Origins of This Album:
Beginnings
When I first held my newborn son in my arms, I had the sort of palpable image-experience that causes people to join sects of believers-in-weird-things.
I was seeing, thinking, occupying an image of the pulse of his birth pushing up a gigantic plume of water representing new life. This pulse, in the center of the vast ocean of life, pushed all adjacent water toward the shores where the last waves broke and sunk into the sand, returning the water to the cyclical life-and- death process. Indescribable sounds accompanied the image. It was daytime and I was fully awake. I felt pushed a little closer to shore.
I made sure that my new playmate-in-sound got to hear everything I heard and liked. His sister heard everything while in the womb and was happy to tail along as his mother and I delighted in David's blossoming into a fine musician.
Then, one day, Zoe started to sing. Now, music permeates Ellis family culture. I'm happy to include something from everyone on this album.
The album itself is a happenstance. When I had my granddaughter, Bella, put the song "Eliza" up on YouTube, David added the note "From the album Songs From My Garden, coming Fall 2019." I thought, "there's an idea." Why not? It's Summer of 2021
, but here's the album.
-Russ Ellis
Songs From The Garden
1. Eliza
2. Oom Chugga
3. Everything Changed
4. Last Glass Of Wine
5. I Got You (for Julie)
6. Lament
7. We Watch
8. Night Driver
9. Chicka Ding
10. Apollo 11
11. Long Time
ELIZA
My wife and I are in our eighties. We live in, for us, a large house that we keep in cleanly order with the help of a Brazilian couple with whom we are uncommonly close. After the husband of the couple was injured, his wife arrived one day with an assistant, a young Brazilian woman who did not speak English.
I had no emotional space to include the assistant and effectively rendered her invisible. Soon thereafter, I read a newspaper article by a woman writer, down on her luck, who turned to cleaning peoples’ houses to make ends meet. Upon completing the article, I reminded myself that my father’s mother was born a slave, and that I had the right to invisibilize no one.
The next time she came, I asked her name and vowed to remember it by singing, each time she came, the three notes that wound up at the beginning the song. From the moment I sang those notes, a song crowded itself into existence behind them. This was a new experience for me. Not only did “Eliza” volunteer itself into existence, it opened me up to singing again, and — newly—to song writing. I have thanked Eliza for the gift.
Lyrics by Russ Ellis
Music by Russ Ellis, Jason Martineau, Dave Ellis
Performed by Russ Ellis and Jason Martineau; Jay Lane - Drums
LAST GLASS OF WINE
While working on the Eliza recording, my son asked me whatever happened to the little ditty I used to sing that I had made up; now the first verse of Last Glass of Wine. He suggested that that could make a nice song, if developed. I went home and discovered that whatever door had been opened by “Eliza” was still open. It wrote itself. My New York-raised step mother had fantasized about the West, cowboys, dude ranches, before she came West. She listened to country and western music. I heard a lot of Hank Williams and Leftie Frizzell in the 50’s.
Originally, I made up the ditty to make fun of my repeated failures to give up wine. Its transformation into something larger was easy.
Lyrics by Russ Ellis
Music by Russ Ellis and Dave Ellis
Music performed by:
Dave Ellis with
Eric Din - Guitar
Jay Lane - Drums
Russ Ellis - Vocal
OOM CHUGGA
This rhythmic chant and a variety of musics occurred to me simultaneously, as did the recitation of deprivations. I took it to my son, David. He took out some excesses that clouded the vigor and added instrumentation. We brought in Eric Din and I left it to them to complete.
Claudia, proprietor of Your Basic Bird, a Berkeley pet shop, allowed me to record her birds. I do not know Claudia’s political inclinations, although I have seen her in the audience of more than one Freight and Salvage concert.
Thank you, Claudia and your birds, for your contribution.
Lyrics by Russ Ellis
Music by Russ Ellis and Dave Ellis
Music performed by:
Dave Ellis with
Eric Din - Guitar
Russ Ellis - Vocal
EVERYTHING CHANGED
I worked closely with Jason Martineau on “Eliza.” Since he is deep into music, both as a performer and scholar, I thought it would fun to try a collaboration with him. I proposed that I sing a line and have him respond on the piano, then I respond vocally, etc. Stumbling toward an understanding, this song was the outcome.
Oddly, this love song was not (consciously) inspired by or directed to anyone. It Just arrived.
Russ Ellis - Vocal
Jason Martineau - Piano
Produced by Jason Martineau
I GOT YOU (FOR JULIE)
My son, David, joined the Ska band, The Uptones, when he was in high school. The band made some serious spare change gigging around the Bay Area.
Recently, David asked Eric Din, The Uptones leader back then, to play guitar on the tune “Last Glass of Wine.” One thing led to another. Now all the existing and forthcoming songs from my recent songwriting enthusiasm appear on Eric’s label, Berkeley Cat Records.
In our various discussions, I was surprised to learn that Eric was familiar with silly music from the 1950’s, like ”Mairzy Doats” and Spike Jones’ rendition of “Cocktails for Two.” So, when the lyrics for “I Got You” showed up all at once, I knew they would get a sympathetic ear from Eric.
I proposed that he join me in a collaboration that included his making it a Ska tune. In truth, I had no idea that Ska originated in Jamaica. When they were teenagers, I enjoyed the Uptones' music for its danceability. Listening to original Ska singers, I quickly gave up on the notion of trying to duplicate their delivery. I just tried to wrap my voice and words around the music and beat that Eric provided.
Russ Ellis - Vocals
Eric Din - Guitars, Bass, Drum wrangling
Paul Jackson - Keyboards and Percussion
Produced by Eric Din and Jeremy Goody
LAMENT
I met Jay Lane when he was 14, the youngest participant in Cazadero’s Jazz Camp otherwise limited to “adults.” We were both enrolled in an “electronic music” class taught by Malcolm Cecil. Yes, that Malcolm Cecil.
For decades after that, Jay has been after me to collaborate on some “Hearts of Space” music. (That was the name of a popular radio show featuring computerized music). Last year I agreed and this is the result of that collaboration.
We did not plan ahead. It took Jay ages to get his Pleistocene equipment going. When it was ready, we just started. Then we stopped.
Russ Ellis: Voice
Jay Lane: Music
Produced by Jay Lane
WE WATCH
This song also just showed up. It describes my daily life with my wife and how I feel about it and her.
Jason Martineau - piano
Russ Ellis - vocals
NIGHT DRIVER
When my father got drunk, he could go on endlessly and repetitively about how all he wanted was for his family to be happy and how he was going to turn our garage into his rumpus room. I gathered that the rumpus room was to be a place where he and his men friends could drink, talk shit and listen to music. In our house the radio was never off. News, sports (mainly baseball games) and music.
We had increasingly attractive record playing outfits in our small new home in George Washington Carver Manor Annex in southeast LA. The 78’s and 33’s were neatly stacked but not in any discernible order. Count Basie (my father's) might be close to Debussy or The Sons of the Pioneers (my stepmother's), but black music dominated.
Jimmy Witherspoon (“Ain’t Nobody’s Business”) was fine, but I seem to have learned that T-Bone Walker was not. My dad was more inclined to Basie than to Ellington, although he bought everything Ellington recorded. Drink bent my father toward the blues. The more drink, the nastier the blues.
I learned that the blues were important and, during the folk music explosion, I purchased and wore out my copy of Robert Johnson’s “King of the Delta Blues”.
But I would never dare to sing the blues. I was not up to the subtleties. Although I could hear them, I did not trust myself to reproduce them. Also, I was a balladeer, after the fashion of Eliza on this album. But since I’d done a Bossa nova, a country and western, a love song and a folk-like tune, it seemed fitting that I try the blues. My son enthusiastically supported the idea. As ever, my daughter, Zoe, was the enabler.
I mined David’s and Zoe’s connections to assemble the players on this tune, surrounding myself with fail-safe music no matter how well I rendered my song. I call them “The Magic Carpet Blues Ensemble"
The lyrics came easy. I have been astonished at how long my sputtering equipment lasted. But, in no way commensurate with my fantasies. So, I wrote from the standpoint of the perennially bragging black man at the end of his powers. Still pretending. But it’s about loss, as most of the blues is.
Russ Ellis - Vocals
Rhonda Benin - Vocals
The Magic Carpet Blues Ensemble
Tammy Hall-Hawkins - Piano and arrangement
Cedricke Dennis - Guitar
Darryl Anders - Bass
Deszon Claiborne - Drums
Sax - Dave Ellis
Produced by Cam Perridge
CHICKA DING
Al Marshall was another of those Bay Area kids that went to Berkeley’s Cazadero Music Camp. He and his talented family came to family camp, kids’ camp, jazz camp. As he dove into his teen years, he spent a lot of time up in Dave’s room “crankin’ jams.” So I was told.
His musicality was beyond doubt. Thinking about collaborations for this album, he was yet another of Dave’s friends that, early, came to mind. We bounced ideas around online for a while. Highly motivated, I sent Al many, many borderline-absurd Voice Memo’s trying to capture my idea for the piece. (It is only recently that I learned from Al the amount of time he spent cracking-up at these e-sillies, until —he says— he saw how they advanced his understanding of my idea for the enterprise).
Then I spent a couple of long sessions at the big, funky studio in the basement of his Oakland home. I left him with the chicka ding chant, some squawks, burps, shouts, pronouncements and the responsibility of finding a groove that matched my political intentions for the song.
When he successfully put it all together, he handed it off to David for tweaking & mixing. Happily, my daughter Zoe decided she wanted to play and included her daughter, Lily.
If, somehow, one young person is moved to vote in November in the direction this suggests, I will rest in peace.
Russ Ellis: Voice
Al Marshall: Music
Zoe and Lily Ellis: Voice
Produced by Al Marshall and Dave Ellis
References
“Eleven/Twenty Twenty” - The presidential election.
“MacVout” - Slim Gaillard
“Rope-a-dope” - Muhammad Ali
“So, How’s This Set Up?” - Robert Reich
“Alreet” - Cab Calloway (via Geordie slang?).
“Oo, She tee-nincie” - Greta Thunberg.
“Bubba Shoop Shoop” - “Get ready.” Neologism created for this tune.
APOLLO 11
Dave Ellis and Lauren Rivera blessed my wife and me with our first grandchild in the year 2000.
And what a blessing. Bodacious. Dancie. Verbal. Tuneful starting at around three.
So, in thinking about collaborations for this album, I thought of her. Bella and her father had come up with some playful collaborations over the years. I was certain she would be up for it.
When I asked her, she readily agreed. Bella suggested some possibilities from a menu of compositions she was creating in her dorm room at San Francisco State University, where she is a student in the Theater Arts Program.
We settled on Apollo 11, largely because I had just watched a PBS documentary on the mission called “Eight Days to the Moon and Back”. I reviewed the documentary for the astronauts comments that I found interesting.
Bella made a few adjustments, and her Daddy Dave mixed it. Here it is.
Music: Bella Ellis & Dave Ellis
Voice: Russ Ellis & Bella Ellis
LONG TIME
My son said, “Dad, you gotta have Dave Shul on this album.”
I knew he was right, but was a bit intimidated by the prospect. This was partly so because I did not have anything working in my head that seemed worthy of Shul’s talents and status in the Bay Area music scene. It was also true because of the place Dave Shul occupied in my memory.
It was at Cazadero Music Camp during the period of The Fuzzy Lefties’ management of the camp. I think Dave Shul was about twelve or thirteen. I remember being impressed with how much beer he could drink, but when I first witnessed him playing the guitar, he seemed like the instrument’s avatar. I was genuinely astonished that that small person could play like that. There was too much wisdom in his playing. I had him pegged as a kid.
I did work up the courage to send Shul a Voice Memo of a lurking tune. I sent him the line beginning “You been with me a long time….” Later I sent him what I thought might have the makings of a chorus, beginning “Still can’t figure why you stayed with me.”
He immediately wrote back. “Reverse them.” The next day he sent me the basics of what the song became. I am extremely happy with the outcome, just as my voice seems to be fading into the sunset. It’s my last recording.
Thank you, Dave Ellis, for the suggestion.
Thank you, Dave Shul, for bringing the song into existence.
Words: Russ Ellis, Zoe Ellis
Music: Russ Ellis, Dave Shul
Arrangement: Dave Shul
Guitars: Dave Shul
Drums: Al Marshall
Horns: Dave Ellis
Produced by Dave Shul
Songs From The Garden was recorded at Ellis Island Studios, Megasonic Sound, Bird and Egg Studios and at various musician's homes.
Produced by Dave Ellis except where otherwise noted
Mastered by Dave Ellis
Russ Ellis photo by Judy Dater
Cover painting by John Dexter Ellis
CD art direction and layout by Katie Hawkinson
For lyrics and a deeper dive, please visit
russellis.bandcamp.com or
berkeleycatrecords.com
© 2021 Russ Ellis
Berkeley Cat Records
All songs © 2021 Zadell Music (ASCAP),
except I GOT YOU (FOR JULIE)
© 2021 Zadell Music (ASCAP) and King Roy Music (BMI)
released November 20, 2021