A Tribute

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, I learned of the death of my music teacher William Ellington. I studied with Bill from the summer of 1973 until 1980 when I graduated high school. Bill was responsible for my being a bassist, and for fostering my openness toward different types of music. I'll attempt to describe some of the ways that this happened.

Mr. Ellington (I still have a hard time calling him by his first name!) was the music teacher at my local area high school in the 1970's. He was also a nephew of Duke Ellington, so music was in his history as well his genes. Bill was mainly a pianist and an upright bassist, and taught a dozen other instruments. My family had just moved to New York, and my first summer there I decided I was going to take drum lessons - I'd started playing the snare drum in 4th grade, and I wanted to tackle the drum set. For the huge sum of $3 (sometimes taxes ARE good for something) I'd have an hour and a half lesson with Bill three times a week on a HUGE Ludwig kit (huge for '73 - Roto Toms hadn't been invented yet). Bill taught me drum rudiments and beats, and it was exhilarating to be able to handle the entire kit. I probably wasn't very good, but that didn't matter much at that point. Most importantly, he and another student of his - a bass student - would play along with me regularly in small jam sessions. This student was playing Bill's electric bass, a mid 1960's burgundy Gibson EB-2, which was the most amazing thing I'd ever seen.

By the following summer, other events had transpired which made it clear to me that I HAD to play that bass. It was the summer of 1974 and I was 12 years old, and I was ready for it - the deep sound and the fantastic shape of that EB-2, it was ..... SEXY. It rocked my world completely. It was tricky at first, those strings were FAT and hard to press down, but it made immediate sense to me. I learned to read music and some basic theory as well, but again what was critical was the jamming I'd do in a trio situation with Bill on piano and whoever the drum student happened to be. We'd generally hit on a couple of things regularly ('My Cherie Amour' being one I remember) and Bill would make me take solo breaks. Not having a clue what to do, I'd flounder through and just play anything I could. It was awesome. Bill never criticized or made me fit into a rigid framework, just gave me guidelines. I felt like the bass was an open book and I could do what I wanted, and I now know what a rare thing that was.

Over the next couple of years I'd meet with Bill and a drummer friend of mine (Mark Greenberg-are you out there?) after school one day a week just to jam for an hour or two. It was something I always looked forward to. Bill would bring the EB-2 and charts from the high school jazz band, which he conducted. When I entered high school I joined the jazz ensemble, and I remember playing 'Pick Up The Pieces', 'Chameleon', 'This Masquerade', 'Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing', 'I Wish' (Bill was big on Stevie) and several of his own compositions (and his uncle's tunes of course), all before my 15th birthday.

My reading was pretty good by this point, but many times I'd have to make up my own parts based just on chords. It was an amazing time to be a bassist - I'd be playing McCartney at home, and 'Brick House' and 'Satin Doll' at school. At the time I figured that this was what it must be like for EVERYONE learning to play bass - naturally, you had to just jam and experiment, right...?

By this point I had been learning guitar on my own and playing either guitar or bass in any number of jam sessions with friends, or for parties. I getting into other sorts of music - old rock and roll, Rolling Stones, Beach Boys, Beatles, Yes, Grateful Dead - and I never got the feeling from Bill that these or any forms of music were inferior to jazz. By this time I was the proud owner of an early '70's Precision Bass (black with a maple neck), an Ampeg B-15N, and a 1969 Telecaster (which I eventually sold...what was I thinking there.....)

My sophomore year in high school was probably the most pivotal. First, the jazz ensemble were invited to participate at a jazz festival at the Berkeley College of Music in Boston. It was a fantastic yet humbling experience. It was my first official road trip, and we were being showcased with jazz ensembles from all over the country. We were good ... but they were GOOD. I saw things done on the bass I hadn't imagined. It was tremendously exciting to be part of a group, and it began to dawn on me that maybe I was cut out for this. And, the presence of many pretty girls and the scent of marijuana only added to the allure.

Shortly after, Bill organized a recording session for the jazz ensemble at a local 16-track studio, Minot Sound. It was pretty strange at first - it seemed to take forever for them to get set up, and we had to wear headphones and stay quiet until the cue came to play. I remember hearing the playback in the control room and not really liking it, it seemed so cold and lifeless, so controlled. It didn't sound at all like we did onstage. Still, to hear a playback of ourselves was quite intense. In retrospect, it was a typical '70's studio - completely dead - and I don't think the staff really went out of their way to get exceptional sounds (I'm sure they were doing the high school a big favor, after all). Plus we were adolescents and nervous in the studio, so we probably weren't playing our best (I know I didn't!). Still, it was a cool experience and the fact that Bill got us to that point was a testament to his commitment to us. Interestingly, it didn't sell me on working in the studio at all - that wouldn't happen for another three years.....

Bill had us playing gigs at other schools, at hospitals, at the local college (SUNY Purchase). Again, it felt like this was normal - didn't everyone do this sort of thing? By the time I was 17 I had experienced many aspects of the music industry, and it all seemed so natural because of the way Bill Ellington had brought us all into it.

After I left for Indiana I lost contact with Bill. I saw him a couple of times, played him what I was up to at the moment - I'd been recording people's demos at school and such, playing on them as well -- and he had relocated to the elementary school. He was spending a lot more time on his other passion, flying. I regret that I never got to go up in a plane with him at the controls. The last time I saw Bill was in the summer of 1997 when a couple of classmates organized a trip with him down to Manhattan, and we all went out to a Spanish restaurant in the West Village (and in current typical style I showed up on a bike, much to their amusement). Luckily, I had the opportunity then to tell him thanks for all he'd done for me.

If there's anyone reading this who remembers other things about Bill and the jazz ensemble, go ahead and write me.