The Herb Ellis Trio - Herb Mix (1982)

One bridles with horror at the thought of suggesting that this might be the finest album of Herb Ellis multi-faceted career as leader, co-leader, sideman, accompanist and all-around catalyst for inspired perfor mances, but the evidence herein is indeed persuasive.
The problem is that there is so much more to choose from, including some two-dozen examples in the Concord Jazz catalog alone, not to mention the literally hundreds of other recordings he has made, such as the products of his five glorious years as a member of the Oscar Peterson Trin in the 1950s.
But all that is behind, and genius such as that of Herb Ellis does not stand still. The truth is that his years with Concord Jazz have seen his continued flowering as a concert performer. They began in 1973 with "Jazz/Concord (CJ-1), the still-selling classic he made with fellow guitarist Joe Pass, bassist Ray Brown and drummer Jake Hanna to launch what has become one of the most important record labels in jazz.
This damned well could be the best album Herb has ever made. All the elements of his long-established greatness are here in bald reliel, enhaticed by two other rare talents, bassist Bob Maize and drummer Jimmie Smith.
The clean, fluid lines... the incessant drive... the firm grasp of the classic blues tradition the pianistic expression he drews from his in strument's supposedly limited range... these are all Herb Ellis trade maries, along with the knack this veritable Bartlett of jazz has for spicing his improvisations with colorful-and often outrageously amusing-quotations from his vast musical heritage
Herb's ability to swing is legend, but like Lester Young. Charlie Christian end other post meslers of the art, he is equally adept at interpreting beautiful ballads to perfection. Never before have these two sides of his genius been better represented than on this album.
Except for one Ellis original, an up-tempo blues called "Deep, all the tunes are quite familiar, but that doesn't mean no surprises. Who, for example, would expect to find the Disneyland national anthern, "It's o Small World, or the George M. Cohan flag-waver, Give My Regards to Broadway, on a jazz album?
This is part of the wonder of Hert Ellis. He's capable of turning Grieg's Death of Asr into an ode to joy.
Maue, quite a resourceful string swinger in his own right, does some nifty counterpoint things with Herb on the album and flashes a subtle wit of his own, he makes a mock-bravado statement of the Cohan theme thet would have made Al Jolson blush.
Orn such baliads as "Tenderly, "It Could Happen to you," "Moonlight in Vermont, and The Way We Were Herb briefly tips his hat to an obviously respected contemporary, Johnny Smith, with singing, beau tifully chorded lines before embarking on his own distinctive interpretations
Herb turns "The Girl from Ipanema every which way but loose in e bright Latin romp filled with quotations from folk to bebop tunes. He explotts the possibilities of the guitar so thoroughly on this album that he even finds time for some scat singing on Horace Siliver's The Preacher, doing it proficiently enough to scare Clark Terry, at least
But Herb does his virtuoso singing on the guitar, and nowhere is this more evident than in his treatmerit of "The Way We Were, one sure to stir the most convinced Ellis supporters and rally others to his cause. This is one preacher who confines himself to the truth