Haiku

Date(s) Recorded

1974

Tracks

Children
Blossoming
Water Jewel
Cherry Petals
Forest
Summer Rain
Two Autumns
Mirror-Pond of Stars
Parting
Dew

Credits

Don Ellis – Trumpet
Israel Baker – Violin
Erno Neufeld – Violin
Jacob Krachmalnick – Violin
George Vinci – Violin
Shirley Cornell – Violin
Marcia Van Dyck – Violin
Marvin Limonick – Violin
Allan Harshman – Viola
David Schwartz – Viola
Myra Kestenbaum – Viola
Samuel Voghossian – Viola
Alfred Barr – Viola
Dan Neufeld – Viola
Raphael Kramer – Cello
Frederick Seykora – Cello
Ronald Cooper – Cello
Catherine Gotthoffer – Harp
Larry Carlton – Guitar
David Cohen – Guitar
Tommy Tedesco – Guitar
Milcho Leviev – Keyboards
Ray Brown – Bass
John Guerin – Drums

Releases

MPS MC 25341 (1973)
BASF 21916 (1973)

Haiku (1974) represents another radical departure from both the conventions and the direction Ellis had been setting for himself and his ensemble. This recording features pristine chamber music-like settings of Ellis’s favorite examples of ancient Japanese Haiku poetry, and foreshadows

the “New Age” textures that became popular during the 1980s. Ellis provides the verbal narration of each for the ten settings himself. Ellis’s stylistic development is best demonstrated on this release in the selection “Children,” which features a sublime counterpoint writing in a 7/8 canonic passage.