Oscar Peterson

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For the United States Navy sailor and Medal of Honor recipient, see Oscar V. Peterson.
Oscar Peterson

In "Jazz at the Philharmonic",

with Norman Granz (1950s)

Background information

Birth name

Oscar Emmanuel Peterson

Born

August 15, 1925

Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Died

December 23, 2007 (aged 82)

Mississauga, Ontario, Canada

Genres

Jazz, bebop, hard bop, third stream, blues

Occupation(s)

Musician, composer

Instruments

Piano, clavichord, electric piano, synthesizer, organ, vocals

Years active

19452007

Labels

RCA Victor, Mercury, MPS,Pablo, Telarc, Verve

Associated

Louis Armstrong, Count Basie,Ray Brown, Clark Terry, Roy

acts

Eldridge, Herb Ellis, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie,Norman

Granz, Benny Green,Coleman Hawkins, Barney Kessel, Milt
Jackson, Niels-Henning rsted Pedersen,Joe Pass, Ben Webster

Website

www.oscarpeterson.com

Oscar Emmanuel Peterson, CC, CQ, OOnt (August 15, 1925 December 23, 2007) was a
Canadian jazz pianist and composer. He was called the "Maharaja of the keyboard" by Duke
Ellington, but simply "O.P." by his friends. He released over 200 recordings, won eight Grammy
Awards, and received numerous other awards and honours. He is considered one of the greatest
jazz pianists, and played thousands of concerts worldwide in a career lasting more than 60 years.
[1][2]

[3]

Contents
[hide]

1Biography
o

1.1Norman Granz

1.2Duets

1.3Trio

1.4Quartet

1.5Further career

1.6Composer and teacher

1.7Stroke, later years and death

2Awards and recognition

o

2.1Musical awards and recognition

2.2Recognition in Canada

2.3Grammy Awards

2.4Honorary degrees conferred

3Instruments

4Discography

5See also

6References

7External links

Biography[edit]
Peterson was born to immigrants from the West Indies; his father worked as a porter for Canadian
Pacific Railway. Peterson grew up in the neighbourhood of Little Burgundy in Montreal, Quebec. It
was in this predominantly blackneighbourhood that he found himself surrounded by the jazz culture
that flourished in the early 20th century. At the age of five, Peterson began honing his skills with the
trumpet and piano. However, a bout of tuberculosiswhen he was seven prevented him from playing
the trumpet again, and so he directed all his attention to the piano. His father, Daniel Peterson, an
amateur trumpeter and pianist, was one of his first music teachers, and his sister Daisy taught young
Oscar classical piano. Young Oscar was persistent at practicing scales and classical tudes daily,
and thanks to such arduous practice he developed his virtuosity.
[4]

[5]

As a child, Peterson also studied with Hungarian-born pianist Paul de Marky, a student of Istvn
Thomn, who was himself a pupil of Franz Liszt, so his training was predominantly based on
classical piano. Meanwhile, he was captivated by traditional jazz and learned several ragtime pieces
and especially the boogie-woogie. At that time Peterson was called "theBrown Bomber of the
Boogie-Woogie".
[6]

At the age of nine Peterson played piano with control that impressed professional musicians. For
many years his piano studies included four to six hours of practice daily. Only in his later years did
he decrease his daily practice to just one or two hours. In 1940, at fourteen years of age, Peterson
won the national music competition organized by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. After that
victory, he dropped out of school and became a professional pianist working for a weekly radio show,
and playing at hotels and music halls.
Some of the artists who influenced Peterson's music during the earlier type of years were Teddy
Wilson, Nat "King" Cole,James P. Johnson and Art Tatum, to whom many tried to compare Peterson
in later years. One of his first exposures to Tatum's musical talents came early in his teen years
when his father played a recording of Tatum's "Tiger Rag" for him, and Peterson was so intimidated
by what he heard that he became disillusioned about his own playing, to the extent of refusing to
play the piano at all for several weeks. In his own words, "Tatum scared me to death," and Peterson
was "never cocky again" about his mastery at the piano. Tatum was a model for Peterson's
musicianship during the 1940s and 1950s. Tatum and Peterson eventually became good friends,
although Peterson was always shy about being compared with Tatum and rarely played the piano in
Tatum's presence.
[7]

[8]

Peterson also credited his sistera piano teacher in Montreal who also taught several other
Canadian jazz musicianswith being an important teacher and influence on his career. Under his
sister's tutelage, Peterson expanded into classical piano training and broadened his range while
mastering the core classical pianism from scales to preludes and fugues by Johann Sebastian Bach.
[9]

Building on Tatum's pianism and aesthetics, Peterson also absorbed Tatum's musical influences,
notably from piano concertos by Sergei Rachmaninoff. Rachmaninoff's harmonizations, as well as
direct quotations from his 2nd Piano Concerto, are thrown in here and there in many recordings by
Peterson, including his work with the most familiar formulation of the Oscar Peterson Trio, with
bassist Ray Brown and guitarist Herb Ellis. During the 1960s and 1970s Peterson made numerous
trio recordings highlighting his piano performances that reveal more of his eclectic style that
absorbed influences from various genres of jazz, popular and classical music.

Norman Granz[edit]

An important step in Peterson's career was joining impresario Norman Granz's labels
(especially Verve) and Granz's "Jazz at the Philharmonic" project. Granz discovered Peterson in a
peculiar manner. As the impresario was being taken toMontreal airport by cab, the radio was playing
a live broadcast of Peterson at a local night club. Granz was so smitten by what he heard that he
ordered the driver to take him to the club so that he could meet the pianist. In 1949, Granz
introduced Peterson at a Carnegie Hall Jazz at the Philharmonic show in New York.
[6]

So was born a lasting relationship and Granz remained Peterson's manager for most of his career.
This was more than a managerial relationship; Peterson praised Granz for standing up for him and
other black jazz musicians in the segregationist south of the 1950s and 1960s. For example, in the
documentary video Music in the Key of Oscar, Peterson tells how Granz stood up to a gun-toting
southern policeman who wanted to stop the trio from using "white-only" taxis.
[10]

In the course of his career, Peterson developed a reputation as a technically brilliant and melodically
inventive jazz pianist and became a regular on Canadian radio from the 1940s. His name was
already recognized in the United States. However, his 1949 debut at Carnegie Hall was uncredited;
owing to union restrictions, his appearance could not be billed.
Through Granz's Jazz at the
Philharmonic he was able to play with the major jazz artists of the time.
[citation needed]

Duets[edit]
Peterson made numerous duo performances and recordings with bassists Ray Brown, Sam Jones,
and Niels-Henning rsted Pedersen, guitarists Joe Pass, Irving Ashby, Herb Ellis, and Barney
Kessel, pianists Count Basie, Herbie Hancock,Benny Green, Oliver Jones, and Keith Emerson,
trumpeters Clark Terry and Louis Armstrong, and many other important jazz players.
His
1950s duo recordings with Ray Brown mark the formation of one of the longest lasting partnerships
in the history of jazz.
[citation needed]

According to pianist/educator Mark Eisenman, some of Peterson's best playing was as an

understated accompanist to singer Ella Fitzgerald and trumpeter Roy Eldridge.
[11]

Trio[edit]

Joe Pass and Oscar Peterson at Eastman Theatre Rochester in N.Y., in 1977

Peterson redefined the jazz trio by bringing the musicianship of all three members to the highest
level. The trio with Ray Brown and Herb Ellis was, in his own words, "the most stimulating" and
productive setting for public performances as well as in studio recordings. In the early 1950s,
Peterson began performing with Ray Brown and Charlie Smith as the Oscar Peterson Trio. Shortly
afterward the drummer Smith was replaced by guitarist Irving Ashby, formerly of the Nat King Cole
Trio. Ashby, who was a swing guitarist, was soon replaced by Kessel. Kessel tired of touring after a
year, and was succeeded by Ellis. As Ellis was white, Peterson's trios were racially integrated, a
controversial move at the time that was fraught with difficulties with segregationist whites and blacks.
[12]

Oscar Peterson at the Stratford Shakespearean Festival is widely regarded as the landmark album
in Peterson's career, and one of the most influential trios in jazz.
Their last recording, On the
Town with the Oscar Peterson Trio, recorded live at the Town Tavern in Toronto, captured a
remarkable degree of emotional as well as musical understanding between three players. All three
musicians were equal contributors involved in a highly sophisticated improvisational interplay. When
Ellis left the group in 1958, Peterson and Brown believed they could not adequately replace Ellis.
Ellis was replaced by drummer Ed Thigpen in 1959. Brown and Thigpen worked with Peterson on his
albums Night Train andCanadiana Suite. Brown and Thigpen left in 1965 and were replaced by
bassist Sam Jones and drummer Louis Hayes (and later, drummer Bobby Durham). The trio
performed together until 1970. In 1969 Peterson recorded Motions and Emotions, featuring
orchestral arrangements of pop songs such as The Beatles' "Yesterday" and "Eleanor Rigby". In the
fall of 1970, Peterson's trio released the album Tristeza on Piano. Jones and Durham left in 1970.
[citation needed]

[13]

In the 1970s Peterson formed another trio with guitarist Pass and Niels-Henning rsted
Pedersen on bass. This trio emulated the success of the 1950s trio with Brown and Ellis, gave
acclaimed performances at numerous festivals, and made best-selling recordings, most notably The
Trio, which won the 1974 Grammy for Best Jazz Performance by a Group, and the 1978 double
album recorded live in Paris. In 1974 Oscar added British drummer Martin Drew, and this quartet
toured and recorded extensively worldwide. Pass said in a 1976 interview: "The only guys I've heard
who come close to total mastery of their instruments are Art Tatum and Peterson." After the death of
Pass, Ulf Wakenius found the tune within the trio for the final decade of the trio.

Quartet[edit]
A quartet was a less permanent setting for Peterson, after the trio or duo, as it was hard to find
equally powerful musicians available for a tightly knit arrangement with him. After the loss of Ellis his
next trio eventually consisted of a drummer instead of a guitaristfirst Gene Gammage for a brief
time, then Thigpen. In this group Peterson became the dominant soloist. Later members of the group
were Louis Hayes, Bobby Durham, Ray Price, Sam Jones, George Mraz, Martin Drew, Terry Clarke,
and Lorne Lofsky.
[3]

Peterson often formed a quartet by adding a fourth player to his existing trios. He was open to
experimental collaborations with jazz stars, such as saxophonist Ben Webster, trumpeter Clark
Terry, and vibraphonist Milt Jackson among others. In 1961, the Peterson trio with Jackson recorded
the album Very Tall.

Further career[edit]
From the late 1950s, when Peterson gained worldwide recognition as one of the leading pianists in
jazz, he played in a variety of settings: solo, duo, trio, quartet, small bands, and big bands. However,
his solo piano recitals, as well as his solo piano recordings were rare, until he chose to make a
series of solo albums titled Exclusively for My Friends. These solo piano sessions, made for
the Musik Produktion Schwarzwald (MPS) label, were Peterson's response to the emergence of
such stars as Bill Evans and McCoy Tyner.
Some cognoscenti assert that Peterson's best recordings were made for MPS in the late 1960s and
early 1970s. For some years subsequently he recorded for Granz's Pablo Records after the label
was founded in 1973.
In the 1990s and 2000s he recorded several albums accompanied by a
combo for Telarc.
[citation needed]

In the 1980s he played successfully in a duo with pianist Herbie Hancock. In the late 1980s and
1990s, after a stroke, Peterson made performances and recordings with his protg Benny Green.

Composer and teacher[edit]

Peterson in 1977

Peterson wrote pieces for piano, for trio, for quartet and for big band. He also wrote several songs,
and made recordings as a singer. Probably his best-known compositions are "Canadiana Suite" and
"Hymn to Freedom", the latter composed in the 1960s and inspired by the U.S. civil rights
movement.
Peterson taught piano and improvisation in Canada, mainly in Toronto. With associates, he started
and headed the Advanced School of Contemporary Music in Toronto for five years during the 1960s,
but it closed because concert touring called him and his associates away, and it did not have
government funding. Later, he mentored the York University jazz program and was the Chancellor
of the entire university for several years in the early 1990s. He also published his original jazz piano
etudes for practice. However, he asked his students to study the music of Johann Sebastian Bach,
especially The Well-Tempered Clavier, the Goldberg Variations, and The Art of Fugue, considering
these piano pieces essential for every serious pianist. Pianists Benny Greenand Oliver Jones were
among his students.
[14]

[15]

Stroke, later years and death[edit]

Tombstone of Oscar Peterson at St. Peter's Anglican Church in Mississauga

Peterson had arthritis since his youth, and in later years could hardly button his shirt. Never slender,
his weight increased to 125 kg (276 lb), hindering his mobility. He had hip replacement surgery in the
early 1990s. Although the surgery was successful, his mobility was still inhibited. Somewhat later,
in 1993, Peterson suffered a serious stroke that weakened his left side and sidelined him for two
years. Also in 1993 incoming Prime Minister and longtime Peterson fan and friendJean
Chrtien offered Peterson the position of Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario, but according to Chrtien
he declined, citing the health problems from his recent stroke.
[16]

[17]

After the stroke, Peterson recuperated for about two years. He gradually regained mobility and some
control of his left hand. However, his virtuosity was never restored to the original level, and his
playing after his stroke relied principally on his right hand. In 1995 he returned to public
performances on a limited basis, and also made several live and studio recordings for Telarc. In
1997 he received a Grammy for Lifetime Achievement and an International Jazz Hall of Fame Award.
Canadian politician, friend, and amateur pianist Bob Rae contends that "a one-handed Oscar was
better than just about anyone with two hands".
[18]

[19]

In 2003, Peterson recorded the DVD A Night in Vienna for Verve, with Niels-Henning rsted
Pedersen (NHP), Ulf Wakenius and Martin Drew. He continued to tour the U.S. and Europe,
though maximally one month a year, with a couple of days' rest between concerts to recover his
strength. His accompanists consisted of Ulf Wakenius (guitar), NHP or David Young (bass), and
Alvin Queen (drums).
[20]

Peterson's health declined rapidly in 2007. He had to cancel his performance at the 2007 Toronto
Jazz Festival and his attendance at a June 8, 2007, Carnegie Hall all-star performance in his honour,
owing to illness. On December 23, 2007, Peterson died of kidney failure at his home in Mississauga,
Ontario.
He left seven children, his fourth wife Kelly, and their daughter, Celine (born 1991).
[21][22]

Awards and recognition[edit]

Musical awards and recognition[edit]
Begone Dull Care is an abstract film presentation of Peterson's music, directed by Norman
McLaren and Evelyn Lambart, and released in 1949 by the National Film Board of Canada.
His work earned him eight Grammy awards over the years and he was elected to the Canadian
Music Hall of Fame in 1978. He also belongs to the Juno Awards Hall of Fame and the Canadian
Jazz and Blues Hall of Fame. In 2013, Peterson was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame
Peterson received the first Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Achievement Award from Black Theatre
Workshop (1986), Roy Thomson Award (1987), a Toronto Arts Award for lifetime achievement
(1991), the Governor General's Performing Arts Award (1992), the Glenn Gould Prize (1993), the
award of the International Society for Performing Artists (1995), the Loyola Medal of Concordia
University (1997), the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (1997), the Praemium Imperiale World
Art Award (1999), the UNESCO Music Prize (2000), the Toronto Musicians' Association Musician of
the Year award (2001), and an honorary LLD from the University of the West Indies (2006).
In 1999, Concordia University in Montreal renamed their Loyola-campus concert hall Oscar Peterson
Concert Hall in his honour.
[23]

In 2005, Peterson celebrated his 80th birthday at the HMV flagship store in Toronto, where a crowd
of about 200 gathered to celebrate with him. Long time admirer and fellow Canadian Diana
Krall sang "Happy Birthday" to him and also performed a vocal version of one of Peterson's songs,
"When Summer Comes". The lyrics for this version were written by Elvis Costello, Krall's husband.
Canada Post unveiled a commemorative postage stamp in Peterson's honour. The event was
covered by a live radio broadcast by Toronto jazz station JAZZ.FM.
Peterson received the BBC-Radio Lifetime Achievement Award, London, England.

[24]

"Technique is something you use to make your ideas listenable", he once told jazz writer Len Lyons.
"You learn to play the instrument so you have a musical vocabulary, and you practice to get your
technique to the point you need to express yourself, depending on how heavy your ideas are."
"Some may criticize Peterson for not advancing, for finding his niche and staying with it for an entire
career, but while he may not be the most revolutionary artist in jazz, the documentary Music in the
Key of Oscar demonstrates that breaking down barriers can be accomplished in more ways than
one." "He was a crystallizer, rather than an innovator."
[25]

[18]

"His hands could do things few piano players can do", said pianist Bill King, who studied with
Peterson at his music school. Because Peterson was a big man six feet three inches he could
stretch his hands over a keyboard in a way few musicians can match.
[26]

Ray Charles, in Martin Scorsese Presents the Blues - Piano Blues (2003), commented that Peterson
was the only other piano player who could come close to the technical skills of Art Tatum, praising
his abilities with "Oscar could play like a motherfucker!"