Over all the years that I have had a musical group, whether a trio or quartet, there seems to have been one particular constant that pervaded those combos. That constant was Herbie Ellis, the freckled carrot-top blues-loving guitarist from McKinney, Texas. I first came into contact with Herbie through a trio that he was in with Lou Carter and John Frigo. During the days that Toronto was more or less dormant on Sundays, various people, including musicians, would hie themselves off to Buffalo, where they could avail themselves of various musical events, along with being able to drink their favorite spirits until late in the evening (or early in the morning, as you will). Many times there would be groups appearing in Buffalo that did not appear in Toronto on the Jazz scene at that time. The other case scenario was that some groups would somehow attempt to tie in appearances in Buffalo either before or after Toronto, creating more or less of a miniature circuit. The trio that I referred to was known as the Soft Winds with the personnel that I mentioned earlier. As I was also working and traveling with my trio at that time, I often missed the Soft Winds when they appeared in Toronto. It was after one of my appearances in the Town Tavern that a friend of mine made me aware of the fact that the Winds were performing in Buffalo in the Peter Stuyvesant room in a hotel there. I decided to make the trip one weekend and drove down to Buffalo and became an avid listener to this trio. They had some wonderful arrangements and grooved well together. I was particularly impressed and moved by their guitarist, Herb Ellis. We became instant friends and I don't recall, ironically enough, seeing or hearing Herbie in person again until Barney Kessel was leaving my group at that time to return to studio work, and suggested Herbie's name to me, opening up some vivid and very memorable musical moments with the Soft Winds. Barney spoke to Herbie and told him that I was interested in having him in my group, and we came to terms and formed what was to become the Oscar Peterson Trio.
To my way of thinking, Herbie was an impressionable, emotional and avid lover of the blues who had an unbridled love for another great jazz guitarist, Charlie Christian. He also had an incredible rhythmic sense that trumpeted his love for Freddie Green's indisputable rhythmic pulse. Putting these two musical factions together gives you a picture of Herbie Ellis. He gave our trio many years of unbridled musical dedication and love, and many of the arrangements that I wrote for the group at that time were predicated on the unbelievable rhythmic pulsations created by the melding of Herbie Ellis's and Ray Brown's impeccable rhythmic and harmonic knowledge and pulse. They gave my group one of the most solid and feared foundations, rhythmically speaking, in Jazz (witnessed by the numerous Jazz artists that requested us for their rhythm section whenever they recorded for Norman Granz), and gave me, therefore, the ability to go out on my flights of musical fantasy solo-wise, thus enabling me to feel totally confident of the musical path I was attempting to walk on. Herbie remains to this day a recognizable member of that trio and is continuously referred to by various biographers, reviewers and listeners as an important mainstay of my group of that era.

As a person I retain an unbridled respect and love of this redheaded rhythmic genius who, along with Ray Brown, aided me in having a group that is still referred to as a landmark of the Jazz era for trios of this type. Herbie contributed tirelessly to the rhythmic tornados that we were able to achieve for our listeners and I shall always be indebted to him for these musical contributions.

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