Mitchell Herbert Ellis (August 4, 1921[1][2] – March 28, 2010),[3] known professionally as Herb Ellis, was an American jazz guitarist. During the 1950s, he was in a trio with pianist Oscar Peterson.
Born in Farmersville, Texas,[1] and raised in the suburbs of Dallas, Ellis first heard the electric guitar performed by George Barnes on a radio program. This experience is said to have inspired him to take up the guitar. He became proficient on the instrument by the time he entered North Texas State University.[1] Ellis majored in music, but because they did not yet have a guitar program at that time, he studied the string bass. Unfortunately, due to lack of funds, his college days were short-lived. In 1941, Ellis dropped out of college and toured for six months with a band from the University of Kansas.
In 1943, he joined Glen Gray and the Casa Loma Orchestra,[1] and it was with Gray's band that he got his first recognition in the jazz magazines. After Gray's band, Ellis joined the Jimmy Dorsey band where he played some of his first recorded solos.[1] Ellis remained with Dorsey through 1947, traveling and recording extensively, and playing in dance halls and movie palaces. Then came a turnabout that would change Ellis's career forever. As pianist Lou Carter told journalist Robert Dupuis in a 1996 interview, "The Dorsey band had a six-week hole in the schedule. The three of us had played together some with the big band. John Frigo, who had already left the band, knew the owner of the Peter Stuyvesant Hotel in Buffalo. We went in there and stayed six months. And that's how the group the Soft Winds were born". Together with Frigo and Lou Carter, Ellis wrote the classic jazz standards "Detour Ahead" and "I Told Ya I Love Ya, Now Get Out".[4]
The Soft Winds group was fashioned after the Nat King Cole Trio. They stayed together until 1952. Ellis then joined the Oscar Peterson Trio (replacing Barney Kessel) in 1953,[1] forming what Scott Yanow would later on refer to as "one of the most memorable of all the piano, guitar, and bass trios in jazz history".
Ellis became prominent after performing with the Oscar Peterson Trio from 1953 to 1958, along with pianist Peterson and bassist Ray Brown.[1] He was a somewhat controversial member of the trio, because he was the only white person in the group in a time when racism was still very much widespread.
Herb Ellis's 1953 Gibson ES-175
In addition to their live and recorded work as the Oscar Peterson Trio, this unit usually with the addition of a drummer, served as the virtual "house rhythm section" for Norman Granz's Verve Records, supporting the likes of tenormen Ben Webster and Stan Getz, as well as trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie, Roy Eldridge, and Sweets Edison and other jazz stalwarts. Ellis was part of the rhythm section but did not solo on every track. With drummer Buddy Rich, they were also the backing band for popular "comeback" albums by the duet of Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong.
The trio were one of the mainstays of Granz's Jazz at the Philharmonic concerts as they swept the jazz world, almost constantly touring the United States and Europe. Ellis left the Peterson Trio in November 1958, to be replaced not by a guitarist, but by drummer Ed Thigpen. The years of 1957 through 1960 found Ellis touring with Ella Fitzgerald.[1] In addition, Ellis was a mainstay in Hollywood recording studios playing on various types of sessions. Eventually, he left studio work to concentrate on his jazz career, both onstage and on records.
The three provided a stirring rendition of "Tenderly" as a jazz improvisational backdrop to John Hubley's 1958 cartoon The Tender Game.[5]
Herb Ellis was also featured on an episode of Sanford and Son accompanying Fred Sanford's singing.
Ellis gave cartoonist and The Far Side creator Gary Larson guitar lessons, in exchange for the cover illustration for the album, Doggin' Around (Concord, 1988) by Ellis and bassist Red Mitchell.
Harry "Sweets" Edison was an American jazz trumpeter and a member of the Count Basie Orchestra. His most important contribution was as a Hollywood studio musician, whose muted trumpet can be heard backing singers, most notably Frank Sinatra.
Jazz at the Philharmonic, or JATP (1944–1983), was the title of a series of jazz concerts, tours and recordings produced by Norman Granz.
Barney Kessel was an American jazz guitarist born in Muskogee, Oklahoma. Known in particular for his knowledge of chords and inversions and chord-based melodies, he was a member of many prominent jazz groups as well as a "first call" guitarist for studio, film, and television recording sessions. Kessel was a member of the group of session musicians informally known as the Wrecking Crew.
Raymond Matthews Brown was an American jazz double bassist, known for his extensive work with Oscar Peterson and Ella Fitzgerald. He was also a founding member of the group that would later develop into the Modern Jazz Quartet.
Boniface Ferdinand Leonard "Buddy" DeFranco was an Italian-American jazz clarinetist. In addition to his work as a bandleader, DeFranco led the Glenn Miller Orchestra for almost a decade in the 1960s and 1970s.
Benjamin Francis Webster was an American jazz tenor saxophonist.
James Charles Heard was an American swing, bop, and blues drummer.
Howard Vincent Alden is an American jazz guitarist born in Newport Beach, California. Alden has recorded many albums for Concord Records, including four with seven-string guitar innovator George Van Eps.
Oscar Frederic Moore was an American jazz guitarist with the Nat King Cole Trio.
William Thomas "Keter" Betts was an American jazz double bassist. Born in Port Chester, New York, he was nicknamed "Keter", a short form of the word mosquito. Graduated Chester Senior High in 1946 where he majored in music playing drums, tympani, tuba, glockenspiel, switching from drums to bass fiddle
James George Hunter, known professionally as Jimmy Rowles, was an American jazz pianist, vocalist, and composer. As a bandleader and accompanist, he explored multiple styles including swing and cool jazz.
Jonathan David Samuel Jones was an American jazz drummer. A band leader and pioneer in jazz percussion, Jones anchored the Count Basie Orchestra rhythm section from 1934 to 1948. He was sometimes known as Papa Jo Jones to distinguish him from younger drummer Philly Joe Jones.
Frederick William Green was an American swing jazz guitarist who played rhythm guitar with the Count Basie Orchestra for almost fifty years.
Discography for jazz double-bassist and cellist Ray Brown.
William McLeish Smith was an American saxophonist and one of the major alto saxophone players of the swing era. He also played clarinet and sang.
Chuck Redd is an American jazz drummer and vibraphonist.
Alvin Stoller was an American jazz drummer. Though he seems to have been largely forgotten, he was held in high regard in the 1940s and 1950s. He was best known for playing drums on both Mitch Miller's recording of "The Yellow Rose of Texas" and Stan Freberg's parody of Miller's recording.
Talmage Holt Farlow was an American jazz guitarist. He was nicknamed "Octopus" because of how his large, quick hands spread over the fretboard. As Steve Rochinski notes, "Of all the guitarists to emerge in the first generation after Charlie Christian, Tal Farlow, more than any other, has been able to move beyond the rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic vocabulary associated with the early electric guitar master. Tal's incredible speed, long, weaving lines, rhythmic excitement, highly developed harmonic sense, and enormous reach have enabled him to create a style that clearly stands apart from the rest." Where guitarists of his day combined rhythmic chords with linear melodies, Farlow placed single notes together in clusters, varying between harmonically enriched tones. As music critic Stuart Nicholson put it, "In terms of guitar prowess, it was the equivalent of Roger Bannister breaking the four-minute mile."
The recordings of American jazz saxophonist Stan Getz from 1944 to 1991.
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