Don Ellis

No big band. Haiku, recorded over four days from 1 to 4 June 1973 and released by MPS in 1974, puts Don Ellis's trumpet in front of a twelve-piece string orchestra and a small rhythm group, on ten of his own pieces, each named after and written from a Japanese haiku.

It came right after Soaring, the album with Whiplash, and it is the opposite record. Scott Yanow at AllMusic calls it a very different Don Ellis, the trumpet well showcased over strings on ten moody originals, much of it mellow, a definite change of pace. John Kelman at All About Jazz finds it a little inconsistent but with more charm than syrup, an introspective view of a musician usually heard at full volume, and hears in it a direction Ellis did not live long enough to follow. John Fordham in the Guardian makes the same point: very different from the odd-time-signature work of the 1960s, but never without surprises.

Ellis had scored The French Connection two years earlier and The Seven-Ups the same year as this session. He died in December 1978 at 44.

Japanese CD edition from Solid's MPS series.