  Hermitian mass matrices for the up and down quarks with texture zeroes but
with the minimum number of parameters, ten, are investigated. We show how these
{\em minimum parameter} forms can be obtained from a general set of hermitian
matrices through weak basis transformations. For the most simple forms we show
that one can derive exact and compact parametrizations of the CKM mixing matrix
in terms of the elements of these mass matrices (and the quark masses).
