklorists , who began preserving and studying folklore music in Europe and
12415-723: The 1962 Jazz Jamboree in Warsaw ; his quartet performance was partially documented on a Polish-only 10-inch EP. Ellis chronicled his experience in an article called Warsaw Diary , which was printed in the January 3rd, 1963 issue of DownBeat magazine. In December, Ellis participated in the NDR Jazz Workshop in Hamburg , Germany , and in early 1963, traveled to Stockholm , Sweden . While there, he became somewhat well known for his experimentation with happenings , similar to those used by members of
12606-547: The 1966 Monterey Jazz Festival . The campaign eventually succeeded, and the band was scheduled to perform that September. The Don Ellis Orchestra was different from most other big bands in several ways; most obviously in its instrumentation (discussed below), but also in Ellis's incorporation of Indian musical elements into modern big-band writing. Drawing from his compositional and arranging experience, as well as from his studies of Indian music, Ellis began to write jazz-based music with
12797-404: The 1970s in response to a similar movement within the field of anthropology. Mark Slobin writes in detail about the application of ethics to fieldwork. Several potential ethical problems that arise during fieldwork relate to the rights of the music performers. To respect the rights of performers, fieldwork often includes attaining complete permission from the group or individual who is performing
12988-503: The 20th century, Los Angeles substantially reduced the amount of housing that could be built by drastically downzoning the city. In 1960, the city had a total zoned capacity for approximately 10 million people. By 1990, that capacity had fallen to 4.5 million as a result of policy decisions to ban housing through zoning. Racial tensions led to the Watts riots in 1965, resulting in 34 deaths and over 1,000 injuries. In 1969, California became
13179-453: The Angels'. The present-day city has the largest Roman Catholic archdiocese in the United States. Two-thirds of the Mexican or ( New Spain ) settlers were mestizo or mulatto , a mixture of African, indigenous and European ancestry. The settlement remained a small ranch town for decades, but by 1820, the population had increased to about 650 residents. Today, the pueblo is commemorated in
13370-409: The Don Ellis Orchestra performed on a Shirley MacLaine television special entitled Where Do We Go From Here? The Orchestra played Ellis's arrangement of " Sweet Georgia Brown " retitled "Sweet Shirley MacLaine". The arrangement featured a solo by Art Pepper , a chorus of tap dancers, and the return of the electrophonic trumpet. In 1977, Ellis was signed to Atlantic Records , which promised to fund
13561-456: The Don Ellis Orchestra. This rehearsal/workshop band played every Monday night for almost a year, first at a venue called Club Havana (club) and later relocating to a club called Bonesville in Hollywood, where they began to gain a significant following. The group started making money by charging a small admission fee to the rehearsals, and began a letter-writing campaign to get the band a spot at
13752-555: The Jazz Musician". Ellis briefly formed the first version of his big band at this time but disbanded it when he received a Rockefeller Grant to work at SUNY Buffalo for a year. While in New York, Ellis was involved with several Third Stream projects. A live performance from February 8, 1964, at the Lincoln Center was filmed for Leonard Bernstein 's Young People's Concerts series. He performed with other jazz musicians alongside
13943-621: The Los Angeles area include the 1933 Long Beach , 1971 San Fernando , 1987 Whittier Narrows , and the 1994 Northridge events. All but a few are of low intensity and are not felt. The USGS has released the UCERF California earthquake forecast , which models earthquake occurrence in California. Parts of the city are also vulnerable to tsunamis ; harbor areas were damaged by waves from Aleutian Islands earthquake in 1946, Valdivia earthquake in 1960, Alaska earthquake in 1964, Chile earthquake in 2010 and Japan earthquake in 2011. The city
14134-498: The Los Angeles area was the headquarters of six of the country's major aircraft manufacturers ( Douglas Aircraft Company , Hughes Aircraft , Lockheed , North American Aviation , Northrop Corporation , and Vultee ). During the war, more aircraft were produced in one year than in all the pre-war years since the Wright brothers flew the first airplane in 1903, combined. Manufacturing in Los Angeles skyrocketed, and as William S. Knudsen , of
14325-534: The Los Angeles region. In 1846, during the wider Mexican-American war , marines from the United States occupied the pueblo. This resulted in the siege of Los Angeles where 150 Mexican militias fought the occupiers which eventually surrendered. Mexican rule ended during following the American Conquest of California , part of the larger Mexican-American War . Americans took control from the Californios after
14516-675: The Los Angeles/Long Beach port complex, Los Angeles suffers from air pollution in the form of smog. The Los Angeles Basin and the San Fernando Valley are susceptible to atmospheric inversion , which holds in the exhausts from road vehicles, airplanes, locomotives, shipping, manufacturing, and other sources. The smog season lasts from approximately May to October. While other large cities rely on rain to clear smog, Los Angeles gets only 15 inches (380 mm) of rain each year: pollution accumulates over many consecutive days. Issues of air quality in Los Angeles and other major cities led to
14707-520: The Musical Scales of Various Nations." Ellis’s approach provided a basis for the objective analysis of musical systems across different cultures, allowing for cross-cultural comparison and reducing subjective biases. The institutionalization of comparative musicology, a precursor to ethnomusicology, was largely driven by the efforts of early 20th-century scholars like Carl Stumpf and Erich M. von Hornbostel. As Dieter Christensen (1991) explains, Stumpf,
14898-509: The National Defense Advisory Commission put it, "We won because we smothered the enemy in an avalanche of production, the like of which he had never seen, nor dreamed possible." After the end of World War II Los Angeles grew more rapidly than ever, sprawling into the San Fernando Valley . The expansion of the state owned Interstate Highway System during the 1950s and 1960s helped propel suburban growth and signaled
15089-488: The Orchestra was back in Columbia Studios to record The New Don Ellis Band Goes Underground , a collection of several pop songs (arranged by Ellis) and some Ellis originals. The album features vocalist Patti Allen on songs by Laura Nyro , The Isley Brothers , and Sly Stone ; it also includes "Bulgarian Bulge", a composition based on a Bulgarian folk tune in 33/16 time. The band's energetic live performances such as
15280-639: The Orchestra's upcoming trip for the band's performance at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Montreux , Switzerland in exchange for a live recording of said performance. However, the record company asked Don first to record arrangements of two songs from Star Wars . The songs, " Star Wars (Main Title) " and " Princess Leia's Theme ", were to be released as a 45 rpm single. In June, the record company scrambled and asked Don to record an entire album of material, for
15471-667: The San Fernando Valley. Other hilly parts of Los Angeles include the Mt. Washington area north of Downtown, eastern parts such as Boyle Heights , the Crenshaw district around the Baldwin Hills , and the San Pedro district. Surrounding the city are much higher mountains. Immediately to the north lie the San Gabriel Mountains , which is a popular recreation area for Angelenos. Its high point
15662-596: The Sextet, until 1971, when the group (with Milcho Leviev , Ralph Humphrey and Dennis Parker forming the rhythm section) played several gigs at Donte's in North Hollywood. But Ellis's side project, a workshop orchestra, had been working on different material for two years by this time. In addition to working with the Hindustani Jazz Sextet , Ellis continued writing arrangements for and rehearsing what would grow into
15853-518: The Southern Californian coast, is subject to a late spring/early summer weather phenomenon called " June Gloom ". This involves overcast or foggy skies in the morning that yield to sun by early afternoon. More recently, statewide droughts in California have further strained the city's water security . Downtown Los Angeles averages 14.67 in (373 mm) of precipitation annually, mainly occurring between November and March, generally in
16044-739: The Spanish founded the Pueblo de Los Ángeles . Iyáangẚ has also been translated as "the valley of smoke". Maritime explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo claimed the area of southern California for the Spanish Empire in 1542, while on an official military exploring expedition, as he was moving northward along the Pacific coast from earlier colonizing bases of New Spain in Central and South America. Gaspar de Portolà and Franciscan missionary Juan Crespí reached
16235-522: The US in the 19th century, are considered the precursors of the field prior to the Second World War . Oskar Kolberg is regarded as one of the earliest European ethnomusicologists as he first began collecting Polish folk songs in 1839 (Nettl 2010, 33). The International Musical Society in Berlin in 1899 acted as one of the first centers for ethnomusicology. As the study of music across cultures developed in
16426-476: The United Kingdom include / l ɒ s ˈ æ n dʒ ɪ l iː z , - l ɪ z , - l ɪ s / loss AN -jil-eez, -iz, -iss . Phonetician Jack Windsor Lewis described the most common one, / l ɒ s ˈ æ n dʒ ɪ l iː z / , as a spelling pronunciation based on analogy to Greek words ending in -es , "reflecting a time when the classics were familiar if Spanish
16617-519: The Westside Room in Century City . After this, his doctor ordered him to refrain from touring and playing trumpet because it was too stressful on his heart. On December 17, 1978, after seeing a Jon Hendricks concert, Ellis suffered a fatal heart attack at his North Hollywood home where his parents were staying with him. His heart condition is believed to have been cardiac arrhythmia . He was 44. Ellis
16808-517: The acknowledgment of musical facts and laws. As a result of the above debate and ongoing ones like it, ethnomusicology has yet to establish any standard method or methods of analysis. This is not to say that scholars have not attempted to establish universal or "objective" analytical systems. Bruno Nettl acknowledges the lack of a singular comparative model for ethnomusicological study, but describes methods by Mieczyslaw Kolinski, Béla Bartók , and Erich von Hornbostel as notable attempts to provide such
16999-489: The album, "Whiplash", was later featured in a film of the same name . The record was released by MPS Records , which would also release Ellis's next album, Haiku . The record, featuring Milcho Leviev , bassist Ray Brown , drummer John Guerin , and a large string orchestra, is made up of ten songs, each based on a Japanese haiku poem. The album is relaxed and introspective. Haiku was presumably recorded in late 1973 and released in 1974. In 1974, Ellis became interested in
17190-486: The album. They graciously consented and I was able to change the album back to its original form except that I left Mercy Maybe Mercy, which my producer particularly liked, in place of Zim, which I hope will appear in a future album." Throughout late 1968, the Orchestra returned to the studio several times to record songs for what would become Autumn . The album contained the twenty-minute opus "Variations for Trumpet" that showcased Ellis's virtuosic trumpet playing. Also on
17381-431: The amateur field collector whose knowledge of its aims has been severely restricted. Such collectors operate under the assumption that the important point is simply to gather music sound, and that this sound–often taken without discrimination and without thought, for example, to problems of sampling–can then simply be turned over to the laboratory worker to do something about it." In the same work, Merriam states that "what
17572-424: The anthropological approach generally study music to learn about people and culture. Those who practice the musicological approach study people and cultures to learn about music. Charles Seeger differentiated between the two approaches, describing the anthropology of music as studying the way that music is a "part of culture and social life", while musical anthropology "studies social life as a performance," examining
17763-566: The band performed at the Pacific Jazz Festival in October 1966, and at Shelly's Manne Hole in March 1967, releasing segments of each on 1967's Live in 3 2/3 4 Time (Pacific Jazz). Around this time, Columbia Records producer and A&R man John Hammond sought to recruit the band for the label. The band was signed, and was in the studio in September 1967 to record Electric Bath , which
17954-522: The band's sound. After his heart attack, Ellis returned briefly to the electrophonic trumpet, and continued using synthesizers and electronic keyboards. The string quartet, a mainstay since 1971, remained alongside the brass. He also began playing two new instruments, the superbone and the firebird , which were a combination valve-slide trombone and trumpet, respectively. Both were also played by Maynard Ferguson . Los Angeles, California Los Angeles , often referred to by its initials L.A. ,
18145-678: The birthplace of the Internet, as the first ARPANET transmission was sent from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) to the Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park . In 1973, Tom Bradley was elected as the city's first African American mayor, serving for five terms until retiring in 1993. Other events in the city during the 1970s included the Symbionese Liberation Army 's South Central standoff in 1974 and
18336-616: The boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate , passes through the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The segment of the fault passing through Southern California experiences a major earthquake roughly every 110 to 140 years, and seismologists have warned about the next "big one", as the last major earthquake was the 1857 Fort Tejon earthquake . The Los Angeles basin and metropolitan area are also at risk from blind thrust earthquakes . Major earthquakes that have hit
18527-428: The boundary of a Mediterranean climate ( Köppen : Csb on the coast, Csa otherwise). Daytime temperatures are generally temperate all year round. In winter, they average around 68 °F (20 °C). Autumn months tend to be hot, with major heat waves a common occurrence in September and October, while the spring months tend to be cooler and experience more precipitation. Los Angeles has plenty of sunshine throughout
18718-439: The brass and saxophones. These new timbres offered Ellis a wellspring of creative possibilities. As he explained, "People spend whole evenings listening to a brass quintet, a woodwind or string quartet, so I reasoned that having ALL of these in the context of a big band should give us a fantastic variety of colors from which to draw." The 1974 album Haiku was recorded using a jazz quartet with full string orchestra backing. Due to
18909-454: The case." He described McAllester's work as "[relating] music to culture and culture to music in terms of the value system of the Navaho [ sic ]." As of 1956, the time that Merriam published his review, the idea of such work "occurred to ethnomusicologists with surprising infrequency." In his work The Anthropology of Music , published in 1964, Merriam wrote that "ethnomusicology has suffered from
19100-402: The ceremony, as well as the music itself. Aside from Enemy Way music, McAllester sought Navajo cultural values based on analysis of attitudes toward music. To his interviewees, McAllester gave a questionnaire, which includes these items: The ethnomusicologist Alan Merriam reviewed McAllester's work, calling it "strange to speak of a work published in 1954 as 'pioneering,' but this is precisely
19291-404: The city as the most polluted in the country with short-term particle pollution and year-round particle pollution. In 2008, the city was ranked the second most polluted and again had the highest year-round particulate pollution. The city met its goal of providing 20 percent of the city's power from renewable sources in 2010. The American Lung Association's 2013 survey ranks the metro area as having
19482-521: The city is 342 miles (550 km). Los Angeles is both flat and hilly. The highest point in the city proper is Mount Lukens at 5,074 ft (1,547 m), located in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains at the north extent of the Crescenta Valley . The eastern end of the Santa Monica Mountains stretches from Downtown to the Pacific Ocean and separates the Los Angeles Basin from
19673-550: The city, causing $ 12.5 billion in damage and 72 deaths. The century ended with the Rampart scandal , one of the most extensive documented cases of police misconduct in American history. In 2002, Mayor James Hahn led the campaign against secession, resulting in voters defeating efforts by the San Fernando Valley and Hollywood to secede from the city. In 2022 , Karen Bass became the city's first female mayor , making Los Angeles
19864-487: The city. However, between 1908 and 1915, the Los Angeles City Council created various exceptions to the broad proscriptions that applied to these three residential zones, and as a consequence, some industrial uses emerged within them. There are two differences between the 1908 Residence District Ordinance and later zoning laws in the United States. First, the 1908 laws did not establish a comprehensive zoning map as
20055-419: The community or culture under study. As the demographic makeup of ethnomusicologists conducting research grows more diverse, the field has placed a renewed emphasis on a respectful approach to fieldwork that avoids stereotyping or assumptions about a particular culture. Rather than using European music as a baseline against which music from all other cultures is compared, researchers in the field often aim to place
20246-461: The compositions (beats were even missing from bars), whole sections were cut out, some of these being the high points of the album. Therefore the liner notes, which were done to the original album, do not agree with what is actually on the album, calling attention to solos and high spots which are not there. [...] Also, the wrong personnel is listed on the jacket. When I discovered what had happened, I was, naturally, disturbed and asked Columbia to redo
20437-558: The concert were released on Pacific Jazz the following year. The 1998 CD reissue includes several other tunes from the concert; the CD's notes also reveal that one number, "Concerto for Trumpet", was actually recorded a month later at a "Pacific Jazz Festival" in Costa Mesa. (The Monterey performance of that tune was apparently not up to the standards of Ellis and the album's producer, Richard Bock.) Following this successful breakthrough performance,
20628-588: The continued growth of the city. Because of clauses in the city's charter that prevented the City of Los Angeles from selling or providing water from the aqueduct to any area outside its borders, many adjacent cities and communities felt compelled to join Los Angeles. Los Angeles created the first municipal zoning ordinance in the United States. On September 14, 1908, the Los Angeles City Council promulgated residential and industrial land use zones. The new ordinance established three residential zones of
20819-470: The demise of the city's privately owned electrified rail system , once the world's largest. As a consequence of World War II, suburban growth, and population density, many amusement parks were built and operated in this area. An example is Beverly Park , which was located at the corner of Beverly Boulevard and La Cienega before being closed and substituted by the Beverly Center . In the second half of
21010-421: The difference between field research and field notes. While field research attempts to find the reality, field notes document a reality. The issue, according to Barz and Cooley, is that field notes, which capture the personal experience of the researcher, are often omitted from whatever final writing that researcher publishes. Heightened awareness of the need to approach fieldwork in an ethical manner arose in
21201-549: The difference between the average daily low and the average daily high is over 30 °F (17 °C). The average annual temperature of the sea is 63 °F (17 °C), from 58 °F (14 °C) in January to 68 °F (20 °C) in August. Hours of sunshine total more than 3,000 per year, from an average of 7 hours of sunshine per day in December to an average of 12 in July. Due to
21392-487: The discipline. The importance of fieldwork in the field of ethnomusicology has required the development of effective methods to pursue fieldwork. In the 19th century until the mid-20th century, European scholars ( folklorists , ethnographers , and some early ethnomusicologists) who were motivated to preserve disappearing music cultures (from both in and outside of Europe), collected transcriptions or audio recordings on wax cylinders . Many such recordings were then stored at
21583-490: The effects culture has on music, and about the impact music has on culture. The great diversity of types of music found across the world has necessitated an interdisciplinary approach to ethnomusicological study. Analytical and research methods have changed over time, as ethnomusicology has continued solidifying its disciplinary identity, and as scholars have become increasingly aware of issues involved in cultural study (see Theoretical Issues and Debates ). Among these issues are
21774-406: The ethnomusicologist does in the field is determined by his own formulation of method, taken in its broadest sense." Fieldwork can have multiple areas of inquiry, and Merriam lists six of these: Bruno Nettl describes early 20th-century fieldwork as extraction of music, which is analyzed elsewhere. Between 1920 and 1960, however, fieldworkers wished to map entire musical systems, and resided longer in
21965-459: The fact that musicology is primarily a human centric endeavour. Merriam's 1964 work redefined ethnomusicology and highlighted its importance in cultural anthropology in understanding music within different socio-cultural communities. He distinguished and showcased its distinct nature from that of comparative musicology by emphasizing the influence of social and cultural factors on music and how human centric it is. Hood's 1971 perspective, emphasized
22156-404: The field is his/her data; experience, texts (e.g. tales, myths, proverbs), structures (e.g. social organization), and "imponderabilia of everyday life" all contribute to an ethnomusicologist's study. He also notes how ethnomusicological fieldwork "principally involves interaction with other humans" and is primarily about "day-to-day personal relationships," and this shows the more "personal" side of
22347-526: The field work process. Emblematic of his ethical theories is a 1983 piece that describes the fundamental complexities of fieldwork through his relationship with the Suyá Indians of Brazil. To avoid ethnocentrism in his research, Seeger does not explore how singing has come to exist within Suyá culture, instead explaining how singing creates culture presently, and how aspects of Suyá social life can be seen through both
22538-514: The field, but have also let some ethnomusicologists shift back to the "armchair analysis" of Stumpf and Hornbostel. Since video recordings are now considered cultural texts, ethnomusicologists can conduct fieldwork by recording music performances and creating documentaries of the people behind the music, which can be accurately studied outside of the field. Additionally, the invention of the internet and forms of online communication could allow ethnomusicologists to develop new methods of fieldwork within
22729-487: The field. After the 1950s, some not only observed, but also participated in musical cultures. Mantle Hood wrote about this practice as well. Hood had learned from musicians in Indonesia about the intervals of sléndro scales, as well as how to play the rebab. He was interested in the characteristics of Indonesian music, as well as "social and economic valuations" of music. By the 1980s, participant-observer methodology became
22920-419: The field. It is agreed upon that ethnomusicologists look at music from beyond a purely theoretical, sonic, or historical perspective. Instead, these scholars look at music within culture, music as culture, and music as a reflection of culture. In other words, ethnomusicology was developed as the study of all music as a human social and cultural phenomenon. Rhodes, in 1956, had described ethnomusicology as
23111-458: The fieldwork of other scholars. This differentiates Stumpf and Hornbostel from their present-day contemporaries, who now use their fieldwork experience as a main component in their research. Ethnomusicology's transition from "armchair analysis" to fieldwork reflected ethnomusicologists trying to distance themselves from the field of comparative musicology in the period following World War II . Fieldwork emphasized face-to-face interaction to gather
23302-408: The finished product to New York. It wasn't until the album was already released that I heard a pressing. Much to my horror, I found that, without consulting me, the whole album had been changed around--rejected masters and unapproved takes were used (not the ones which I had selected and edited), the wrong tunes were on the album, unauthorized splices were made which disturbed the musical flow of some of
23493-407: The form of moderate rain showers, but sometimes as heavy rainfall during winter storms. Rainfall is usually higher in the hills and coastal slopes of the mountains because of orographic uplift. Summer days are usually rainless. Rarely, an incursion of moist air from the south or east can bring brief thunderstorms in late summer, especially to the mountains. The coast gets slightly less rainfall, while
23684-654: The greatest exposure the group had was "Synthesis", a composition by Ellis in which the Sextet performed alongside Stan Kenton 's Neophonic Orchestra. The concert took place in February 1966 at the Los Angeles Music Center. On July 14 of that year, the Sextet performed at Bill Graham 's Fillmore Auditorium, opening for the Grateful Dead and Big Brother and the Holding Company . This is the last known activity of
23875-450: The group or individual who is performing the music, as well as being sensitive to the rights and obligations related to the music in the context of the host society. Another ethical dilemma of ethnomusicological fieldwork is the inherent ethnocentrism (more commonly, eurocentrism) of ethnomusicology. Anthony Seeger has done seminal work on the notion of ethics within fieldwork, emphasizing the need to avoid ethnocentric remarks during or after
24066-475: The historic district of Los Angeles Pueblo Plaza and Olvera Street , the oldest part of Los Angeles. New Spain achieved its independence from the Spanish Empire in 1821, and the pueblo now existed within the new Mexican Republic . During Mexican rule, Governor Pío Pico made Los Angeles the regional capital of Alta California . By this time, the new republic introduced more secularization acts within
24257-493: The industry kept the city insulated from much of the economic loss suffered by the rest of the country during the Great Depression . By 1930, the population surpassed one million. In 1932, the city hosted the Summer Olympics . During World War II Los Angeles was a major center of wartime manufacturing, such as shipbuilding and aircraft. Calship built hundreds of Liberty Ships and Victory Ships on Terminal Island, and
24448-402: The inevitable arguments that may arise in the future on the nature of ethnomusicological research. In addition, many ethnomusicological studies share common methodological approaches encapsulated in ethnographic fieldwork . Scholars of ethnomusicology often conduct their primary fieldwork among those who make the music, learning languages and the music itself. Ethnomusicologists also take on
24639-516: The inland and mountain areas get considerably more. Years of average rainfall are rare. The usual pattern is a year-to-year variability, with a short string of dry years of 5–10 in (130–250 mm) rainfall, followed by one or two wet years with more than 20 in (510 mm). Wet years are usually associated with warm water El Niño conditions in the Pacific, dry years with cooler water La Niña episodes. A series of rainy days can bring floods to
24830-570: The largest U.S. city to have ever had a woman as mayor. Los Angeles will host the 2028 Summer Olympics and Paralympic Games , making Los Angeles the third city to host the Olympics three times. The city of Los Angeles covers a total area of 502.7 square miles (1,302 km ), comprising 468.7 square miles (1,214 km ) of land and 34.0 square miles (88 km ) of water. The city extends for 44 miles (71 km) from north to south and for 29 miles (47 km) from east to west. The perimeter of
25021-415: The late 19th and early 20th centuries, scholars began applying scientific methods to analyze musical structures systematically. While ethnomusicology had not yet emerged as a formal discipline, foundational work in this period established techniques that would later influence the field. One key figure, Alexander J. Ellis, introduced methods for measuring musical pitch and scale structures in his 1885 paper, "On
25212-505: The longer name. The local English pronunciation of the name of the city has varied over time. A 1953 article in the journal of the American Name Society asserts that the pronunciation / l ɔː s ˈ æ n dʒ əl ə s / lawss AN -jəl-əs was established following the 1850 incorporation of the city and that since the 1880s the pronunciation / l oʊ s ˈ æ ŋ ɡ əl ə s / lohss ANG -gəl-əs emerged from
25403-490: The lowest is 28 °F (−2 °C), on January 4, 1949. Within the City of Los Angeles, the highest temperature ever officially recorded is 121 °F (49 °C), on September 6, 2020, at the weather station at Pierce College in the San Fernando Valley neighborhood of Woodland Hills . During autumn and winter, Santa Ana winds sometimes bring much warmer and drier conditions to Los Angeles, and raise wildfire risk. Owing to geography, heavy reliance on automobiles, and
25594-505: The lowlands and mudslides to the hills, especially after wildfires have denuded the slopes. Both freezing temperatures and snowfall are extremely rare in the city basin and along the coast, with the last occurrence of a 32 °F (0 °C) reading at the downtown station being January 29, 1979; freezing temperatures occur nearly every year in valley locations while the mountains within city limits typically receive snowfall every winter. The greatest snowfall recorded in downtown Los Angeles
25785-772: The majority of Bartók's source material. In 1935, the journal American Anthropologist published an article titled "Plains Ghost Dance and Great Basin Music," authored by George Herzog. Herzog was an assistant to Hornbostel and Stumpf. Herzog draws from material "available to [him]" and "in the literature," including transcriptions by James Mooney for the Bureau of American Ethnology ; Natalie Curtis , and Alice C. Fletcher . Herzog analyzes structure and melodic contour of Ghost Dance songs. He notes that Ghost Dance music's "paired patterns" occur in many Native American tribes' music, and they may have migrated from tribe to tribe. Writing later in
25976-429: The modern world, to study music as a means of communication to further world understanding, and to provide an avenue for wider exploration and reflection for those who are interested in primitive studies. This approach emphasizes the cultural impact of music and how music can be used to further understand humanity. The two approaches to ethnomusicology bring unique perspectives to the field, providing knowledge both about
26167-752: The most accurate impression and meaning of music from the creators of the music, in contrast with "armchair analysis" that disconnected the ethnomusicologist from the individual or group of performers. Stumpf and Hornbostel were not the only scholars to use "armchair" analysis. Other scholars analyzed recordings and transcriptions that they did not make. For instance, in his work Hungarian Folk Music , Béla Bartók analyzes various traits of Hungarian folk songs. While drawing from recordings made by himself, Bartók also relies on transcriptions by other musicians; among them are Vikar Béla [ Béla Vikar ; Vikar Béla ] , Zoltán Kodály , and Lászo Lajtha . These transcriptions came in recorded and printed format, and form
26358-532: The mountainous terrain of the surrounding region, the Los Angeles area contains a large number of distinct microclimates , causing extreme variations in temperature in close physical proximity to each other. For example, the average July maximum temperature at the Santa Monica Pier is 70 °F (21 °C) whereas it is 95 °F (35 °C) in Canoga Park, 15 miles (24 km) away. The city, like much of
26549-509: The music of Brazil , even studying Portuguese so as to better communicate with indigenous musicians. He led a live band around this time called the Organic Band, which was a stripped-down version of the Orchestra that had no electronic instrumentation or modification (save for amplification). The band also featured a vocal quartet. These pursuits were postponed when Ellis started having health problems, feeling "out of breath after [walking] up
26740-510: The music of a certain society in the context only of the culture under study, without comparing it to European models. In this way, the field aims to avoid an "us vs. them" approach to music. Nettl and other scholars hope to avoid the perception of the "ugly ethnomusicologist," which carries with it the same negative connotations as the "ugly American" traveler. Many scholars, from Ravi Shankar to V. Kofi Agawu, have criticized ethnomusicology for, as Nettl puts it, "dealing with non-European music in
26931-402: The music, as well as being sensitive to the rights and obligations related to the music in the context of the host society. Another ethical dilemma of ethnomusicological fieldwork is the inherent ethnocentrism (more commonly, eurocentrism) of ethnomusicology. Anthony Seeger, Emeritus Professor of Ethnomusicology at UCLA, has done seminal work on the notion of ethics within fieldwork, emphasizing
27122-645: The musical experience of a whole culture, according to Rice's logic, is not possible. Another argument against the objectivity and standardization of fieldwork comes from Gregory Barz and Tim Cooley in the second chapter of their book, Shadows in the Field: New Perspectives for Fieldwork in Ethnomusicology . In this chapter, entitled "Confronting the Field(Note): In and Out of the Field," they claim that
27313-410: The nation's worst smog, and fourth in both short-term and year-round pollution amounts. Ethnomusicology Ethnomusicology (from Greek ἔθνος ethnos ‘nation’ and μουσική mousike ‘music’) is the multidisciplinary study of music in its cultural context, investigating social, cognitive, biological, comparative, and other dimensions involved other than sound. Ethnomusicologists study music as
27504-476: The nature of ethnomusicological fieldwork as being primarily concerned with the collection of facts. He describes ethnomusicology as both a field and a laboratory discipline. In these accounts of the nature of ethnomusicology, it seems to be closely related to a science. Because of that, one might argue that a standardized, agreed-upon field method would be beneficial to ethnomusicologists. Despite that apparent viewpoint, Merriam conclusively claims that there should be
27695-481: The need to avoid ethnocentric remarks during or after the field work process. Emblematic of his ethical theories is a 1983 piece that describes the fundamental complexities of fieldwork through his relationship with the Suyá Indians of Brazil. To avoid ethnocentrism in his research, Seeger does not explore how singing has come to exist within Suyá culture, instead explaining how singing creates culture presently, and how aspects of Suyá social life can be seen through both
27886-438: The non-ponderable aspects of everyday life. The third type of information, Nettl claims is the most important because it captures the ambiguity of experience that cannot be captured well through writing. He cites another attempt made by Morris Friedrich , an anthropologist, to classify field data into fourteen different categories in order to demonstrate the complexity that information gathered through fieldwork contains. There are
28077-537: The norm, at least in the North American tradition of ethnomusicology. Aside from this history of fieldwork, Nettl writes about informants: the people whom fieldworkers research and interview. Informants do not contain the entirety of a musical culture, and need not represent the ideal of the culture. According to Nettl, there is a bell-shaped curve of musical ability. In a community, the majority are "simply good" at their music. They are of greatest interest. However, it
28268-502: The one at Stanford caused its popularity among college crowds to increase. In June 1970, the Orchestra performed for three nights at Bill Graham's Fillmore West auditorium, opening for the Quicksilver Messenger Service and Leon Russell . The resulting recording was made into a double LP and released by Columbia in late 1970. "Live at Fillmore" was a happy return to original material, and even included one Beatles cover,
28459-420: The original, or arranged for the melody to be played in a humorous way. There is no singer on this album. Regardless of what inspired Ellis's liberal interpretations of the popular material, Connection was the Orchestra's last album for Columbia. In 1973, the Orchestra recorded Soaring , a collection of originals. Milcho Leviev contributed "Sladka Pitka", based on a Bulgarian folk song. A Hank Levy tune off
28650-507: The passage of early national environmental legislation, including the Clean Air Act . When the act was passed, California was unable to create a State Implementation Plan that would enable it to meet the new air quality standards, largely because of the level of pollution in Los Angeles generated by older vehicles. More recently, the state of California has led the nation in working to limit pollution by mandating low-emission vehicles . Smog
28841-431: The performance component of ethnomusicology. Ethnomusicologists following the anthropological approach included scholars such as Steven Feld and Alan Merriam . The anthropological ethnomusicologists stress the importance of field work and using participant observation . This can include a variety of distinct fieldwork practices, including personal exposure to a performance tradition or musical technique, participation in
29032-458: The philosophical attitudes that Martin Heidegger , Hans-Georg Gadamer , and Paul Ricoeur take towards objectivity and subjectivity to state that human perception of the world is inherently subjective because the only way in which humans can interpret what goes on around them is through symbols. Human preconceptions of those symbols will always influence the ways in which an individual might process
29223-474: The present site of Los Angeles on August 2, 1769. In 1771, Franciscan friar Junípero Serra directed the building of the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel , the first mission in the area. On September 4, 1781, a group of 44 settlers known as " Los Pobladores " founded the pueblo (town) they called El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles , 'The Town of Our Lady the Queen of
29414-595: The psycho-physical constitution of mankind." Kolinski also employed his method to test, and disprove, Erich von Hornbostel's hypothesis that European music generally had ascending melodic lines, while non-European music featured descending melodic lines. Adopting a more anthropological analytical approach, Steven Feld conducted descriptive ethnographic studies regarding "sound as a cultural system." Specifically, his studies of Kaluli people of Papua New Guinea use sociomusical methods to draw conclusions about its culture. Bruno Nettl, Emeritus Professor of Musicology at
29605-458: The purpose of having an album to sell in case the single became a hit. Don had to do this before his band left to perform in Montreux in about a week. In addition, the songs that were to be on this album could not be duplicates of what would later appear on the live album. Ellis got some help from fellow composers/arrangers Tommy Vig and Curt Berg but largely wrote everything on his own. The album
29796-403: The record was "Pussy Wiggle Stomp", the song that would succeed "Indian Lady" as the Orchestra's signature tune. Side two of the record contained two lengthy tunes from a concert at Stanford University from August 1968. The tracks are notable for their revelations of the Ellis band's contemporary live sound, which was far more raucous than either of their previous live recordings. In early 1969,
29987-496: The rest have been leased to other companies for reissue. Today, thanks to labels like Koch Jazz , Wounded Bird and Mighty Quinn Productions , almost all of his albums have been reissued on CD and are readily available. Ellis also wrote numerous articles and several books. The New Rhythm Book (1972) presents methods of practice and performance in unusual meters and features a companion play-along LP/cassette entitled New Rhythms . His second book, Quarter Tones , published in 1975,
30178-527: The rest of California were purchased as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and became part of the United States. Los Angeles was incorporated as a municipality on April 4, 1850, five months before California achieved statehood . The discovery of oil in the 1890s brought rapid growth to the city. The city was further expanded with the completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, which delivers water from Eastern California . Los Angeles has
30369-554: The rest of the surrounding landscape. Most construction is done in separate units, rather than wall-to-wall . However, Downtown Los Angeles itself has many buildings over 30 stories, with fourteen over 50 stories, and two over 70 stories, the tallest of which is the Wilshire Grand Center . Los Angeles has a two-season semi-arid climate ( Köppen : BSh ) with dry summers and very mild winters, but it receives more annual precipitation than most semi-arid climates, narrowly missing
30560-556: The role of a participant observer in learning to perform in a musical tradition, a practice Mantle Hood termed "bi-musicality". Musical fieldworkers also collect recordings and contextual information about the music of interest. Thus, ethnomusicological studies do not rely on printed or manuscript sources as the primary source of epistemic authority, but rather, the focus is on qualitative practice-based research methods. When ethnomusicology first emerged in Western academic circles, its focus
30751-437: The significance of direct engagement and performance of the intended music to be studied as a means of ethnomusicological research, having the realization that studying it academically was necessary but so was the direct act of performance. This came into direct opposition to some of his peers of the past. Hood addressed this by stressing the need to unlearn Western musical conventions when studying non-Western traditions showcasing
30942-406: The size of the group, this was probably never intended to be a replacement for the Don Ellis Orchestra as a touring group. Ellis's "Organic Band", which toured throughout spring and summer 1974, reduced the band's numbers from 21 or 22 to 15. The horn section was more than halved, the string quartet was removed, a vocal quartet was added, and no electronics (save for amplification) were used to alter
31133-418: The social sciences and humanities. Though some ethnomusicologists primarily conduct historical studies, the majority are involved in long-term participant observation. Therefore, ethnomusicological work can be characterized as featuring a substantial, intensive ethnographic component. Two approaches to ethnomusicological studies are common: the anthropological and the musicological . Ethnomusicologists using
31324-409: The song "Turkish Bath" from Electric Bath (1967), bassist Ray Neapolitan doubles on sitar. His horn sections were often fairly typical, although he later added a tuba and French horn to augment the brass section, and sometimes had the saxophonists double on instruments like flute , oboe , clarinet and saxello . In 1967, Ellis began experimentation with electronics. His pianist started using
31515-624: The study of music, later scholars recognized the need to balance objectivity with cultural interpretation. Although Hornbostel and Stumpf emphasized a scientific approach, subsequent ethnomusicologists integrated these methods with ethnographic practices to ensure that cultural contexts were not overshadowed by purely empirical analysis. This integration helped shape ethnomusicology into an interdisciplinary field that values both precision and cultural understanding. Ethnomusicologists often apply theories and methods from cultural anthropology , cultural studies and sociology as well as other disciplines in
31706-483: The time signatures he had studied with Rao. These included not only 5/4, 7/8, and 9/4, but also more complex rhythmic cycles like 19/8 and 27/16. In the future, Ellis would use many more complex meters, as well as complex subdivisions of more standard meters. Many of these more complex cycles were inspired by Ellis's later interest in Eastern European folk music, such as that of Greece and Bulgaria . Ellis also had
31897-481: The treatment of Western music in relation to music from "other," non-Western cultures and the cultural implications embedded in analytical methodologies. Kofi Agawu (see 2000s) noted that scholarship on African music seems to emphasize difference further by continually developing new systems of analysis; he proposes the use of Western notation to instead highlight similarity and bring African music into mainstream Western music scholarship. In seeking to analyze such
32088-417: The use of standardized transcription and recording techniques, which allowed for detailed comparisons of music from different cultural contexts. According to Christensen, Hornbostel’s methodologies were instrumental in formalizing comparative musicology as a recognized academic discipline, laying the groundwork for what would later evolve into ethnomusicology. While these scientific methods introduced rigor to
32279-513: The variations in scales across the locations, he concludes that "there is no practical way of arriving at the real pitch of a musical scale , when it cannot be heard as played by a native musician" and even then, "we only obtain that particular musician's tuning of the scale." Ellis's study is also an early example of comparative musicological fieldwork (see Fieldwork ). Alan Lomax's method of cantometrics employed analysis of songs to model human behavior in different cultures. He posited that there
32470-419: The way "music is part of the very construction and interpretation of social and conceptual relationships and processes." Charles Seeger and Mantle Hood were two ethnomusicologists that adopted the musicological approach. Hood started one of the first American university programs dedicated to ethnomusicology, often stressing that his students must learn how to play the music they studied. Further, prompted by
32661-568: The world around them. Applying that theory to music and ethnomusicology, Rice brings back the terms of musicology and musical experience. Because one's experience of music is simply an interpretation of preconceived symbols, one cannot claim musical experience as factual. Thus, systematizing fieldwork like one would a scientific field is a futile endeavor. Instead, Rice asserts that any attempt to engage with someone else's musical experience, which cannot be truly understood by anyone except that person, must be confined to individual analysis. Characterizing
32852-568: The world, but rather "artifices" created by humans and their "organized preferences," and they differed in various locations. In his article in the Journal of the Society of Arts and Sciences , he mentions different countries such as India, Japan, and China, and notes how the pitch systems varied "not only [in] the absolute pitch of each note, but also necessarily the intervals between them." From his experiences with interviewing native musicians and observing
33043-635: The worst rush hour periods in the world, according to an annual traffic index by navigation system maker, TomTom . LA drivers spend an additional 92 hours in traffic each year. During the peak rush hour, there is 80% congestion, according to the index. Los Angeles is often characterized by the presence of low-rise buildings, in contrast to New York City. Outside of a few centers such as Downtown , Warner Center , Century City , Koreatown , Miracle Mile , Hollywood, and Westwood , skyscrapers and high-rise buildings are not common in Los Angeles. The few skyscrapers built outside of those areas often stand out above
33234-572: The year, with an average of only 35 days with measurable precipitation annually. Temperatures in the coastal basin exceed 90 °F (32 °C) on a dozen or so days in the year, from one day a month in April, May, June and November to three days a month in July, August, October and to five days in September. Temperatures in the San Fernando and San Gabriel Valleys are considerably warmer. Temperatures are subject to substantial daily swings; in inland areas
33425-446: Was 2.0 inches (5 cm) on January 15, 1932. While the most recent snowfall occurred in February 2019, the first snowfall since 1962, with snow falling in areas adjacent to Los Angeles as recently as January 2021. Brief, localized instances of hail can occur on rare occasions, but are more common than snowfall. At the official downtown station, the highest recorded temperature is 113 °F (45 °C) on September 27, 2010, while
33616-528: Was able to improvise fluently in time signatures that would initially be intimidating to most American improvisers. He was an important asset to Ellis's band, and stayed with Ellis for five years. The Orchestra was recorded in late May at Basin Street West in San Francisco. The resulting album, Tears of Joy , was another live double-LP and was released in late 1971. The Exotic Rhythms of Don Ellis (May 2002),
33807-411: Was approached by film director William Friedkin to compose the music to his film The French Connection . Ellis accepted the project and wrote the music to be performed by his own Orchestra. Ellis later won a Grammy for this project ("Best Instrumental Arrangement"), and was asked to write the music to the film's sequel, French Connection II in 1975. Ellis's final album for Columbia, Connection ,
33998-529: Was buried in the Sheltering Hills section of Forest Lawn Memorial Park, in Hollywood Hills , California. Ellis had a strong influence on those with whom he worked. Former sideman Stu Blumberg credited Ellis for preparing him for the idiosyncrasies of unconventional music in film soundtracks. Tenor saxophonist Jim Snodgrass remarked, "I think in many ways Don was a teacher. One thing his music taught me
34189-1074: Was debuted by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra under Zubin Mehta . Returning to the West Coast, Ellis formed The Hindustani Jazz Sextet , which explored some of the concepts he had learned at UCLA. The Sextet is generally considered to be the first band of its kind in America. The Sextet centered on Ellis and his mentor Harihar Rao , who played sitar and tabla , but also featured vibraphonist Emil Richards , drummer Steve Bohannon , bassists Chuck Domanico and Ray Neapolitan , and pianist Dave Mackay . At least one performance also featured saxophonist Gabe Baltazar . The band performed mainly original compositions which had titles like "Sweet Nineteen", "Turks Works", and "Bombay Bossa Nova". The Sextet became somewhat well known around Los Angeles, despite having no recordings commercially available. Perhaps
34380-435: Was discovered in the city and surrounding area in 1892, and by 1923, the discoveries had helped California become the country's largest oil producer, accounting for about one-quarter of the world's petroleum output. By 1900, the population had grown to more than 102,000, putting pressure on the city's water supply . The completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, under the supervision of William Mulholland , ensured
34571-634: Was housed at Eastfield College , part of Dallas County Community College District , DCCCD in Mesquite , Texas . Along with writings, instruments and other items, is his Grammy for best score for the movie The French Connection in 1971. Ellis's interest in expanding the possibilities within big band instrumentation is obvious on even his first Orchestra release, 1966's Live at Monterey . Inspired by his experiences with Latin bands, Ellis expanded his rhythm section to two drum sets, three double-basses, at least two auxiliary percussionists, piano, and organ. On
34762-538: Was not reliable, "since the same interval has a different reading each time it occurs across the whole pitch spectrum ." On the other hand, the cents system allowed any interval to have a fixed numerical representation, regardless of its specific pitch level. Ellis used his system, which divided the octave into 1200 cents (100 cents in each Western semitone ), as a means of analyzing and comparing scale systems of different types of music. He had recognized that global pitch and scale systems were not naturally occurring in
34953-505: Was not". The settlement of Indigenous Californians in the modern Los Angeles Basin and the San Fernando Valley was dominated by the Tongva (now also known as the Gabrieleño since the era of Spanish colonization). The historic center of Tongva power in the region was the settlement of Yaanga ( Tongva : Iyáangẚ ), meaning "place of the poison oak ", which would one day be the site where
35144-408: Was originally inhabited by the indigenous Tongva people and later claimed by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo for Spain in 1542. The city was founded on September 4, 1781, under Spanish governor Felipe de Neve , on the village of Yaanga . It became a part of the First Mexican Empire in 1821 following the Mexican War of Independence . In 1848, at the end of the Mexican–American War , Los Angeles and
35335-516: Was primarily on non-Western music. This early approach often neglected European and Western musical traditions, creating a contrast with the field of conventional musicology, which centered on Western art music. Initially known as "comparative musicology," the field set Western music as a standard to which other musical traditions were compared. This approach led to criticism for imposing Western biases on non-Western music, which prompted scholars to shift from "comparative musicology" to "ethnomusicology" in
35526-467: Was recorded in August 1972. The album featured "The Theme from 'The French Connection'", an abbreviated version of Ellis's movie score, and "Chain Reaction", a 13/8 tour de force by longtime contributor Hank Levy . Alongside these highlights are arrangements of several pop songs by artists such as Carole King , Yes , Andrew Lloyd Webber , and The Carpenters . The arrangements were generally tongue in cheek; often Ellis arranged them in different meters than
35717-590: Was recorded in mid-July 1962. On 3 June 1962, Ellis performed the jazz liturgy Evensong , composed by Edgar Summerlin . The performance took place at the First International Jazz Festival in Washington, D.C., and was broadcast on Look Up and Live on 12 August, 1962. Ellis performed alongside Lou Gluckin on trumpet, J. R. Monterose on tenor saxophone, Eric Dolphy on flute, Slide Hampton on trombone, Dick Lieb on bass trombone, Barry Galbraith on guitar, Ron Carter on bass, and Charlie Persip on drums. In October 1962, Ellis traveled to Poland to take part in
35908-423: Was released the following year to wide acclaim, was nominated for a Grammy award, won the 1968 Down Beat "Album of the Year" award, reaching No. 8 on the Billboard jazz charts. The song "Indian Lady" became one of the band's most popular tunes. "Open Beauty" featured Ellis in an echoplex trumpet solo, an innovative combination of acoustic instruments and electronic technology. Ellis would continue to develop
36099-637: Was that I could play anything I absolutely had to." Sidemen like Tom Scott , John Klemmer , Glenn Ferris , Milcho Leviev and a few others have gone on to prolific solo careers. Others like Ralph Humphrey and Fred Selden have had successful careers as sidemen, session musicians or educators. Ellis was an ardent libertarian . This arose from his open-mindedness towards the music of other cultures, according to some of his students. Most of Ellis's albums have been reissued on CD. Columbia Records, responsible for originally releasing seven of Ellis's albums, only reissued Electric Bath (Ellis's biggest seller) in 1997;
36290-536: Was thrown together and released as Music from Other Galaxies and Planets ; all the songs were retitled with novelty space-related names such as "Orion's Sword" and "Crypton". The band's performance at Montreux was well received, and the subsequent album reached No. 48 on the Billboard jazz charts. This was to be Ellis's last album as a leader, although he would appear on albums by Nick Gilder ( You Know Who You Are ) and Tommy Vig ( 1978 ). Ellis's last known public performance took place on April 21, 1978, at
36481-456: Was with the late Glenn Miller 's band, then directed by Ray McKinley . He stayed with the band until September 1956, when he joined the U.S. Army's Seventh Army Symphony Orchestra and the Soldiers' Show Company. Ellis was transferred to Frankfurt , Germany for duty. In the Army band, Ellis met pianist Cedar Walton , and saxophonists Eddie Harris and Don Menza . While in that band Ellis had his first opportunity to compose and arrange for
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