fibrillation early one morning in May 1975. Ellis later described being on the verge of death, as doctors struggled to save his life: "It sounds weird, I know, but it was a remarkably beautiful experience, maybe the ultimate high." Late career By 1976, Ellis was back in action, although these activities are little documented. On December 3, 1976, the Don Ellis Orchestra performed on a Shirley MacLaine television special entitled Where Do We Go From Here? The Orchestra played Ellis's arrangement of "Sweet Georgia Brown" retitled "Sweet Shirley MacLaine". The arrangement featured a solo by Art Pepper, a chorus of tap dancers, and the return of the electrophonic trumpet. In 1977, Ellis was signed to Atlantic Records, which promised to fund the Orchestra's upcoming trip for the band's performance at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Montreux, Switzerland in exchange for a live recording of said performance. However, the record company asked Don first to record arrangements of two songs from Star Wars. The songs, "Star Wars (Main Title)" and "Princess Leia's Theme", were to be released as a 45 rpm single. In June, the record company scrambled and asked Don to record an entire album of material, for the purpose of having an album to sell in case the single became a hit. Don had to do this before his band left to perform in Montreux in about a week. In addition, the songs that were to be on this album could not be duplicates of what would later appear on the live album. Ellis got some help from fellow composers/arrangers Tommy Vig and Curt Berg but largely wrote everything on his own. The album was thrown together and released as Music from Other Galaxies and Planets; all the songs were retitled with novelty space-related names such as "Orion's Sword" and "Crypton". The band's performance at Montreux was well received, and the subsequent album reached No. 48 on Billboards jazz charts. This was to be Ellis's last album as a leader, although he would appear on albums by Nick Gilder (You Know Who You Are) and Tommy Vig (1978). Ellis's last known public performance took place on April 21, 1978, at the Westside Room in Century City. After this, his doctor ordered him to refrain from touring and playing trumpet because it was too stressful on his heart. On December 17, 1978, after seeing a Jon Hendricks concert, Ellis suffered