A modern day pop artist and musical revolutionary, piano iconoclast ELEW is making a substantial impression on the music world with a thunderous new style of playing: an inspired melding of ragtime, rock and pop that he calls Rockjazz. ELEW has toured the world, recorded, and performed continuously with Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, Elvin Jones, Roy Hargrove, and Cassandra Wilson, among others. He won the 1999 Thelonious Monk International Piano Competition, his mesmerizing piano theatrics even then hinting at the new musical paradigm he would one day create.

Now, in the jazz tradition of interpreting popular tunes of the day, much like Art Tatum and John Coltrane, ELEW has turned to rock, combining a guitarist’s approach to the piano with an explosively physical style of playing that would be at home in any arena. An imposing force even before he stands (not sits) behind the piano, ELEW is known for playing his instrument like an athlete plays a sport—going inside the instrument, testing the limits of his body, pushing through the pain and exhaustion….but never stopping.

As he continues to gain notoriety with his blistering renditions of infectious rock and pop anthems by Coldplay, The Killers, Nirvana, and more, he has broken free of the rigidly defined boundaries of the traditional jazz world and ultimately given birth to something wholly original. His relentless innovation and disregard for the musical status quo has shocked and angered the jazz world even as it has attracted the rapt attention and following of mainstream political, artistic, and cultural leaders from across the globe—including Donna Karan, Sting and Eric Schmidt of Google, among others—as well as netting the musician a historic performance at the White House itself.

  
 

Eric Lewis had a busy summer: he held down a nationwide tour with Josh Groban, opened the Dave Matthews Caravan tour, showed off his skills to President Obama, composed a ballet and acted in live theater, all while struggling to complete his second album, Rockjazz vol. 2. Eric has met this tremendous success by transforming into his artistic alter ego: ELEW, who performs Rockjazz, a ferocious mix of rock physicality and jazz precision hammered out on a grand piano. Bearing witness to Eric’s struggles in the studio, where he would stay for weeks on end and record thousands of versions of each song in a ceaseless quest for perfection, his friend and filmmaker Bobby Kennedy III decided to heap one more project onto the platter. Bobby wrote a two-person rhyming musical -- a sci-fi, fantasty re-working of Eric's origin story -- and had Eric, dressed entirely in black light reactive make-up, perform the work at the Angel Orensanz foundation in New York. ELEW: Live from Infinity is a mix of Eric's music, moments from his life and the live musical, cut together to provide perspective on the places one must go to maintain worldclass artistry.

  
 

 
 

Director | Bobby Kennedy III

DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT
I met ELEW on the beaches of southern Italy, while he was recording Rockjazz vol. 1 and I was on preproduction of my first film, AmeriQua. I saw him play before I spoke to him and, as one can imagine, I was intimidated by his ferocious presence at the piano. He lunges into the piano, looking everywhere but the keyboard, and moves his hands with incredible precision--faster than I can wave mine around randomly. You expect someone like that to be an eccentric genius who might have difficulty communicating with we normals. He's introspective, sure, as one must be when they practice for ten hours a day, including all of our car rides to the beach. Yet, he's remarkably well spoken when he describes his rich personal and professional history. For some reason -- perhaps because my documentary background revolved around environmental issues--the idea to shoot a piece on him dawned on me gradually. I'm quite glad it did. ELEW is the most talented, driven, and energetic person I know and he -- though he would not say this -- does represent the American Dream. ELEW's many wonderful friends have come together and donated their time, resources, and connections to the project and have given us the opportunity to tell his success story against the cinematic backdrop of the live musical, truly creating a new flavor of documentary.

Producer | Anthony Mancilla

Having worked and studied in Chile, France, the U.S., West Africa, and the Caribbean, Anthony Mancilla is an internationally educated and experienced producer. His career began in 2004 with his debut short as Reve Lucide, awards at the Rochester/High Falls Young Filmmakers Film Festival and Theodore Case Film Festival. From there on, he has worked on various independent shorts, features, documentaries, and commercials. Anthony started his own production company, Drewstone Productions, with business partner Lucas Gath which has to date worked with such corporate clients as McDonalds, PNC Bank, Complex Magazine, Malibu Rhum, Voila!, Israeli Broadcasting Authority, Cablevision, Lenguaje Perfecto, and Muuseme.com. which won multiple advertising awards. In addition, he has produced for such NGOs as OXFAM with their most recent Documentary Series, "Shooting Poverty" shot in India, Birundi, and Brazil. Anthony has most recently co-produced "AmeriQua" with Bobby Kennedy III and Alec Baldwin, "Abril en Nueva York" with the Argentine rising star Carla Quevedo and Martin Pyroyansky, and currently is finishing up two documentaries he produced which include his own, “Retracing Jeneba”, and Bobby Kennedy III’s, “ELEW: Live from Infinity”.

Producers | Brett Garling & Bobby Kennedy III

Executive Producers | Madison Grose & Dennis Yeskey

Director of Photography | Zach Galler & Sacha Cesana

Sound Mixer & Recordist | Tom Paul

Editors | Sacha Cesana & Bobby Kennedy III

  
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Contact Information
Anthony Mancilla
tony@drewstoneproductions.com
t: 315.521.3178