HERB ELLIS

Mitchell Herbert (Herb) Ellis (born August 4, 1921) is an American jazz guitarist.

Biography

Growing up on the outskirts of Dallas, Texas, 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 as a music major. Ellis majored in music, but because they did not yet have a guitar program at that time, he studied the string bass. Unfortunately and due to lack of funds, his college days were short lived. In 1941 Herb dropped out of college and toured for 6 months with a band from the University of Kansas.


In 1943 joined Glen Gray and the Casa Loma Orchestra 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. 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. Then, 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."

The Soft Winds

The Soft Winds was fashioned after the Nat King Cole Trio. They stayed together until 1952. Herb Ellis then joined the Oscar Peterson Trio (replacing Barney Kessel), 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".

With The Oscar Peterson Trio

Ellis became prominent after performing with the Oscar Peterson Trio from 1953 to 1958 along with pianist Peterson and bassist Ray Brown. 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.

In addition to their great live and recorded work as the Oscar Peterson Trio, this unit 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. 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 also 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 1959 through 1960 found Ellis touring with Ella Fitzgerald.

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Herb Ellis (1921) has said he heard the electric guitar for the first time played by George Barnes on a radio program. He was a teenager at the time living just outside Dallas, Texas. The experience of hearing George Barnes encouraged him to get his first guitar. By the time he reached North Texas State University a few years later he was an accomplished guitarist. At North Texas State Ellis majored in music, but because they did not have a guitar program he studied the string bass. While at North Texas State, Ellis met Jimmy Giuffre and he heard Charlie Christian for the first time -- two events that started him playing jazz. 

Ellis was forced to drop out of college due to a lack of funds and he went on the road as the guitar player with a college band. He then joined Glen Gray's Casa Loma Band in 1943 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. Ellis appears on Perdido, J.D.'s Jump, JD's Boogie Woogie, Super Chief and Sunset Strip to name a few. Herb Ellis stayed with Jimmy Dorsey through 1946 and 1947 and he then formed The Soft Winds with Lou Carter and John Frigo two other Dorsey alumni. The Soft Winds, fashioned after the Nat King Cole Trio, stayed together until 1952. It was then that Herb Ellis joined the Oscar Peterson Trio (replacing Barney Kessel) forming one of the most memorable of all the piano, guitar, and bass trios. 

Herb Ellis made many recordings with Peterson during the years they were together and he also began recording under his own name. A series of Herb Ellis LP's appeared during these years: Ellis In Wonderland, Ellis Meets Giuffre, Nothing But The Blues and Thank You, Charlie Christian. These recordings and the work he did with Peterson established Ellis as a major jazz guitar artist. 

Ellis has recorded for a number of labels over the years including Dot, Epic, and in recent years, Justice. But the recordings that stand out are those from Verve in the 1950's and 1960's and Concord Jazz in the 1970's and 1980's. The Concord label recordings would be significant just for their number, but it is the quality of the playing that makes these and the Verve recordings some of the best examples of Ellis' guitar. His Concord recordings with Joe Pass and with the great guitars (Barney Kessel and Charlie Byrd) have become modern classics. And, of course, Ellis continued to record at the end of the century. His Burnin CD was released on the Justice label late in 1998. That recording came almost sixty years after his first recordings with Glen Gray. 

Like almost every guitarist who came up after 1940, Herb Ellis was influenced by Charlie Christian. But few can claim such a direct linage as Herb Ellis. It was after hearing Christian for the first time that Ellis says he got serious about jazz. In the liner notes for Softly ... But With That Feeling, Ellis tells Leonard Feather, "... the first time I heard Charlie Christian I thought he really wasn't so much, because I felt I could play faster than that. Then after a few more times it really hit me, and I realized that speed wasn't everything. I got quite emotional -- put my guitar away and said I'd never play again. But the next day I got it out and started to tried to play like Charlie." 

And he did. 

Herb Ellis certainly established his own voice and style of jazz guitar, but he has never strayed far from the voice of Charlie Christian. His tribute album, Thank you, Charlie Christian demonstrated how well Ellis learned his lessons from Christian. And, without exception whether playing straight ahead jazz or the blues, Ellis finds a way to sound very Christian like while displaying the unmistakable Ellis sound.

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Herb Ellis was born in 1921 in Texas. He attended the North Texas State University where he majored in bass (they didn't have a guitar program). His classmates included Jimmy Giuffre and Gene Roland. His guitar playing is bebop based and his biggest influence is Charlie Christian.

Not being able to pay the college funds, he quit school and started touring with the Casa Loma Band in 1943 and after that the Jimmy Dorsey band. He played with Jimmy Dorsey until 1947 when he formed The Soft Winds with Lou Carter and John Frigo. When they broke up in 1952 he joined the Oscar Peterson Trio, the band that brought fame to Herb Ellis. Oscar Peterson had a special liking for playing up tempo.

After Oscar Peterson he recorded some albums as a leader, worked as a studio musician on the West Coast and did sessions with a lot of people, including Charlie Byrd. 

In the 70s he recorded two albums with Joe Pass, Two for the Road and Jazz/Concord. He also toured with The Great Guitars (the other two guitars being Charlie Byrd and Barney Kessel).

Herb Ellis now lives in Arkansas and runs a publishing/production/education company called Herb Ellis Music.