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Roddy Ellias
Acoustic Jazz Beyond Borders

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Bio

Roddy Ellias: Acoustic Jazz Beyond Borders

“Moon Over Lake is a beautiful solo album full of emotions and colors. I love Roddy’s compositions and his warm and rich tone. I wanted to listen to one tune to start with but ended up listening to the whole album. What a beautiful Journey…” Lionel Loueke, guitarist (Herbie Hancock, Chris Potter, Gretchen Parlato)

“I’m lucky to be friends with Roddy Ellias, who happens to be one of the finest guitarists on planet earth. This is so beautiful.” Joel Frahm (Betty Carter, Brad Mehldau, Kurt Elling)

Canadian jazz guitarist and composer, Roddy Ellias brings five decades of unique and compelling music to the world. With an eclectic approach that defies simple classification , Roddy has developed an innovative guitar style that intricately melds classical, African and Brazillian musical ideas within a deep tradition of jazz.

“A composer of extraordinary talent … His creativity is so obvious, that it is at once both startling and inspiring” Dr. Steve Kinigstein, Just Jazz Guitar

His musical journey began at the age of five, when he started improvising on his grandmother’s piano. Decades later, he continues to explore new musical possibilities, developing his unusual composition and playing approach.

From the early days at Uncle Charlie’s Chicken and Ribs Jazz Joint to performing for the Queen of England to creating a unique chamber jazz opera with puppets, Roddy has carved a musical space for himself unlike any other. Along the way, he’s also enjoyed performing with many of the greats, including Lee Konitz, David Liebman, Kenny Wheeler, Cleo Laine, Tom Harrell and Nat Adderley.

“Pensive, folky beauty. Four stars” Brad Faberman, Downbeat Magazine

What keeps Roddy going is the sheer joy of reaching people through his recordings and performances, of making their experience as magical as he can, seeing audiences discover for themselves the joy, wonder and inner peace he felt sitting at his grandmother’s piano.

“I’ve had this album on repeat for weeks and I am obsessed with it.” David Reed, Belleville Intelligencer (Moon Over Lake)

Roddy’s latest two albums are “Moon Over Lake” (solo guitar) and Postcard (quartet featuring Felicity Williams, Jim Lewis and John Geggie).

Career
Highlights

Roddy has performed at hundreds of concert venues throughout Canada, the United States and in Europe, everything from smaller, intimate settings like the prestigious Blue Whale in LA, the Yardbird Suite in Edmonton, and the National Jazz Scene in Oslo, to full-scale concert halls that seat thousands, including Montreal’s Place des Arts and the National Arts Centre in Ottawa.

A popular repeat guest at all the major jazz festivals in Canada, Roddy has shared the stage with Kenny Wheeler, Lee Konitz. David Liebman, Joel Frahm, Christine Jensen, Gene Bertoncini, Vic Juris, Dr. Lonny Smith, and many more.

He has recorded nine highly-acclaimed albums of original music, several of which made the top ten list of outstanding Canadian jazz albums in various years. In 2018, All About Jazz voted his album “Sticks and Stones” as one of the ten best releases world-wide in that year.

While working as Associate Professor of composition and improvisation at Concordia University in Montreal, Roddy continued to compose, record and perform, and went on to receive several major awards, including the Jazz Hero Award from the Jazz Journalists of America, and the Ottawa International Jazz Festival Award of Distinction.

Many of Roddy’s students have gone on to successful musical careers themselves, a fact he is considerably proud of. Students throughout North America have benefitted from his unique masterclasses, held at UCLA, Grant MacEwan University in Edmonton, and Oakton College in Chicago, among others.

Never content to stop learning and growing himself, Roddy has also composed a number of unique chamber works, including Whale Spirit Rising, recorded with David Mott and I Musici, Acts of Light, commissioned by the virtuoso violinist Ann Akiko Meyers, and an unusual chamber opera performed with puppets. Sleeping Rough was performed to sold-out crowds for two summers in a row at Ottawa’s Music and Beyond Festival.

Following on the heels of his new solo album, Moon Over Lake, Roddy is looking forward to focussing on solo concert performances during the 2024-2025 season.

What people are saying

“One of the finest guitarists on planet earth.” Joel Frahm (Brad Mehldau, Betty Carter, Kurt Elling)

“Guitarist Roddy Ellias’s new collection of ten originals is a thing of beauty: evocative, bold, pretty, humourous, occasionally gritty, often challenging and always appealing. Never one to take the safe or easy path, Ellias is a harmonic and rhythmic adventurer. His playing, all of it here on acoustic guitar, is full of surprise, and energy and his compositions are thoughtful, melodic and brimming with deep feeling.” Doug Fischer, Ottawa Citizen

“From the start he delivered insightful solos treading the inside/ outside line, and demonstrated a huge set of ears capable of picking up on virtually everything that the others threw his way. By midpoint in the set he was on fire, swaying in his chair as he delivered soulful and energetic solo after solo, and began to toss back a few quips at (Dr. Lonnie) Smith, who acknowledged him gratefully throughout the set.” John Kelman, All About Jazz

"The most important thing I look for in a musician is an individual voice. Does the music this person makes have its own thing, or does it sound like somebody else? Roddy Elias has his own voice---one need look no further than the tune Sticks and Stones to appreciate his approach.” Marc Copland (John Abrcrombie, Gary Peacock)

“Overall, the music was driven by the guitar, full of beautiful compositions, intricately arranged with rich harmonies, and a fun exploration of musical possibilities in instrumentation. The music played with the question of where to draw the line between improvisation and composition, and demonstrated why Roddy Ellias is among Canada’s greatest living composers” Justin Duhaime, jazz critic

“A composer of extraordinary talent … His creativity is so obvious, that it is at once both startling and inspiring” Dr. Steve Kinigstein, Just Jazz Guitar

“I’ve had this album on repeat for weeks and I am obsessed with it.” David Reed, Belleville Intelligencer (Moon Over Lake)

“This is a very subtle, reverent and, I would say, poetic album. Elias's guitar ﬁnds here a reason for joy, sadness, and philosophical peace. The titular Moon Over Lake, Butterﬂy Dreams , Rainbow Dance , Summer 's End - each of these is small in volume but rich in content plays - like Japanese haiku poems are full of charm with nature and the joy of communicating with it. I'm not saying anything about Elias's guitar technique - his high skill as an instrumentalist becomes obvious from the very ﬁrst bars of the opening composition Prelude , and for connoisseurs and fans of guitar sound, listening to him play is a high pleasure in itself.” Leonid Auskern, Jazz Quad

“ Throughout his entire solo he displays facets of both musical respect and playfulness all at once. It is a positively brilliant piece of work.” Bill McBernie, Planet Jazz

“Like the best of artists, Ellias knows how to make space a sound of its own.” George W. Harris, Jazz Weekly

“But it’s Ellias’ living in multiple musical spheres that has turned him into the unique player and composer that he surely is, clearly comfortable within and at the more sophisticated edges of the jazz tradition, but also imbued with compositional concepts that extend beyond its furthest reaches.” 4.5 stars (out of 5) - John Kelman, All About Jazz