Don Ellis moved quickly to adapt to the changing times in the 1960s. Attracting attention with a big band that played with ease in complex time signatures that recorded for Pacific Jazz until he made his startling debut on a major label with Columbia's Indian Lady startling because of the title-track, which still stands as his finest recorded work. It was followed by Shock Treatment in 1968, though controversy surrounded its initial release because Columbia seemed to have taken into its head to issue unauthorised (by the artist) takes and make unauthorised edits. At Ellis' insistence, including a letter of complaint to Downbeat magazine about the record company's highhanded actions, the master tape prepared by Ellis was released, which is what is included here. This was the Summer of Love, and the band was playing San Francisco venues such as the Fillmore, Aragon Ballroom (renamed the Cheetah), the Kaleidoscope and the Carousel with arrangements featuring rock rhythms and electronic sounds generated by the keyboard player (Fender Rhodes, clavinet), flutes played through amplifiers with reverb and tremolo, saxes and trumpets using the Cohn Multivider, thus Shock Treatment's cover art is decidedly ‘psychedelic’ to fit in with the music and the times. This was the final album drummer Steve Bohanon made with Ellis he was killed in a car crash shortly afterwards but he is key to the first two Columbia albums with his ability to swing in outlandish time signatures here lifting ‘The Tihai’ and ‘Milo's Theme’ with his energy and exuberance. Autumn has live versions of ‘Indian Lady’, which stretches the original arrangement to breaking point, and Charlie Parker's ‘K.C. Blues’, the best track of his collection as much for Frank Strozier's commanding introduction on alto as the whole saxophone section playing Parker's solo note for note even against a rock backbeat Parker's astonishing musical logic remains undiminished.