Herb Ellis, the critically acclaimed jazz guitarist has died.

LOS ANGELES – Herb Ellis, the critically acclaimed jazz guitarist who played with such luminaries as Ella Fitzgerald and was a member once of the celebrated Oscar Peterson Trio, died Sunday 28 March 2010, his son said. He was 88.

Mitch Ellis, the musician's son, said that his father died of complications associated with Alzheimer's disease at his Los Angeles home.

Ellis, born in 1921 in Farmersville, Texas, was regarded as one of the finest jazz guitar soloists. He mixed bebop with country twang in a career that spanned six decades.

After an early stint playing with big band leader Jimmy Dorsey, Ellis and two Dorsey colleagues formed the Soft Winds trio, whose "Detour Ahead" became a jazz standard, recorded most memorably by Billie Holiday.

"As jazz has changed through the years and different styles have developed, Ellis always remained true to the form he played from the beginning," Recording Academy President and CEO Neil Portnow said in a statement. "The jazz world has lost a great musician, and we extend our deepest sympathies to his family, friends and all who enjoyed his work."

Ellis attracted the most notoriety performing with the Oscar Peterson Trio for five years from 1953 to 1958 with pianist Peterson and bassist Ray Brown. He later went on to tour and record with Fitzgerald and was a frequent participant in record producer Norman Granz's all-star Jazz at the Philharmonic touring shows.

Born in Farmersville, Texas 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 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, due to lack of funds, his college days were short lived. In 1941, Ellis dropped out of college and toured for 6 months with a band from the University of Kansas.

In 1943, he 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 group was fashioned after the Nat King Cole Trio. They stayed together until 1952. 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".

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 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 1959 through 1960 found Ellis touring with Ella Fitzgerald.

The three provided a stirring rendition of "Tenderly" as a jazz improvisational backdrop to John Hubley's 1958 cartoon The Tender Game, Storyboard Film's version of the age-old story of boy falling head over heels for girl.[4]

With fellow jazz guitarists Barney Kessel, Charlie Byrd and Tal Farlow, he created another ensemble, the Great Guitars.

Ellis died of Alzheimer's disease at his Los Angeles home on the morning of March 28, 2010, at the age of 88.


Ellis is survived by his wife Patti, son, daughter and three grandchildren.

Jazz great, Johnny Griffin, has died.


(PARIS) Jazz tenor saxophonist Johnny Griffin, who played alongside such luminaries as Lionel Hampton, Art Blakey and Thelonius Monk, died Friday, 25 July 2008, in France, his agent Helene Manfredi said. He was 80.

Nicknamed the Little Giant, Griffin was due to perform Friday evening alongside US organist Rhoda Scott, French saxophonist Olivier Temime and drummer Julie Saury.

Griffin died at home in Mauprevoir, a village in the west-central La Vienne district, where he had spent the last 18 years of his life. The cause of death was not disclosed.

After studying music at the DuSable High School in his native Chicago, Griffin joined vibes star Hampton's orchestra in 1945 before leaving with trumpeter Joe Morris to join the latter's own band.

Throughout the 1950s, he played with a variety of combos, including Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers.

He also played alongside cornetist Nat Adderley and recorded with John Coltrane. The fruits of that collaboration produced the 1957 Blue Note album for which he is perhaps best remembered, "A Blowin' Session."

At the start of the 1960s, Griffin founded his own group along with another saxophone player, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, but in 1962 he decided to set up home in France.

A spell in the Netherlands followed in the 1970s, before his return to France, where he continued to record and tour right to the end.

Legendary London jazz club Ronnie Scott's described Griffin on its website as a "member of jazz's elite ... his burning solos and furiously nimble runs anchored by an amazingly well-informed and complete grasp of melody and harmony, marking him out as one of the greatest tenor sax players".

Being from Chicago, he studied music at DuSable High School under Walter Dyett, starting out on clarinet before moving on to oboe, alto sax and finally, shortly after joining Lionel Hampton's Orchestra, the tenor saxophone alongside Arnett Cobb. While still at high school, at 15 Griffin was playing with T-Bone Walker in a band led by Walker's brother.

He worked in Lionel Hampton's Orchestra (first appearing on a Los Angeles recording in 1945, at the age of 17), leaving to join fellow Hampton band member Joe Morris's Orchestra from 1947 to 1949.

As a leader of his own band, his first Blue Note album Introducing Johnny Griffin in 1956, also featuring Wynton Kelly on piano, Curly Russell on bass and Max Roach on drums, brought him critical acclaim. A 1957 Blue Note album A Blowing Session featured him with fellow tenor players John Coltrane and Hank Mobley. He played with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers for a few months in 1957, and in the Thelonious Monk Sextet and Quartet (1958). During this period, he recorded a very smooth and stylish set with Clark Terry on Serenade To a Bus Seat featuring the rhythm trio of Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers, and Philly Joe Jones.

At this stage in his career, Griffin was known as the "fastest tenor in the west", for the ease with which he could execute fast note runs with excellent intonation. Subsequent to his three albums for Blue Note, Griffin did not get alone with the label's house engineer Rudy Van Gelder, he recorded for the Riverside label. From 1960 to 1962 he and Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis led their own quintet, recording several albums together.

He went to live in France in 1963, moving to the Netherlands in 1978. Apart from appearing regularly under his own name at jazz clubs such as London's Ronnie Scott's, Griffin became the "first choice" sax player for visiting US musicians touring the continent during the 60s and 70s. He briefly rejoined Monk's groups (an Octet and Nonet) in 1967.

Griffin and Davis met up again in 1970 and recorded Tough Tenors Again 'n' Again, and again with the Dizzy Gillespie Big 7 at the Montreux Jazz Festival. In 1965 he recorded some albums with Wes Montgomery. From 1967 to 1969, he formed part of The Kenny Clarke-Francy Boland Big Band, and in the late 70s, recorded with Peter Herbolzheimer And His Big Band, which also included, among others, Nat Adderley, Derek Watkins, Art Farmer, Slide Hampton, Jiggs Whigham, Herb Geller, Wilton Gaynair, Stan Getz, Gerry Mulligan, Rita Reys, Jean "Toots" Thielemans, Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, Grady Tate, and Quincy Jones as arranger. He also recorded with the Nat Adderley Quintet in 1978, having previously recorded with Adderley in 1958.

His last concert, July 21, 2008 was played in Hyères, France. Johnny Griffin died in Availles-Limouzine, France, where he had lived for the past 24 years.

Jazz great, Oscar Peterson has died. His early talent and speedy fingers made him one of the world's best known jazz pianists, He died December 23, 2007 at age 82.
His death was confirmed by Neweduk Funeral Home in Mississauga, the Toronto suburb where he lived. He reportedly died of kidney failure. The exact time of death is not known. The hospital and police refused to comment. The Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reported that he died on Sunday, 23 December.


During an illustrious career spanning seven decades, Peterson played with some of the biggest names in jazz, including Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie and Dizzy Gillespie. He is also remembered for touring in a trio, The Oscar Peterson Trio, with Ray Brown on bass and Herb Ellis on guitar in the 1950s.

Peterson's impressive collection of awards include all of Canada's highest honors, such as the Order of Canada, as well as a Lifetime Grammy (1997) and a spot in the International Jazz Hall of Fame.


His growing stature was reflected in the admiration of his peers. Duke Ellington referred to him as "Maharajah of the keyboard," while Count Basie once said "Oscar Peterson plays the best ivory box I've ever heard."

In a statement, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said "one of the bright lights of jazz has gone out."

"He was a regular on the French stage, where the public adored his luminous style," Sarkozy said. "It is a great loss for us."

Jazz pianist Marian McPartland called Peterson "the finest technician that I have seen."

McPartland said she first met Peterson when she and her husband, jazz cornetist Jimmy McPartland, opened for him at the Colonial Tavern in Toronto in the 1940s.

"From that point on we became such goods friends, and he was always wonderful to me and I have always felt very close to him," she said. "I played at his tribute concert at Carnegie Hall earlier this year and performed 'Tenderly,' which was always my favorite piece of his."

Oscar Emmanuel Peterson was born in the poor St. Antoine district of Montreal on Aug. 15, 1925, one of five children of Daniel Peterson, a West Indian immigrant, and the former Olivia John, whom Daniel had met in Montreal. Daniel Peterson, who worked as a sleeping-car porter on the Canadian Pacific Railway, had taught himself how to play the organ before he landed in Halifax, N.S., in 1917. Mr. Peterson’s mother, who also had roots in the Caribbean, encouraged Oscar to study music.


Born on Aug. 15, 1925, in a poor neighborhood southwest of Montreal, Peterson obtained a passion for music from his father. Daniel Peterson, a railway porter and self-taught musician, bestowed his love of music to his five children, offering them a means to escape from poverty.

Oscar Peterson learned to play trumpet and piano at a young age, but after a bout with tuberculosis had to concentrate on the latter.

He became a teen sensation in his native Canada, playing in dance bands and recording in the late 1930s and early 1940s. But he got his real break as a surprise guest at Carnegie Hall in 1949, after which he began touring the United States and Europe.

He quickly made a name for himself as a jazz virtuoso, often compared to piano great Art Tatum, his childhood idol, for his speed and technical skill.

He was also influenced by Nat King Cole, whose Nat King Cole Trio album he considered "a complete musical thesaurus for any aspiring Jazz pianist."

Peterson never stopped calling Canada home despite his growing international reputation. But at times he felt slighted here, where he was occasionally mistaken for a football player, standing at 6 foot 3 and more than 250 pounds.



In 2005 he became the first living person other than a reigning monarch to obtain a commemorative stamp in Canada, where he is jazz royalty, with streets, squares, concert halls and schools named after him.

Peterson suffered a stroke in 1993 that weakened his left hand, but not his passion or drive for music. Within a year he was back on tour, recording "Side By Side" with Itzhak Perlman.

As he grew older, Peterson kept playing and touring, despite worsening arthritis and difficulties walking.

"A jazz player is an instant composer," Peterson once said in a CBC interview, while conceding jazz did not have the mass appeal of other musical genres. "You have to think about it, it's an intellectual form," he said.




(Oscar Peterson, Ella Fiztgerald, Roy Eldridge, and Max Roach)In an undated photo, Oscar shines among the stars of Jazz.