Shock Treatment isn't really. But it does offer ten tightly arranged compositions notable for brassy melodic lines superimposed on a rhythmically complex percussion base. The album's desirability as an addition to a record collection is largely dependent upon whether you have a taste for a big band sound.

Listening to the Don Ellis orchestra requires a conscious reordering of expectations. Ellis' trademark—indeed the entire basis for expanding the genre—is a willful manipulation of time signature. By extending jazz rhythms to include Green, Turkish and Indian meter, he has produced tempos which by comparison make Brubeck's "Take Five" (in 5/4) archaic in their simplicity.

With such diverse metric components to work with, Ellis has no trouble creating a marvelous rhythmic polyphony by using his three-man percussion section to simultaneously maintain as many different patterns. It ain't hardly foot stomping music, but it is surprising how quickly the ear adjusts to a breakaway sound.

The album opener "A New Kind of Country" is an up tempo number in 7/4, divided into a very fast 2-2-3. It's possible to keep up a count all the way through—a worthwhile exercise which clarifies the pattern of staccato brass and prepares one for further assaults. "Opus 5," a composition/arrangement by Howlett Smith, has a vaguely symphonic feel, alternately contemplative and brash but always controlled.

The ear becomes quickly acclimated to the off beat accentuation and Ellis has no shortage of talent in using it to best advantage. The brass section moves forcefully through clear melodic passages, rapidly shifting tempo and volume. Solos are crisp and inventive and the ensemble playing is nearly always interesting. The one notable exception is "Seven Up," an unimaginative composition which becomes garbled in midsection while the rhythmic backbone fails to maintain a clear presence.

Ellis provides a respite from signature innovation with "Milo's Theme," a piece in 4/4 in which he electronically reworks an excellent trumpet solo to create a warm, fluid sound. More pleasing still, "Homecoming" is a good solid blues in 3/4 and very similar to the backing for a Joe Williams rendition. The predictable beat patterns of both numbers requires no cerebration to make them "work."

The use of a sitar and disemboweled choral phrases in "Star Children" creates an interesting other-worldly mood contrasted with a lot of brass work. But as a whole the piece has a flat sound. The chorus lacks fidelity and could have been better mixed by studio engineers. More experimental by design, "The Tihai" provides Ellis with a jazz vehicle to set up a bewildering display of 7/4 variations, wild solo work and intricate phrasing based on Hindu chants which parallel demanding drum patterns. Of all the cuts, "The Tihai" provides the best indication of where Don Ellis is going: toward an incorporation into the jazz idiom of exotic meter from hitherto untapped ethnic sources.

While this exploration will doubtless be fruitful, the question remains whether Ellis is truly moving out of the strictly jazz bag and into wider acceptance on the periphery of rock. He comes closest to this idiom with "Mercy Maybe Mercy" and "Beat Me Daddy; Seven to the Bar," both of which swing with primary rhythm and enjoyable ensemble work. Yet even though his twenty-one-piece orchestra has played a few rock ballrooms, its popularity may be due more to an often identifiable rock sound rather than the intrinsic appeal of new time signatures and (albeit fascinating) metric subdivisions.

One can get terribly hung up discussing the expansion of rhythmic horizons, or for that matter, simply reading Ellis' liner notes. But the argument comes full circle with the question of liking the big band sound to begin with. As for Ellis becoming all the rage on the rock ballroom circuit, chances are the immediate effect will be stroboscopic lights in 19/4. (RS 21)

JOHN GRISSIM