{"id":17350,"date":"2026-07-18T09:40:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T14:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/?p=17350"},"modified":"2026-07-18T20:02:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T01:02:18","slug":"remembering-two-jazz-greats-manty-ellis-and-mitch-covic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/?p=17350","title":{"rendered":"Remembering two jazz greats: Manty Ellis and Mitch Covic"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"Mitch Covic was a founding member of the extraordinary and adventurous Milwaukee band What On Earth. Original band members included (from top right) guitarist Jack Grassel, trombonist-composer Bill Schaefgen, pianist Leigh Cowen, bassist Mitch Covic and percussionist Andy LoDuca. Photo courtesy of Jack Grassel.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

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A story about proximity and distance, life and death. The relative nearness of you, times two. A pair of recent deaths in the upper Midwest jazz community render me, for one, inadequate to fully honor the quietly titanic Milwaukee jazz guitarist Manty Ellis. So many musicians and fans have already commented in honor of the man and the artist.<\/p>\n

For sure, Ellis was the first guitarist I heard live who was a real original who emerged from the Wes Montgomery tradition. He had his own ideas, sense of time, space and swing. He was a true tonic of harmonic vibrancy: The chording, the punchy, percolating lines that spilled out of his guitar and then often stopped or shifted before you thought this was going anywhere predictable.<\/p>\n

To his credit, he wasn\u2019t really easy listening. At his best, he was bracing, a shot of musical bourbon.<\/p>\n

And he also had his own guitar store for years and was instrumental in developing the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music\u2019s award-winning jazz degree program. In 2025, the Jazz Foundation of America granted him the Jazz Fellowship Legacy Award. He hosted jam sessions at the Jazz Gallery Center for the Arts virtually until he died, at 93, on July 9.<\/p>\n

Another Plane of Music<\/b><\/h3>\n

But having studied with pianists, I didn\u2019t know Manty well. A more personal kind of loss had occurred the day before, on July 8, when bassist-composer Mitar Mitch Covic, 82, passed to another plane of music and art. Mitch was a colleague of Manty\u2019s in the early years of that burgeoning WCM jazz program.<\/p>\n

Due to the near-but far-proximity of Chicago, many readers may not know his name. The Milwaukee native once told me his dream job was to be a producer of classic recorded jazz archives like Michael Cuscuna, whose collection of re-issued Mosaic recordings are revered in the jazz world.<\/p>\n

Covic could\u2019ve done a comparable job if he had the chance. He is perhaps best known in the Milwaukee area as the man who in, effect, co-founded the Milwaukee Jazz Gallery with Chuck LaPaglia in 1978.<\/p>\n

Few living musicians know how accomplished Covic was than guitarist Jack Grassel,. who worked with him extensively from 1970 until Covic moved to Chicago.<\/p>\n

“Mitch was a smart, honest man with strong integrity,” Grassel recalls. “Wherever he went things he touched improved because of his presence. He thoroughly knew the history of jazz music.\u00a0 We spent a lot of time in the car traveling to far-away gigs talking and listening to fine music.\u00a0He was a big fan of Charles Tolliver. We listened to a lot of Tolliver music together. especially the Music Incorporated<\/em> album which was his favorite.”<\/p>\n

In my July 1979\u00a0Milwaukee<\/i>\u00a0magazine feature on the Gallery, I refer to Covic as the \u201ctalent booker.\u201d Chicago-native LaPaglia needed somebody hip to both national jazz and the Milwaukee jazz\u00a0scene, like Mitch, to get it going.<\/p>\n

Century Hall Days<\/b><\/h3>\n

But backing up, I refer to Covic as the \u201cman behind the East Side Performers Workshop,\u201d which he led at Century Hall, and \u201cflourished for too-short a time at the pre-disco Century Hall.\u201d It encompassed\u00a0most of the performing arts. It was a classy, old historic building,\u00a0with an elegant bar and good\u00a0performance space. Covic was the perfect match for Century Hall as a knowledgeable, cosmopolitan arts maven.<\/p>\n

Max Samson once wrote this recollection of Century Hall: \u201cMilwaukee’s poets finally had a worthy venue (for poets) each Monday where they would be paid for their reading. Great Jazz jam sessions (led by Mitch) and dance concerts drew aficionados. Even the Milwaukee Ballet performed\u2014ballet director Jean Paul Comelin referred to it as bringing ballet to the steelworkers, although I don’t believe there were any steelworkers. Certainly, if you liked ballet, being three feet away from the prima ballerina in a\u00a0pax-de-deus<\/i>\u00a0was a thrill.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe eventually formed our own theater company under the direction of Paul Sills, and presented\u00a0Monkey<\/i>, Arnold Weinstein’s adaptation of the ancient Chinese story of the monkey who steals the golden apples of eternal life from the gods\u2014until Buddha teaches him humility.\u201d<\/p>\n

Covic acted in and composed original music for\u00a0Monkey<\/i>, in a cast that included soon-to-be-famous comedian Will Duerst.<\/p>\n

Open Jam Sessions<\/b><\/h3>\n

Covic transplanted\u00a0his Sunday afternoon\u00a0open jam sessions to the Jazz Gallery upon leaving\u00a0Century\u00a0Hall. Chuck LaPaglia was inspired to open the Gallery by his memories of great Chicago jazz clubs like the Beehive and, as an amateur saxophonist, he had connections with ace Chicago\u00a0players like multi-instrumentalist Ira Sullivan and vibist Carl\u00a0Leukaufe to help build\u00a0touring national jazz artist traffic,\u00a0from Chicago.<\/p>\n

Back to Covic the booker: His list of contracted artists was ambitious and substantial. Among those who soon played the gallery were guitarist Joe Pass, ex-Miles tenor saxophonist\u00a0George Coleman and innovative alto saxophonist Lee Konitz. But this was a small sample of who ended up playing, among national names.<\/p>\n

The big early jazz names booked included bop icons Dizzy Gillespie and Sonny Stitt, renowned vibist Milt Jackson, modern jazz vibist Bobby Hutcherson, trumpeter-singer Chet Baker, sax giant Dexter Gordon, iconic alto sax player Art Pepper and singer Betty Carter, among others. The Jazz Gallery also hosted some avant Chicago AACM acts, including pianist Muhal Richard Abrams, and saxophonist-conceptualist Anthony Braxton. 1<\/p>\n

A key Milwaukee figure in establishing the MJG among local and national musicians was pianist-vibist Buddy Montgomery (brother of renowned guitarist Wes), with whom Covic played for a while.<\/p>\n

Many Genres<\/b><\/h3>\n

Early Jazz Gallery acts included other genres like blues, hip folk music, off-beat comedy, benefits for community organizations, and theater, including the avant-garde Theater X (which produced much talent including renowned actor Willem Dafoe). Then-still fledgling now-famous folk-punk group The Violent Femmes played regularly at the MJG.<\/p>\n

My\u00a0Milwaukee<\/i> magazine article also refers to the \u201cthe intergalactic shuttle service\u201d of What on Earth? as one of the Milwaukee bands that paved the MJG\u2019s way to distinction. Covic was the founding bassist in that avant-garde-ish quintet led through its duration by the late trombonist-composer Bill Schaefgen.<\/p>\n

However, Grassel, also a founding member of the band — along with Covic, pianist Leigh Cowen and percussionist Andy LoDuca — insists that the band’s concept originated with Covic. “The What on Earth band was his idea,” he says. A key to the irreverently outward-bound group was the pianist Cowen who, though Bill Evans-influenced, was extremely exploratory yet innately lyrical. “Mitch loved Leigh Cowen’s playing,” Grassel says.<\/p>\n

Milwaukee trumpeter Brian Lynch, now a multiple Grammy winner, and acclaimed pianist David Hazeltine got their early performance training at the Milwaukee Jazz Gallery, and in a band they called Cramer Street which played there frequently.<\/p>\n

Lynch so impressed Art Blakey when the drummer played at the gallery that Blakey hired him for the last edition of the Jazz Messengers. The group Blakey brought to the Gallery included young virtuoso brothers Wynton and Branford Marsalis.<\/p>\n

Unique Array of Talents<\/b><\/h3>\n

After the Jazz Gallery closed in 1984, LaPaglia parlayed his experience and connections, as talent booker for Yoshi’s in Oakland, the best jazz club in the West Coast during his tenure there.<\/p>\n

Though he would probably have never said it, Covic\u2019s unique array of talents probably needed a larger canvas than the Gallery and he moved to Chicago where he met his soon-to-be life partner and spouse: dancer, arts administrator and nature conservator Jacqui Ulrich, and soon made his mark on the Chicago cultural scene.<\/p>\n

He opened \u201chis own version of the Jazz Gallery called Cross Currents,\u201d Ulrich says. \u201cHe played with great intensity and concentration,\u201d comments Milwaukee pianist Steve Tilton, who was also \u201centhralled with the well-designed\u201d Cross Currents venue in Chicago. Besides music, Covic staged theater and dance and specialized in accompanying poets on bass.<\/p>\n

His distinctive style was perfect for this. (Like Manty Ellis) he wasn\u2019t among the more recent generation of jazz string players who, perhaps influenced by Stanley Clarke and Jaco Pastorius, relied on ever-accelerating chops and pure digital velocity\u2014impressive but the art was sometimes lost in the blur.<\/p>\n

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The<\/em>\u00a0unusual chord Mitar Mitch Covic is fingering, in this late photo, characterizes his deeply probing harmonic and poetic sense of lyricism. Photo courtesy of Jacqui Ulrich<\/em><\/p>\n

Rather, Mitar Covic, who\u2019d adopted his ethnic Serbian moniker by then, understood that every note and chord counted, as did every grace note.<\/p>\n

He had a tendency to lean over and embrace the bass fiddle as he played, not unlike the great Charlie Haden, whose buoyant, soulful and deeply spacious bass playing his often recalled. This style exquisitely complemented poets, allowing them room to articulate, and for their thoughts to resonate like his deepest chords.<\/p>\n

The longtime and beloved Milwaukee poet-singer-pianist Louisa Loveridge-Gallas began a musical relationship with Covic when he accompanied her reading from her first book of poetry at Century Hall decades ago. \u201cHe was very sensitive, he knew how to do space, move in and out (of your text), and he walked the bass beautifully,\u201d she recalls. \u201cHe was elegant, gentle, and stern, an elite musician.\u201d 2<\/p>\n

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Though a rigorous musician and artist, Milwaukee native Mitar Mitch Covic had a playful side. Photo courtesy of Jacqui Ulrich\u00a0<\/em><\/div>\n

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Jazz Colossus<\/b><\/h3>\n

Covic served as music director for widely performing and published Chicago poet David Hernandez and Street Sounds, who played at Woodland Patten in Milwaukee several times.<\/p>\n