Dr. Oscar Peterson, 1925-2007

The story of the late Dr. Oscar Peterson is one of friendship, love, dedication, and amazing music. Norman Granz, the egalitarian and indefatigable jazz producer and promoter, first brought Peterson to New York City in 1949 as a guest performer at a Jazz At The Philharmonic program at Carnegie Hall, an event that opened up a place for Oscar in jazz history. Oscar subsequently appeared on countless JATP tours around the world, and recorded regularly for Norman’s record labels: Verve, Clef, Norgran, and Pablo.

As Oscar told Keyboard some years ago, he was working with his trio at the Alberta Lounge in Montreal, Canada, a fairly upscale gig for a teenager — though he was no ordinary teenager. A local radio station was broadcasting part of a set, which was heard by Norman in a cab headed to the Montreal airport following a JATP performance. He told the cab driver to turn around and head for the Alberta. The rest is history, and Norman became one of Oscar’s closest friends and a highly influential figure in his life.

When Granz passed away in November 2001, Oscar was so profoundly affected that he seriously considered giving up playing the piano — it was a bigger blow than the stroke he suffered in 1993 that hindered his left hand facility. Fortunately, fans and friends from around the world packed the Blue Note in New York City for his engagement there in late 2002, giving Oscar one of the best receptions he’d ever had, and inspiring him to continue. And indeed, Oscar kept touring almost right up until he passed away last year on December 23.

On the JATP tours in the early ’50s, Oscar shared the stage with greats such as Ella Fitzgerald, Gene Krupa, Ben Webster, Roy Eldridge, Benny Carter, and others, many of whom he recorded classic albums with throughout his career. His own vehicle at the time was the Oscar Peterson Trio, in one of its legendary configurations that included Ray Brown on bass, Herb Ellis on guitar — both lifelong close friends. The interplay and ensemble work of this group was astonishing, and when you listen to them, you’ll hear the love and friendship in the music, just as clearly as their virtuosic command. When Ray Brown passed away in 2002, it left Oscar with deep void, just as Granz’ passing did the year before.

Oscar’s recordings from this time hold their appeal no less today than when they were originally released. Even a casual listen will reveal what kept him at the apex of jazz for his entire career: melody. Listeners everywhere respond to melody, and Oscar excelled at this, because he, too, loved melody. “I always try to play the melody with real feeling,” he told Len Lyons in an early Keyboard interview, “as if I were playing a horn, pedaling and controlling the touch so it doesn’t sound staccato.”

Oscar’s playing was melodic even when he wasn’t interpreting a written melody. He excelled at creating beautiful lines as he improvised; even at breakneck tempos, Oscar always spun a finished melody, he never just wove through the chord changes. “I’m an admirer of the beautiful long line that starts out and then reaches a point of definition,” he told Lyons. “If you reach a point of definition, it validates all other aspects of the line. Let me draw an analogy. I don’t think you should speak until you have your sentence together in your mind. It’s easier to listen to someone who knows what he wants to say than a person who stops, starts, picks up another idea, continues, and winds up with a series of chopped-up phrases. I got that from listening to Teddy Wilson; the beautiful long line, the interconnecting runs that tie together the harmonic movements in a ballad, the impeccable good taste of the right touch, the idea of how to make a piano speak. I got that from Hank Jones, too.”

Another aspect of Oscar’s playing that was as evident in his earliest recordings as on his most recent was his sense of swing. Among jazz pianists, no one could touch him when it came to swing. “When my trio is at its deepest point,” he told Lyons, “when we get that far down into the time, we make it hard for a bigger band to [follow us]. We swing that hard. When I play with Dizzy [Gillespie], Ray [Brown], Zoot [Sims], Clark [Terry], or Joe Pass, they’re all aware that when I’m in the rhythm section, I deal with time, nothing else. For a rhythm section to give what it has to give, you have to deal that heavily with time.”

Right from the beginning, Oscar’s playing was infused with brilliant, effortless blues phrasing. “A jazz phrase can’t be a jazz phrase without a certain type of blues feeling to it,” he told Robert L. Doerschuk for a Keyboard interview in the ’80s. “That doesn’t mean it has to be premeditated; it just means you have to have that feel to it.”

Sooner or later on any Oscar performance, he’d go into doubletime and play things that simply defied reason. You couldn’t top it for plain old excitement, but his musicality and phrasing was always impeccable, no matter how ridiculous the tempo. To me, that always begged the question: What piano could withstand this? “The biggest challenge for me was in the temperament and personalities of the instruments that I encountered on the road,” Oscar once told me. “I had an experience somewhere, where one of the stagehands said to me, ‘Did you hear that a piano collapsed on [a classical pianist who shall remain nameless]? First, the pedal carriage came off when he went back for an encore. The next thing he knew, one of the legs started to collapse. This guy ended up just having to jump away from the piano to save himself. I have to admit, after that night it gave me a phobia. I had to keep checking the legs all night after every tune. I’d tap the pedal carriages very gently.”

Oscar kept the drumless trio with Herb Ellis until 1958, when he replaced the guitar with drummer Ed Thigpen. For most of the ’60s, the trio consisted of Sam Jones on bass and Bobby Durham on drums. “Most people think that once you’re out of a trio with a guitar and you enter one with drums, it’s complete freedom,” Oscar once wryly commented. “It isn’t.”

In the early ’70s, Oscar appeared in a remarkable variety of ensemble settings. He reunited with original trio members Barney Kessel and Ray Brown, 20 years after their previous engagements together. His association with guitarist Joe Pass was one of the most astonishing virtuoso pairings in jazz. They shared the ability to create as soloists alone whatever sonic world they imagined, and when they played together, the whole was greater than the sum of its parts. They made music that was simply too cool to be believed. Oscar made a number of other duet recordings during this time, most notably with some of the best trumpet players ever, including Dizzy Gillespie, Roy Eldridge, Clark Terry, and Jon Faddis.

One of the greatest piano and bass pairings in the history of jazz came about during this period: Oscar and the late bassist Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen, whose facility on the bass was super-human. He swung like there was no tomorrow, which was a good match for Oscar. It was Norman Granz who put them together originally. “Oscar was planning a European tour,” Granz related in subsequent album notes, “and I suggested Niels to Oscar, who, surprisingly, had never heard him. In any case, Niels joined Oscar for the first gig in Budapest. That night Oscar called me, raving about Niels, and has since never stopped raving him.”

Oscar’s solo work was, of course, among the most astonishing of all; he had such arrange-on-the-fly skills that no other musicians were really necessary. His live solo sets are particularly interesting. Coming at the end of the already arduous tours with the full group, they had inherent upsides and downsides. “Performing solo opened up a whole lot of things for me,” he once told me. “There were places I couldn’t go musically, so to speak, doing the trio. I couldn’t do stride, for example, unless we knew beforehand that I was going to do it. Harmonically, I could go anywhere I wanted, because I wasn’t stepping on anyone’s toes.”

You’d expect, once free of the constraints of the trio, he could play any composition any way he pleased. “But it was kind of lonesome,” he said, half-jokingly. As a soloist, though, Oscar was up against the most unyielding factor of all: the condition of the pianos that waited for him onstage.

“When you see a nice polished grand piano” he said, “you really never know what’s going on inside it until you play it. Every instrument has its own personality, some good, others not so good, others a little obsequious. Whatever it was, I tried to get control of that particular temperament, so that I could do what I had to do that night, dependent on how I felt.”

Indeed, the instrument often partially determined his choice of repertoire, and what style he applied to the individual tunes. This had the unusual side benefit of helping to keep each concert fresh for him. “Different pianos make for different performances of different tunes,” he explained. “Some pianos can give you a beautiful legato feel, depending on how good a control you have over them. Others won’t. Secondly, since I was playing solo, I could challenge myself and think, ‘Yeah, I haven’t played this tune in awhile,’ and then play it. So there was a built-in freshness to any solo performance. I’d decide on the first tune somewhere between the dressing room and the piano, but after that, it was strictly all how I felt.”

An Oscar Peterson performance could never be beat for sheer excitement. You never knew what he’d do next, and he never failed to dazzle. The jazz world is diminished with his passing, but his recorded legacy endures. I encourage you to explore it, and also to dig into the additional resources listed in the Selected Discography on page 36. Oscar Peterson was a master on any piano, in any setting, in any era.

A Selected Dr. Oscar Peterson Discography

To learn more about Oscar’s life and music, pick up a copy of his biography, A Jazz Odyssey: The Life of Oscar Peterson, by Richard Palmer; I can’t recommend it highly enough. Oscar Peterson: The Will to Swing by Gene Lees is well worth reading too (though Oscar himself referred to it as an “unauthorized” biography). P.G. Music (www.pgmusic.com) has published a fabulous CD-ROM called “Oscar Peterson,” which contains Oscar’s autobiography, a searchable discography, film and video clips, photographs, and scrolling, audible transcriptions of many of his famous performances. Oscar’s own informative website is www.oscarpeterson.com.

And best of all, there is still Oscar’s music. You can hardly go wrong with anything Oscar recorded. But here is a tiny selection of his recorded output that we’re confident you’ll enjoy.

At Zardi’s (Pablo)
Oscar Peterson Plays the Cole Porter Songbook (Polygram)
Porgy and Bess (OJC)
The Trio (OJC)
West Side Story (Polygram)
Night Train (Polygram)
Oscar Peterson Trio Plus One (Verve)
We Get Requests (Polygram)
Ella and Oscar (Pablo)
Oscar Peterson and Dizzy Gillespie (Pablo)
Satch and Josh (OJC)
Live at the North Sea Jazz Festival (Pablo)
Stan Getz and the Oscar Peterson Trio (Polygram)
The Very Tall Band Live (Telarc)
The More I See you (Telarc)
Dimensions: A Compendium of the Pablo Years (Pablo)
Piano Jazz with Marian McPartland (Jazz Alliance)

DVDs
Music in the Key of Oscar (View)

When I first heard Oscar, I was just amazed by how happy the piano sounded. Invincible swing, incredible touch, his sound always made my soul dance. His music was the source of happiness. Oscar will keep living in my heart, and his music will keep ringing in my soul. Oscar, thank you, thank you, thank you so much for being such an amazing pianist and an amazing person. Hiromi

I met Oscar only a few times and he was always extremely cordial and encouraging to me. I always viewed him with the kind of respect I had for Art Tatum; they were both such huge contributors to our music and culture. We’re fortunate to have Oscar’s incredible work preserved on recordings for our study and pleasure. Thank you, Oscar. Chick Corea

The only reason I got into improvised music and jazz was Oscar Peterson. Unquestionably. He opened the gate for me, coming from classical music and popular music. When I heard him playing those old tunes, it blew my head off and I couldn’t get enough of it. His might have been the first jazz concert I ever saw, him playing solo. I think he’s been a great influence on a lot of people. His command of the instrument was phenomenal — how far he could swing, the lines he played, the way he used the instrument, and all his solo piano devices. He just had that way of playing that was incredibly sophisticated but also sounded like going to church. He could rock it. John Medeski

Oscar Peterson redefined swing for modern jazz pianists for the latter half of the 20th Century up until today. I consider him the major influence that formed my roots in jazz piano playing. He mastered the balance between technique, hard blues grooving, and tenderness. You’ll find Oscar Peterson’s influence in the generations that came after him. No one will ever be able to take his place. Herbie Hancock

Oscar Peterson, OP, the King of Jazz Piano, sadly, has left us. Happily, he also has left us a wealth of music through his recordings. Oscar with his phenomenal technique created a legacy of his own, which can be heard on all the seminal OP recordings, including Night Train, We Get Requests, West Side Story, OP Trio plus One (Clark Terry), and thankfully the list goes on. A couple of my personal favorites are Stan Getz and the Oscar Peterson Trio, and Diz and Getz. Both had a major impact on my own interest in jazz piano, so much so, that it has become the centerpiece of my life. There’s not a jazz pianist playing today who hasn’t been influenced by his music, and I am certainly no exception. I will always be in awe of his amazing talent, and for this I say, thank you Oscar! Andy LaVerne

Oscar Peterson was a true creative genius and an incredible jazz pianist. He had such an absolute command of the instrument that he was always able to deliver what I called “gems of virtuoso jazz improvisation” by skillfully capturing that specific swinging mood that was present in his innermost being, and by communicating it seamlessly right on the spot to his audience. He achieved from the very beginning what usually takes many pianists a full lifetime to accomplish. You could not help yourself but smile or even cry from witnessing such a deep, perfect, and exhilarating musical experience. Here’s to one of the last giants of jazz piano! Michel Camilo

I first met Oscar in the ’40s when [my husband] Jimmy and I opened for him at the Colonial Tavern in Toronto. From that point on we became such good friends. He was wonderful to me and I have always felt very close to him. He has been a guest on Piano Jazz at least three times; the last time he came was with his wife and daughter, and I asked if he needed a bassist. He said, “I don’t need a bass player.” I played on his tribute concert at Carnegie Hall earlier this year and performed “Tenderly,” which was always my favorite piece of his. His playing was magnificent and always wonderfully swinging. He was the finest technician that I have seen.” Marian McPartland