Lisle Ellis, is a Canadian jazz bassist and composer who is known for his improvisational style and use of electronics.
Biography
Ellis was born in Campbell River, British Columbia. Ellis began playing electric bass in his teens and worked professionally from an early age in numerous environments including studios, radio & TV shows, and strip clubs. He was born Lyle Steve Lansall, but used his initials L. S. as his stage name Ellis; he also used the name L. S. Lansall-Ellis professionally. Ellis studied at the Vancouver Academy of Music with Walter Robertson and attended Douglas College in Vancouver. He later studied at the Creative Music Studio in New York City from 1975-1979. Ellis lived in Toronto, Ontario, Canada from 1982 until 1983 and then Montreal, Quebec, Canada from 1983 until 1992. In 1986 Ellis was the first recipient of Canada's Fred Stone Award, given annually to a musician for integrity and innovation. In the early 1980s in Vancouver, and the late 80's in Montreal, Ellis was a conspicuous activator of musician alliance organizations, performance venues, and concert series presentations. One collective in particular, Vancouver's New Orchestra Workshop, is still active nearly thirty years later. After moving to the United States in 1992, he settled in San Francisco, working with Glenn Spearman from 1992 until 2001. He lived in San Diego from 2001–2005 and New York City from 2005 to the present. In 1994, he was a member of the Cecil Taylor band for a brief tour of California. Ellis's discography includes performances with Peter Brötzmann, Andrew Cyrille, Joe McPhee, Dave Douglas, Glenn Spearman and about 40 recordings for Music & Arts, Black Saint, DIW, Hat Art, New World, and Victo. His 1989 album, Kaleidoscopes: The Ornette Coleman Songbook, with pianist Paul Plimley, was given five stars in Down Beat magazine. Since the late 1990s, Ellis has been primarily focused on developing an electro-acoustic interface he calls "bass & circuitry". By 2008, with the completion of a template for this interface Ellis turned his attention back to acoustic music projects with an emphasis on jazz based improvisation and to finding a balance between his electronic and acoustic music interests. Central to Ellis's music, and a vehicle for both his electronic and acoustic experiments, has been his long standing trio with Larry Ochs and Donald Robinson called What We Live. Di Terra, an Italy-based trio with Alberto Braida, and Fabrizio Spera, has been an exclusively acoustic music vehicle for Ellis. His experimental trio Audible Means with Ellery Eskelin, and Erik Deutsch, was active on the New York scene in 2006 and 2007 and was a focal point for Ellis's bass & circuitry explorations. Since his arrival in New York, collaborations and interactions with composer/electronic musician Tom Hamilton have also been important to Ellis's work in electronic music.
