Oscar Peterson
Encyclopedia
Oscar Emmanuel Peterson (August 15, 1925 – December 23, 2007) was a Canadian jazz
pianist
and composer
. He was called the "Maharaja
of the keyboard" by Duke Ellington
, "O.P." by his friends. He released over 200 recordings, won seven Grammy Award
s, and received other numerous awards and honours over the course of his career. He is considered to have been one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time, having played thousands of live concerts to audiences worldwide in a career lasting more than 60 years.
. Peterson grew up in the neighbourhood of Little Burgundy
in Montreal
, Quebec. It was in this predominantly black neighbourhood 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 tuberculosis
at age 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 practising scales and classical etudes daily, and thanks to such arduous practice he developed his astonishing virtuosity.
As a child, Peterson also studied with Hungarian-born pianist Paul de Marky, a student of Istvan Thomán 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 "the Brown Bomber
of the Boogie-Woogie."
At age 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 age fourteen, 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.
Peterson resided in a two-storey house on Hammond Road in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, until his death in 2007 of kidney failure.
, Nat "King" Cole
, James P. Johnson
and Art Tatum
, to whom many have 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 Art 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.
Peterson has also credited his sister Daisy Swooney — a noted piano teacher in Montreal
who also taught several other noted Canadian jazz musicians — with 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
.
Building on Art 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
'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 to the Montreal 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.
So was born a lasting relationship and Granz remained Peterson's manager for most of his career. One poignant illustration: in the last two years of his life, Peterson doted on a boxer dog that he named "Smedley," Peterson's nickname for Granz. On the day of Peterson's death, Smedley lay on the bed with him and would not leave.
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 Canadian Broadcasting Company's two-part 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. The entire documentary is a fascinating account of Peterson's life from his Montreal childhood, to his career, to his family relations and includes interviews with Peterson, Herbie Hancock, Quincy Jones and Ella Fitzgerald. Its narrative ends in 1993, just before Peterson's debilitating stroke.
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
, New York City, arranged by Norman Granz
, 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. Some of his musical associates included Ray Brown
, Coleman Hawkins
, Roy Eldridge, Ben Webster
, Milt Jackson
, Herb Ellis
, Barney Kessel
, Ed Thigpen
, Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen
, Louis Armstrong
, Stéphane Grappelli
, Ella Fitzgerald
, Billie Holiday
, Clark Terry
, Joe Pass
, Anita O'Day
, Fred Astaire
, Count Basie
, Dizzy Gillespie
, and Stan Getz
.
, Sam Jones
, and Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen
, guitarists Joe Pass
, Irving Ashby
, Herb Ellis
, and Barney Kessel
, pianists Count Basie
, Herbie Hancock
, Benny Green
, and Keith Emerson
, trumpeters Clark Terry
and Louis Armstrong
, and many other important jazz players. His 1950s duo recordings with bassist Ray Brown mark the formation of one of the longest lasting partnerships in the history of jazz. Peterson's 1970's duo with guitarist Joe Pass has been considered one of the highest standards in the genre.
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
.
Peterson redefined the jazz trio by bringing musicianship of all three members to the highest level. The definitive 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 Barney Kessel
. Kessel tired of touring after a year, and was succeeded by Herb 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.
Oscar Peterson Trio 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 Herb 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 famous albums Night Train
and the successful Canadiana 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. Their albums included pop songs such as The Beatles
' Yesterday
and Eleanor Rigby
. In the fall of 1970, Peterson's trio were successful in their album Tristeza on Piano which was a eulogy of the recently deceased Jimi Hendrix
and Janis Joplin
, the Monterey Pop Festival
stars. This record was released on CD in 1985, went out of print, and then came back remastered in 2005 as an anniversary edition. Selections from this trio's work have been incidentally used for Japanese anime and other live action
films. Jones and Durham left in 1970.
In the 1970s Peterson formed another landmark trio with virtuoso guitarist Joe Pass
and Niels-Henning Ørsted 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 1978 double album recorded live in Paris. In 1974 Oscar added British drummer, Martin Drew, and this quartet toured and recorded extensively worldwide.
for a brief time, then Ed 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
and Lorne Lofsky
.
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 a highly praised album, Very Tall.
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.
In the 1980s he played successfully in a duo with pianist Herbie Hancock
. In the late 1980s and 1990s, after the stroke, Peterson made performances and recordings with his protégé Benny Green
.
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 Green
and Oliver Jones were among his students.
since his youth, and in later years could hardly button his shirt. Never slender, his weight increased to 125 kg (275.6 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 friend Jean Chrétien
offered Peterson the position of Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario, but according to Chrétien he declined, citing the health problems from his recent stroke.
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, another indication that Peterson continued to be regarded as one of the greatest jazz musicians ever to play. Canadian politician, friend, and amateur pianist Bob Rae
contends that "a one-handed Oscar was better than just about anyone with two hands".
In 2003, Peterson recorded the DVD A Night in Vienna for Verve
, with Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen
(NHØP), 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), NHØP or David Young (bass), and Alvin Queen (drums), all leaders of their own groups.
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).
is an abstract film presentation of Oscar's music, released in 1949.
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 Award
s Hall of Fame and the Canadian Jazz and Blues Hall 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.
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 his 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
.
"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."
""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.
Ray Charles
, in Martin Scorsese Presents the Blues - Piano Blues
(2003), said "Oscar Peterson is a mother fucking piano player!"
and internationally, he was also regarded in Canada as a distinguished public figure. His notable personage is evident in the acclaim and awards he received, particularly in the latter two decades of his life.
He was made an Officer of the Order of Canada
(the country's highest civilian state order for talent and service) in 1972, and promoted to Companion of the order (the highest degree of merit and humanity), in 1984. He was also a member of the Order of Ontario
, a Chevalier of the National Order of Quebec
, and an officer of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
of France.
From 1991 to 1994, Peterson was chancellor of York University
in Toronto
. The chancellor is the titular head of the university. Weeks after his death, the Province of Ontario
announced a C$
4 million scholarship for the "Oscar Peterson Chair" for Jazz Performance at York University with an additional C$
1 million to be awarded annually in music scholarships to underprivileged York students in tribute to Peterson.
Peterson's niece, television journalist Sylvia Sweeney
, produced an award-winning documentary film, In the Key of Oscar, about Peterson in 1992.
Unlike most other jazz musicians, Oscar Peterson was networked with Canadian elites in the later years of his life. For example, former Ontario
premier Bob Rae
recalled that in 2007, himself, Ontario Chief Justice Roy McMurtry
, and former Ontario premier Bill Davis
celebrated McMurtry's retirement with Peterson, his wife, and their wives.
Peterson received honorary doctorates from many Canadian universities: Carleton University
, Queen's University
, Concordia University, McMaster University
, Mount Allison University
, the University of Victoria
, the University of Western Ontario
, York University
, the University of Toronto
, and the Université Laval
, as well as from Northwestern University
and Niagara University
in the United States.
In 2004, the City of Toronto named the courtyard of the Toronto-Dominion Centre
Oscar Peterson Square.
In 2005, the Peel District School Board in suburban Toronto
opened the Oscar Peterson school in Mississauga, Ontario
, two miles from his home. Peterson said, "This is a most unexpected and moving tribute." He visited the school several times and donated electronic musical equipment to it. Soon after Peterson's death, the University of Toronto Mississauga
opened a major student residence in March 2008 as "Oscar Peterson Hall".
Former Canadian prime minister Jean Chrétien
wanted in 1993 to put Peterson forward to the Governor General of Canada
for appointment to the post of Lieutenant Governor of Ontario
, but Peterson felt that his health could not stand up to the many ceremonial duties that this position would require. "He was the most famous Canadian in the world," said Chrétien. Chrétien also said that Nelson Mandela
glowed when meeting Peterson. "It was very emotional. They were both moved to meet each other. These were two men with humble beginnings who rose to very illustrious levels."
A major memorial concert, held on January 12, 2008, filled the 2500-seat Roy Thomson Hall
in Toronto. People had queued for more than three hours to get in. Governor General Michaëlle Jean
reported at the concert that "thousands" more could not get in. Among the performers were Grégory Charles
, Herbie Hancock
, Quincy Jones
, Phil Nimmons
and singers Audrey Morris and Nancy Wilson
. The "Oscar Peterson" quartet played key pieces; they are Monty Alexander, Jeff Hamilton, Ulf Wakenius
and Dave Young. All toured with Peterson during his late "one-handed" period" except Alexander. The Nathaniel Dett Chorale
, University of Toronto Gospel Choir and Sharon Riley & the Faith Chorale, under the direction of Andrew Craid along with opera soprano Measha Brueggergosman
closed the show, singing an excerpt from Peterson's "Hymn to Freedom". The show was made available for download.
In 2008, a young pianist named Connor Derraugh in Winnipeg, Manitoba wrote a tribute song to Oscar Peterson. He would later play it at an Oscar Peterson tribute concert at a local church and receive a standing ovation. The event was broadcasted on CBC Radio.
A movement was begun on Facebook
to rename the Lionel-Groulx Metro station
, a transfer station between Montreal's Green Line
and Orange Line
, in honour of Oscar Peterson. The Montreal Transit Corporation
, however, has refused to end its moratorium on renaming Metro stations. The city's policy on landmark tributes is to wait at least a year after a public figure's death.
An Ontario school named Oscar Peterson Public School was opened in Stouffville in the Regional Municipality of York on 30 April 2009, and commenced operation in the 2009-2010 school year.
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
pianist
Pianist
A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...
and composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
. He was called the "Maharaja
Maharaja
Mahārāja is a Sanskrit title for a "great king" or "high king". The female equivalent title Maharani denotes either the wife of a Maharaja or, in states where that was customary, a woman ruling in her own right. The widow of a Maharaja is known as a Rajamata...
of the keyboard" by Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...
, "O.P." by his friends. He released over 200 recordings, won seven Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
s, and received other numerous awards and honours over the course of his career. He is considered to have been one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time, having played thousands of live concerts to audiences worldwide in a career lasting more than 60 years.
Biography
Peterson was born to immigrants from the West Indies; his father worked as a porter for Canadian Pacific RailwayCanadian Pacific Railway
The Canadian Pacific Railway , formerly also known as CP Rail between 1968 and 1996, is a historic Canadian Class I railway founded in 1881 and now operated by Canadian Pacific Railway Limited, which began operations as legal owner in a corporate restructuring in 2001...
. Peterson grew up in the neighbourhood of Little Burgundy
Little Burgundy
Little Burgundy is the informal name of a neighbourhood in the Sud-Ouest borough of the city of Montreal, Quebec, Canada.-Geography:...
in Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
, Quebec. It was in this predominantly black neighbourhood 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
Trumpet
The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
and piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
. However, a bout of tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
at age 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
Daisy Sweeney
Daisy Peterson Sweeney is a Canadian music teacher, known for having taught many of the most notable figures in Canadian jazz music....
taught young Oscar classical piano. Young Oscar was persistent at practising scales and classical etudes daily, and thanks to such arduous practice he developed his astonishing virtuosity.
As a child, Peterson also studied with Hungarian-born pianist Paul de Marky, a student of Istvan Thomán who was himself a pupil of Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...
, so his training was predominantly based on classical piano. Meanwhile he was captivated by traditional jazz and learned several ragtime
Ragtime
Ragtime is an original musical genre which enjoyed its peak popularity between 1897 and 1918. Its main characteristic trait is its syncopated, or "ragged," rhythm. It began as dance music in the red-light districts of American cities such as St. Louis and New Orleans years before being published...
pieces and especially the boogie-woogie
Boogie-woogie
Boogie-woogie has the following meanings:*Boogie-woogie, a piano-based music style*Boogie-woogie , a swing dance or a dance that imitates the rock-n-roll dance of the 1950s*"Boogie Woogie" , a song by EuroGroove and Dannii Minogue...
. At that time Peterson was called "the Brown Bomber
Joe Louis
Joseph Louis Barrow , better known as Joe Louis, was the world heavyweight boxing champion from 1937 to 1949. He is considered to be one of the greatest heavyweights of all time...
of the Boogie-Woogie."
At age 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 age fourteen, Peterson won the national music competition organized by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...
. 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.
Peterson resided in a two-storey house on Hammond Road in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, until his death in 2007 of kidney failure.
Influences
Some of the artists who influenced Peterson's musicianship during the earlier type of years were Teddy WilsonTeddy Wilson
Theodore Shaw "Teddy" Wilson was an American jazz pianist whose sophisticated and elegant style was featured on the records of many of the biggest names in jazz, including Louis Armstrong, Lena Horne, Benny Goodman, Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald.-Biography:Wilson was born in Austin, Texas in...
, Nat "King" Cole
Nat King Cole
Nathaniel Adams Coles , known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American musician who first came to prominence as a leading jazz pianist. Although an accomplished pianist, he owes most of his popular musical fame to his soft baritone voice, which he used to perform in big band and jazz genres...
, James P. Johnson
James P. Johnson
James P. Johnson was an American pianist and composer...
and Art Tatum
Art Tatum
Arthur "Art" Tatum, Jr. was an American jazz pianist and virtuoso who played with phenomenal facility despite being nearly blind.Tatum is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time...
, to whom many have 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 Art Tatum's Tiger Rag
Tiger Rag
"Tiger Rag" is a jazz standard, originally recorded and copyrighted by the Original Dixieland Jass Band in 1917. It is one of the most recorded jazz compositions of all time.-Origins:...
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.
Peterson has also credited his sister Daisy Swooney — a noted piano teacher in Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
who also taught several other noted Canadian jazz musicians — with 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
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
.
Building on Art Tatum's pianism and aesthetics, Peterson also absorbed Tatum's musical influences, notably from piano concertos by Sergei Rachmaninoff
Sergei Rachmaninoff
Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music...
. Rachmaninoff's harmonizations, as well as direct quotations
Musical quotation
Musical quotation is the practice of directly quoting another work in a new composition. The quotation may be from the same composer's work , or from a different composer's work ....
from his 2nd Piano Concerto
Piano Concerto No. 2 (Rachmaninoff)
The Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18, is a concerto for piano and orchestra composed by Sergei Rachmaninoff between the autumn of 1900 and April 1901. The second and third movements were first performed with the composer as soloist on 2 December 1900...
, 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
Ray Brown (musician)
Raymond Matthews Brown was an American jazz double bassist.-Biography:Ray Brown was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and had piano lessons from the age of eight. After noticing how many pianists attended his high school, he thought of taking up the trombone, but was unable to afford one...
and guitarist Herb Ellis
Herb Ellis
Mitchell Herbert "Herb" Ellis was an American jazz guitarist. Perhaps best known for his 1950s membership in the trio of pianist Oscar Peterson, Ellis was also a staple of west-coast studio recording sessions, and was described by critic Scott Yanow as "an excellent bop-based guitarist with a...
. 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
An important step in his career was joining impresarioImpresario
An impresario is a person who organizes and often finances concerts, plays or operas; analogous to a film producer in filmmaking, television production and an angel investor in business...
Norman Granz
Norman Granz
Norman Granz was an American jazz music impresario and producer.Granz was a fundamental figure in American jazz, especially from about 1947 to 1960...
's labels (especially Verve
Verve Records
Verve Records is an American jazz record label now owned by Universal Music Group. It was founded by Norman Granz in 1956, absorbing the catalogues of his earlier labels, Clef Records and Norgran Records , and material which had been licensed to Mercury previously.-Jazz and folk origins:The Verve...
) and Granz's "Jazz at the Philharmonic
Jazz at the Philharmonic
Jazz at the Philharmonic, or JATP, was the title of a series of jazz concerts, tours and recordings produced by Norman Granz....
" project. Granz discovered Peterson in a peculiar manner. As the impresario was being taken to the Montreal 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.
So was born a lasting relationship and Granz remained Peterson's manager for most of his career. One poignant illustration: in the last two years of his life, Peterson doted on a boxer dog that he named "Smedley," Peterson's nickname for Granz. On the day of Peterson's death, Smedley lay on the bed with him and would not leave.
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 Canadian Broadcasting Company's two-part 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. The entire documentary is a fascinating account of Peterson's life from his Montreal childhood, to his career, to his family relations and includes interviews with Peterson, Herbie Hancock, Quincy Jones and Ella Fitzgerald. Its narrative ends in 1993, just before Peterson's debilitating stroke.
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
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
from the 1940s. His name was already recognized in the United States. However, his 1949 debut at Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
, New York City, arranged by Norman Granz
Norman Granz
Norman Granz was an American jazz music impresario and producer.Granz was a fundamental figure in American jazz, especially from about 1947 to 1960...
, 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. Some of his musical associates included Ray Brown
Ray Brown (musician)
Raymond Matthews Brown was an American jazz double bassist.-Biography:Ray Brown was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and had piano lessons from the age of eight. After noticing how many pianists attended his high school, he thought of taking up the trombone, but was unable to afford one...
, Coleman Hawkins
Coleman Hawkins
Coleman Randolph Hawkins was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. Hawkins was one of the first prominent jazz musicians on his instrument. As Joachim E. Berendt explained, "there were some tenor players before him, but the instrument was not an acknowledged jazz horn"...
, Roy Eldridge, Ben Webster
Ben Webster
Benjamin Francis Webster , a.k.a. "The Brute" or "Frog," was an influential American jazz tenor saxophonist. Webster, born in Kansas City, Missouri, was considered one of the three most important "swing tenors" along with Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young...
, Milt Jackson
Milt Jackson
Milton "Bags" Jackson was an American jazz vibraphonist, usually thought of as a bebop player, although he performed in several jazz idioms...
, Herb Ellis
Herb Ellis
Mitchell Herbert "Herb" Ellis was an American jazz guitarist. Perhaps best known for his 1950s membership in the trio of pianist Oscar Peterson, Ellis was also a staple of west-coast studio recording sessions, and was described by critic Scott Yanow as "an excellent bop-based guitarist with a...
, Barney Kessel
Barney Kessel
Barney Kessel was an American jazz guitarist born in Muskogee, Oklahoma, USA. Generally considered to be one of the greatest jazz guitarists of the 20th century, he was noted in particular for his vast knowledge of chords and inversions and chord-based melodies...
, Ed Thigpen
Ed Thigpen
Edmund Leonard "Ed" Thigpen was an American jazz drummer, best-known for his work with the Oscar Peterson trio from 1959 to 1965...
, Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen
Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen
- Discography :* My Name Is Albert Ayler 1963 * Kirk in Copenhagen 1963 * Ben Webster in Denmark 1965-1971 Live at Danish Radio studios, Jazzhus Montmartre and Odd Fellow Palæet - Universal Music Denmark*One Flight Up 1964 *Sunday Walk 1969 - Discography :* My Name Is Albert Ayler 1963 (with...
, Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....
, Stéphane Grappelli
Stéphane Grappelli
Stéphane Grappelli was a French jazz violinist who founded the Quintette du Hot Club de France with guitarist Django Reinhardt in 1934. It was one of the first all-string jazz bands....
, Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Jane Fitzgerald , also known as the "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella," was an American jazz and song vocalist...
, Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday was an American jazz singer and songwriter. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and musical partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing...
, Clark Terry
Clark Terry
Clark Terry is an American swing and bop trumpeter, a pioneer of the fluegelhorn in jazz, educator, NEA Jazz Masters inductee, and recipient of the 2010 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award...
, Joe Pass
Joe Pass
Joe Pass was an Italian-American jazz guitarist of Sicilian descent. He is generally considered to be one of the greatest jazz guitarists of the 20th century...
, Anita O'Day
Anita O'Day
Anita O'Day was an American jazz singer.Born Anita Belle Colton, O'Day was admired for her sense of rhythm and dynamics, and her early big band appearances shattered the traditional image of the "girl singer"...
, Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute...
, Count Basie
Count Basie
William "Count" Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. Basie led his jazz orchestra almost continuously for nearly 50 years...
, Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...
, and Stan Getz
Stan Getz
Stanley Getz was an American jazz saxophone player. Getz was known as "The Sound" because of his warm, lyrical tone, his prime influence being the wispy, mellow timbre of his idol, Lester Young. Coming to prominence in the late 1940s with Woody Herman's big band, Getz is described by critic Scott...
.
Duets
Peterson made numerous duo performances and recordings with bassists Ray BrownRay Brown (musician)
Raymond Matthews Brown was an American jazz double bassist.-Biography:Ray Brown was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and had piano lessons from the age of eight. After noticing how many pianists attended his high school, he thought of taking up the trombone, but was unable to afford one...
, Sam Jones
Samuel Jones (musician)
Samuel Jones was a jazz bassist, cellist, and composer.Sam Jones was born in Jacksonville, FL and moved to New York city in 1955. There, Jones played with Bobby Timmons, Tiny Bradshaw, Les Jazz Modes, Kenny Dorham, Illinois Jacquet, Freddie Hubbard, Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk...
, and Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen
Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen
- Discography :* My Name Is Albert Ayler 1963 * Kirk in Copenhagen 1963 * Ben Webster in Denmark 1965-1971 Live at Danish Radio studios, Jazzhus Montmartre and Odd Fellow Palæet - Universal Music Denmark*One Flight Up 1964 *Sunday Walk 1969 - Discography :* My Name Is Albert Ayler 1963 (with...
, guitarists Joe Pass
Joe Pass
Joe Pass was an Italian-American jazz guitarist of Sicilian descent. He is generally considered to be one of the greatest jazz guitarists of the 20th century...
, Irving Ashby
Irving Ashby
Irving C. Ashby was an American jazz guitarist.Ashby was born in Somerville, Massachusetts. After playing rhythm guitar in Lionel Hampton's orchestra, he played in the Nat King Cole Trio from 1947 to 1951...
, Herb Ellis
Herb Ellis
Mitchell Herbert "Herb" Ellis was an American jazz guitarist. Perhaps best known for his 1950s membership in the trio of pianist Oscar Peterson, Ellis was also a staple of west-coast studio recording sessions, and was described by critic Scott Yanow as "an excellent bop-based guitarist with a...
, and Barney Kessel
Barney Kessel
Barney Kessel was an American jazz guitarist born in Muskogee, Oklahoma, USA. Generally considered to be one of the greatest jazz guitarists of the 20th century, he was noted in particular for his vast knowledge of chords and inversions and chord-based melodies...
, pianists Count Basie
Count Basie
William "Count" Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. Basie led his jazz orchestra almost continuously for nearly 50 years...
, Herbie Hancock
Herbie Hancock
Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock is an American pianist, bandleader and composer. As part of Miles Davis's "second great quintet," Hancock helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the "post-bop" sound...
, Benny Green
Benny Green (pianist)
Benny Green is a hard bop jazz pianist who was a member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. He has been compared to Bud Powell in style and counts him as an influence. As a boy he grew up in Berkeley, California and studied classical piano from the age of seven...
, and Keith Emerson
Keith Emerson
Keith Noel Emerson is an English keyboard player and composer. Formerly a member of the Keith Emerson Trio, John Brown's Bodies, The T-Bones, V.I.P.s, P.P. Arnold's backing band, and The Nice , he was a founder of Emerson, Lake & Palmer , one of the early supergroups, in 1970...
, trumpeters Clark Terry
Clark Terry
Clark Terry is an American swing and bop trumpeter, a pioneer of the fluegelhorn in jazz, educator, NEA Jazz Masters inductee, and recipient of the 2010 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award...
and Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....
, and many other important jazz players. His 1950s duo recordings with bassist Ray Brown mark the formation of one of the longest lasting partnerships in the history of jazz. Peterson's 1970's duo with guitarist Joe Pass has been considered one of the highest standards in the genre.
According to pianist/educator Mark Eisenman, some of Peterson's best playing was as an understated accompanist to singer Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Jane Fitzgerald , also known as the "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella," was an American jazz and song vocalist...
and trumpeter Roy Eldridge
Roy Eldridge
Roy David Eldridge , nicknamed "Little Jazz" was an American jazz trumpet player. His sophisticated use of harmony, including the use of tritone substitutions, his virtuosic solos and his strong influence on Dizzy Gillespie mark him as one of the most exciting musicians of the swing era and a...
.
Trio
Irving Ashby
Irving C. Ashby was an American jazz guitarist.Ashby was born in Somerville, Massachusetts. After playing rhythm guitar in Lionel Hampton's orchestra, he played in the Nat King Cole Trio from 1947 to 1951...
, formerly of the Nat King Cole
Nat King Cole
Nathaniel Adams Coles , known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American musician who first came to prominence as a leading jazz pianist. Although an accomplished pianist, he owes most of his popular musical fame to his soft baritone voice, which he used to perform in big band and jazz genres...
Trio. Ashby, who was a swing guitarist, was soon replaced by Barney Kessel
Barney Kessel
Barney Kessel was an American jazz guitarist born in Muskogee, Oklahoma, USA. Generally considered to be one of the greatest jazz guitarists of the 20th century, he was noted in particular for his vast knowledge of chords and inversions and chord-based melodies...
. Kessel tired of touring after a year, and was succeeded by Herb Ellis
Herb Ellis
Mitchell Herbert "Herb" Ellis was an American jazz guitarist. Perhaps best known for his 1950s membership in the trio of pianist Oscar Peterson, Ellis was also a staple of west-coast studio recording sessions, and was described by critic Scott Yanow as "an excellent bop-based guitarist with a...
. 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.
Oscar Peterson Trio 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 Herb Ellis left the group in 1958, Peterson and Brown believed they could not adequately replace Ellis. Ellis was replaced by drummer Ed Thigpen
Ed Thigpen
Edmund Leonard "Ed" Thigpen was an American jazz drummer, best-known for his work with the Oscar Peterson trio from 1959 to 1965...
in 1959. Brown and Thigpen worked with Peterson on his famous albums Night Train
Night Train (album)
- Personnel :* Oscar Peterson - piano* Ray Brown - double bass* Ed Thigpen - drums...
and the successful Canadiana Suite
Canadiana Suite
The Canadiana Suite is a 1964 album by Oscar Peterson.- Track listing :# "Ballad to the East" – 4:08# "Laurentide Waltz" – 5:20# "Place St...
. Brown and Thigpen left in 1965 and were replaced by bassist Sam Jones
Samuel Jones (musician)
Samuel Jones was a jazz bassist, cellist, and composer.Sam Jones was born in Jacksonville, FL and moved to New York city in 1955. There, Jones played with Bobby Timmons, Tiny Bradshaw, Les Jazz Modes, Kenny Dorham, Illinois Jacquet, Freddie Hubbard, Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk...
and drummer Louis Hayes
Louis Hayes
Louis Hayes is an American jazz drummer.-Biography:His father played drums and piano and his mother the piano and he refers to the early influence of hearing jazz, especially that of big bands, on the radio...
(and later, drummer Bobby Durham
Bobby Durham (Jazz musician)
Bobby Durham , was an American jazz drummer.Durham was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and learned to play drums while a child. He played with The Orioles at age 16, and was in a military band between 1956 and 1959. After his discharge he played with King James and Stan Hunter...
). The trio performed together until 1970. Their albums included pop songs such as The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
' Yesterday
Yesterday (song)
"Yesterday" is a song originally recorded by The Beatles for their 1965 album Help!. The song first hit the United Kingdom top 10 three months after the release of Help!. The song remains popular today with more than 1,600 cover versions, one of the most covered songs in the history of recorded...
and Eleanor Rigby
Eleanor Rigby
"Eleanor Rigby" is a song by The Beatles, simultaneously released on the 1966 album Revolver and on a 45 rpm single. The song was written primarily by Paul McCartney and credited to Lennon–McCartney...
. In the fall of 1970, Peterson's trio were successful in their album Tristeza on Piano which was a eulogy of the recently deceased Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...
and Janis Joplin
Janis Joplin
Janis Lyn Joplin was an American singer, songwriter, painter, dancer and music arranger. She rose to prominence in the late 1960s as the lead singer of Big Brother and the Holding Company and later as a solo artist with her backing groups, The Kozmic Blues Band and The Full Tilt Boogie Band...
, the Monterey Pop Festival
Monterey Pop Festival
The Monterey International Pop Music Festival was a three-day concert event held June 16 to June 18, 1967 at the Monterey County Fairgrounds in Monterey, California...
stars. This record was released on CD in 1985, went out of print, and then came back remastered in 2005 as an anniversary edition. Selections from this trio's work have been incidentally used for Japanese anime and other live action
Live action
In filmmaking, video production, and other media, the term live action refers to cinematography, videography not produced using animation...
films. Jones and Durham left in 1970.
In the 1970s Peterson formed another landmark trio with virtuoso guitarist Joe Pass
Joe Pass
Joe Pass was an Italian-American jazz guitarist of Sicilian descent. He is generally considered to be one of the greatest jazz guitarists of the 20th century...
and Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen
Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen
- Discography :* My Name Is Albert Ayler 1963 * Kirk in Copenhagen 1963 * Ben Webster in Denmark 1965-1971 Live at Danish Radio studios, Jazzhus Montmartre and Odd Fellow Palæet - Universal Music Denmark*One Flight Up 1964 *Sunday Walk 1969 - Discography :* My Name Is Albert Ayler 1963 (with...
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 1978 double album recorded live in Paris. In 1974 Oscar added British drummer, Martin Drew, and this quartet toured and recorded extensively worldwide.
Quartet
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 turned into a quartet after he added a drummer — first Gene GammageGene Gammage
Eugene Seldon "Gene" Gammage is an American jazz drummer.Gammage began his professional career as a drummer in 1952 after serving in the Air Force. In 1953 he found a steady gig with Teddy Charles in Los Angeles...
for a brief time, then Ed Thigpen
Ed Thigpen
Edmund Leonard "Ed" Thigpen was an American jazz drummer, best-known for his work with the Oscar Peterson trio from 1959 to 1965...
. In this group Peterson became the dominant soloist. Later members of the group were Louis Hayes
Louis Hayes
Louis Hayes is an American jazz drummer.-Biography:His father played drums and piano and his mother the piano and he refers to the early influence of hearing jazz, especially that of big bands, on the radio...
, Bobby Durham
Bobby Durham (Jazz musician)
Bobby Durham , was an American jazz drummer.Durham was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and learned to play drums while a child. He played with The Orioles at age 16, and was in a military band between 1956 and 1959. After his discharge he played with King James and Stan Hunter...
, Ray Price
Ray Price (musician)
Ray Price is an American country music singer, songwriter and guitarist. His wide-ranging baritone has often been praised as among the best male voices of country music...
, Sam Jones
Samuel Jones (musician)
Samuel Jones was a jazz bassist, cellist, and composer.Sam Jones was born in Jacksonville, FL and moved to New York city in 1955. There, Jones played with Bobby Timmons, Tiny Bradshaw, Les Jazz Modes, Kenny Dorham, Illinois Jacquet, Freddie Hubbard, Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk...
, George Mraz
George Mraz
George Mraz is a jazz bassist and alto saxophonist. He was a member of Oscar Peterson's group, and has worked with Stan Getz, Tommy Flanagan, Chet Baker and many other important jazz musicians...
, Martin Drew
Martin Drew
Martin Drew was an English jazz drummer, who played with Ronnie Scott and Oscar Peterson .-Career:...
and Lorne Lofsky
Lorne Lofsky
Lorne Lofsky is a jazz guitarist in Toronto, Canada. He is currently teaching at York University.Lofsky started off playing rock music but took an interest in jazz upon hearing the Miles Davis album "Kind of Blue". Hearing this record was, for Lofsky, a musical revelation that led to a dramatic...
.
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
Ben Webster
Benjamin Francis Webster , a.k.a. "The Brute" or "Frog," was an influential American jazz tenor saxophonist. Webster, born in Kansas City, Missouri, was considered one of the three most important "swing tenors" along with Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young...
, trumpeter Clark Terry
Clark Terry
Clark Terry is an American swing and bop trumpeter, a pioneer of the fluegelhorn in jazz, educator, NEA Jazz Masters inductee, and recipient of the 2010 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award...
, and vibraphonist Milt Jackson
Milt Jackson
Milton "Bags" Jackson was an American jazz vibraphonist, usually thought of as a bebop player, although he performed in several jazz idioms...
among others. In 1961, the Peterson trio with Jackson recorded a highly praised album, Very Tall.
Further career
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 EvansBill Evans
William John Evans, known as Bill Evans was an American jazz pianist. His use of impressionist harmony, inventive interpretation of traditional jazz repertoire, and trademark rhythmically independent, "singing" melodic lines influenced a generation of pianists including: Chick Corea, Herbie...
and McCoy Tyner
McCoy Tyner
McCoy Tyner is a jazz pianist from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, known for his work with the John Coltrane Quartet and a long solo career.-Early life:...
.
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
Pablo Records
Pablo Records was a record label founded by Norman Granz in 1972, some ten years after he had sold his jazz labels to MGM Records....
after the label was founded in 1973. In the 1990s and 2000s he recorded several albums accompanied by a combo for Telarc.
In the 1980s he played successfully in a duo with pianist Herbie Hancock
Herbie Hancock
Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock is an American pianist, bandleader and composer. As part of Miles Davis's "second great quintet," Hancock helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the "post-bop" sound...
. In the late 1980s and 1990s, after the stroke, Peterson made performances and recordings with his protégé Benny Green
Benny Green (pianist)
Benny Green is a hard bop jazz pianist who was a member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. He has been compared to Bud Powell in style and counts him as an influence. As a boy he grew up in Berkeley, California and studied classical piano from the age of seven...
.
Composer and teacher
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
York University
York University is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's third-largest university, Ontario's second-largest graduate school, and Canada's leading interdisciplinary 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
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
, especially the Well Tempered Clavier, the Goldberg Variations
Goldberg Variations
The Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, is a work for harpsichord by Johann Sebastian Bach, consisting of an aria and a set of 30 variations. First published in 1741, the work is considered to be one of the most important examples of variation form...
, and The Art of Fugue
The Art of Fugue
The Art of Fugue , BWV 1080, is an incomplete work by Johann Sebastian Bach . It was most likely started at the beginning of the 1740s, if not earlier. The first known surviving version, which contained 12 fugues and 2 canons, was copied by the composer in 1745...
, considering these piano pieces essential for every serious pianist. Pianists Benny Green
Benny Green (pianist)
Benny Green is a hard bop jazz pianist who was a member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. He has been compared to Bud Powell in style and counts him as an influence. As a boy he grew up in Berkeley, California and studied classical piano from the age of seven...
and Oliver Jones were among his students.
Stroke, later years and death
Peterson had arthritisArthritis
Arthritis is a form of joint disorder that involves inflammation of one or more joints....
since his youth, and in later years could hardly button his shirt. Never slender, his weight increased to 125 kg (275.6 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 friend Jean Chrétien
Jean Chrétien
Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien , known commonly as Jean Chrétien is a former Canadian politician who was the 20th Prime Minister of Canada. He served in the position for over ten years, from November 4, 1993 to December 12, 2003....
offered Peterson the position of Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario, but according to Chrétien he declined, citing the health problems from his recent stroke.
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
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
for Lifetime Achievement
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award
The Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award is awarded by the Recording Academy to "performers who, during their lifetimes, have made creative contributions of outstanding artistic significance to the field of recording."...
and an International Jazz Hall of Fame Award, another indication that Peterson continued to be regarded as one of the greatest jazz musicians ever to play. Canadian politician, friend, and amateur pianist Bob Rae
Bob Rae
Robert Keith "Bob" Rae, PC, OC, OOnt, QC, MP is a Canadian politician. He is the Member of Parliament for Toronto Centre and interim leader of the Liberal Party of Canada....
contends that "a one-handed Oscar was better than just about anyone with two hands".
In 2003, Peterson recorded the DVD A Night in Vienna for Verve
Verve Records
Verve Records is an American jazz record label now owned by Universal Music Group. It was founded by Norman Granz in 1956, absorbing the catalogues of his earlier labels, Clef Records and Norgran Records , and material which had been licensed to Mercury previously.-Jazz and folk origins:The Verve...
, with Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen
Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen
- Discography :* My Name Is Albert Ayler 1963 * Kirk in Copenhagen 1963 * Ben Webster in Denmark 1965-1971 Live at Danish Radio studios, Jazzhus Montmartre and Odd Fellow Palæet - Universal Music Denmark*One Flight Up 1964 *Sunday Walk 1969 - Discography :* My Name Is Albert Ayler 1963 (with...
(NHØP), Ulf Wakenius
Ulf Wakenius
Ulf Wakenius is a Swedish jazz guitarist. Wakenius was a member of the Oscar Peterson quartet from 1997. He was also a member of the Ray Brown trio...
and Martin Drew
Martin Drew
Martin Drew was an English jazz drummer, who played with Ronnie Scott and Oscar Peterson .-Career:...
. 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
Ulf Wakenius
Ulf Wakenius is a Swedish jazz guitarist. Wakenius was a member of the Oscar Peterson quartet from 1997. He was also a member of the Ray Brown trio...
(guitar), NHØP or David Young (bass), and Alvin Queen (drums), all leaders of their own groups.
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).
Musical awards and recognition
Begone Dull CareBegone Dull Care
Begone Dull Care is a visual music animated film directed by Norman McLaren and Evelyn Lambart.Using drawn on film animation, McLaren and Lambart paint and scratch directly onto film stock to create a visual representation of Oscar Peterson's jazz music...
is an abstract film presentation of Oscar's music, released in 1949.
His work earned him eight Grammy awards over the years and he was elected to the Canadian Music Hall of Fame
Canadian Music Hall of Fame
The Canadian Music Hall of Fame honors Canadian musicians for their lifetime achievements in music. The ceremony is held each year as part of the Juno Award ceremonies. Members of the Canadian Music Hall of Fame represent many of the world's great talents...
in 1978. He also belongs to the Juno Award
Juno Award
The Juno Awards are presented annually to Canadian musical artists and bands to acknowledge their artistic and technical achievements in all aspects of music...
s Hall of Fame and the Canadian Jazz and Blues Hall of Fame.
Peterson received the first Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Achievement Award from Black Theatre Workshop
Black Theatre Workshop
-Organizational history:The Black Theater Workshop was incorporated in 1972 but has roots going back to the Trinidad and Tobago Drama Committee. Its first play "How Now Black Man" was produced under the name Black Workshop in 1970 at the Centaur Theatre....
(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
Glenn Gould Prize
The Glenn Gould Prize is an international award bestowed by the Glenn Gould Foundation in memory of noted Canadian pianist Glenn Gould. It is awarded every third year to a living individual in recognition of his/her contributions to music and communication....
(1993), the award of the International Society for Performing Artists (1995), the Loyola Medal
Loyola Medal
In 1961, the Loyola Alumni Association and the administration of Loyola College agreed to the creation of the Loyola Medal "as a permanent tribute to the outstanding leadership and achievement on the Canadian scene". The first medal was awarded in 1963 to General Georges P...
of Concordia University (1997), the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award
The Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award is awarded by the Recording Academy to "performers who, during their lifetimes, have made creative contributions of outstanding artistic significance to the field of recording."...
(1997), the Praemium Imperiale
Praemium Imperiale
The Praemium Imperiale is an arts prize awarded since 1989 by the imperial family of Japan on behalf of the Japan Art Association in the fields painting, sculpture, architecture, music, and theatre/film...
World Art Award (1999), the UNESCO Music Prize (2000), the Toronto Musicians' Association Musician of the Year award (2001), and an honorary LLD
Legum Doctor
Legum Doctor is a doctorate-level academic degree in law, or an honorary doctorate, depending on the jurisdiction. The double L in the abbreviation refers to the early practice in the University of Cambridge to teach both Canon Law and Civil Law, the double L indicating the plural, Doctor of both...
from the University of the West Indies
University of the West Indies
The University of the West Indies , is an autonomous regional institution supported by and serving 17 English-speaking countries and territories in the Caribbean: Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Dominica,...
(2006).
In 1999, Concordia University in Montreal renamed their Loyola-campus concert hall Oscar Peterson Concert Hall in his honour.
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
Diana Krall
Diana Jean Krall, OC, OBC is a Canadian jazz pianist and singer, known for her contralto vocals. She has sold more than 6 million albums in the US and over 15 million worldwide; altogether, she has sold more albums than any other female jazz artist during the 1990s and 2000s...
, 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
Elvis Costello
Elvis Costello , born Declan Patrick MacManus, is an English singer-songwriter. He came to prominence as an early participant in London's pub rock scene in the mid-1970s and later became associated with the punk/New Wave genre. Steeped in word play, the vocabulary of Costello's lyrics is broader...
, Krall's husband. Canada Post unveiled a commemorative postage stamp in his honour. The event was covered by a live radio broadcast by Toronto jazz station, JAZZ.FM
CJRT-FM
CJRT-FM is a Canadian public radio station, which broadcasts at 91.1 on the FM dial in Toronto, Ontario. CJRT currently operates as JAZZ.FM91.The station transmits at a strength of 40,000 watts; as its transmitter facilities are at the CN Tower...
.
Peterson received the BBC-Radio Lifetime Achievement Award
BBC Jazz Awards
The BBC Jazz Awards were set up in 2001 and had the status of one of the premier jazz awards in the UK. There were awards for Best Musician, Best Vocalist, Rising Star, Best Album, Jazz Innovation, Radio 2 Jazz Artist, Services to Jazz, Best of Jazz amongst others....
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
.
"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
Documentary
A documentary is a creative work of non-fiction, including:* Documentary film, including television* Radio documentary* Documentary photographyRelated terms include:...
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."
""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.
Ray Charles
Ray Charles
Ray Charles Robinson , known by his shortened stage name Ray Charles, was an American musician. He was a pioneer in the genre of soul music during the 1950s by fusing rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into his early recordings with Atlantic Records...
, in Martin Scorsese Presents the Blues - Piano Blues
Piano blues
Piano blues refers to a variety of blues styles, sharing only the characteristic that they use the piano as the primary musical instrument. Boogie woogie is the best known kind of piano blues, though barrelhouse, swing, R&B, rock and roll and jazz are strongly influenced by early pianists who...
(2003), said "Oscar Peterson is a mother fucking piano player!"
Recognition in Canada
While Peterson was recognized as a great jazz pianist both at home in CanadaCanada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
and internationally, he was also regarded in Canada as a distinguished public figure. His notable personage is evident in the acclaim and awards he received, particularly in the latter two decades of his life.
He was made an Officer of the Order of Canada
Order of Canada
The Order of Canada is a Canadian national order, admission into which is, within the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, the second highest honour for merit...
(the country's highest civilian state order for talent and service) in 1972, and promoted to Companion of the order (the highest degree of merit and humanity), in 1984. He was also a member of the Order of Ontario
Order of Ontario
The Order of Ontario is the most prestigious official honour in the Canadian province of Ontario. Instituted in 1986 by Lieutenant Governor Lincoln Alexander, on the advice of the Cabinet under Premier David Peterson, the civilian order is administered by the Governor-in-Council and is intended to...
, a Chevalier of the National Order of Quebec
National Order of Quebec
The National Order of Quebec, termed officially in French as l'Ordre national du Québec, and in English abbreviation as the Order of Quebec, is a civilian honour for merit in the Canadian province of Quebec...
, and an officer of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
The Ordre des Arts et des Lettres is an Order of France, established on 2 May 1957 by the Minister of Culture, and confirmed as part of the Ordre national du Mérite by President Charles de Gaulle in 1963...
of France.
From 1991 to 1994, Peterson was chancellor of York University
York University
York University is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's third-largest university, Ontario's second-largest graduate school, and Canada's leading interdisciplinary university....
in Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
. The chancellor is the titular head of the university. Weeks after his death, the Province of Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
announced a C$
Canadian dollar
The Canadian dollar is the currency of Canada. As of 2007, the Canadian dollar is the 7th most traded currency in the world. It is abbreviated with the dollar sign $, or C$ to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies...
4 million scholarship for the "Oscar Peterson Chair" for Jazz Performance at York University with an additional C$
Canadian dollar
The Canadian dollar is the currency of Canada. As of 2007, the Canadian dollar is the 7th most traded currency in the world. It is abbreviated with the dollar sign $, or C$ to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies...
1 million to be awarded annually in music scholarships to underprivileged York students in tribute to Peterson.
Peterson's niece, television journalist Sylvia Sweeney
Sylvia Sweeney
Sylvia Sweeney is a Canadian Executive Television Producer and Olympian. Sweeney is the daughter of music teacher Daisy Sweeney and railway cook James Sweeney, and the niece of jazz musician Oscar Peterson....
, produced an award-winning documentary film, In the Key of Oscar, about Peterson in 1992.
Unlike most other jazz musicians, Oscar Peterson was networked with Canadian elites in the later years of his life. For example, former Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
premier Bob Rae
Bob Rae
Robert Keith "Bob" Rae, PC, OC, OOnt, QC, MP is a Canadian politician. He is the Member of Parliament for Toronto Centre and interim leader of the Liberal Party of Canada....
recalled that in 2007, himself, Ontario Chief Justice Roy McMurtry
Roy McMurtry
Roland "Roy" McMurtry, OC, OOnt is a judge and former politician in Ontario, Canada and the current Chancellor of York University.-Early life:McMurtry was born in Toronto and educated at St. Andrew's College, graduating in 1950...
, and former Ontario premier Bill Davis
Bill Davis
William Grenville "Bill" Davis, was the 18th Premier of Ontario, Canada, from 1971 to 1985. Davis was first elected as the MPP for Peel in the 1959 provincial election where he was a backbencher in Leslie Frost's government. Under John Robarts, he was a cabinet minister overseeing the education...
celebrated McMurtry's retirement with Peterson, his wife, and their wives.
Peterson received honorary doctorates from many Canadian universities: Carleton University
Carleton University
Carleton University is a comprehensive university located in the capital of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario. The enabling legislation is The Carleton University Act, 1952, S.O. 1952. Founded as a small college in 1942, Carleton now offers over 65 programs in a diverse range of disciplines. Carleton has...
, Queen's University
Queen's University
Queen's University, , is a public research university located in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Founded on 16 October 1841, the university pre-dates the founding of Canada by 26 years. Queen's holds more more than of land throughout Ontario as well as Herstmonceux Castle in East Sussex, England...
, Concordia University, McMaster University
McMaster University
McMaster University is a public research university whose main campus is located in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on of land in the residential neighbourhood of Westdale, adjacent to Hamilton's Royal Botanical Gardens...
, Mount Allison University
Mount Allison University
Mount Allison University is a primarily undergraduate Canadian liberal arts and science university situated in Sackville, New Brunswick. It is located about a half hour from the regional city of Moncton and 20 minutes from the Greater Moncton International Airport...
, the University of Victoria
University of Victoria
The University of Victoria, often referred to as UVic, is the second oldest public research university in British Columbia, Canada. It is a research intensive university located in Saanich and Oak Bay, about northeast of downtown Victoria. The University's annual enrollment is about 20,000 students...
, the University of Western Ontario
University of Western Ontario
The University of Western Ontario is a public research university located in London, Ontario, Canada. The university's main campus covers of land, with the Thames River cutting through the eastern portion of the main campus. Western administers its programs through 12 different faculties and...
, York University
York University
York University is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's third-largest university, Ontario's second-largest graduate school, and Canada's leading interdisciplinary university....
, the University of Toronto
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...
, and the Université Laval
Université Laval
Laval University is the oldest centre of education in Canada and was the first institution in North America to offer higher education in French...
, as well as from Northwestern University
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
and Niagara University
Niagara University
Niagara University is a Catholic university in the Vincentian tradition, located in the Town of Lewiston in Niagara County, New York. Originally founded by the Congregation of the Mission in 1856 as Our Lady of Angels Seminary, it became Niagara University in 1883. The University is still run by...
in the United States.
In 2004, the City of Toronto named the courtyard of the Toronto-Dominion Centre
Toronto-Dominion Centre
The Toronto-Dominion Centre, or Centre, is a cluster of buildings in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada, consisting of six towers and a pavilion covered in bronze-tinted glass and black painted steel. It serves as the global headquarters of the Toronto-Dominion Bank, as well as providing office and...
Oscar Peterson Square.
In 2005, the Peel District School Board in suburban Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
opened the Oscar Peterson school in Mississauga, Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
, two miles from his home. Peterson said, "This is a most unexpected and moving tribute." He visited the school several times and donated electronic musical equipment to it. Soon after Peterson's death, the University of Toronto Mississauga
University of Toronto Mississauga
The University of Toronto Mississauga is a satellite campus of the University of Toronto, located in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. The university is set upon a park-like campus on the valley of the Credit River, approximately 33 kilometres west of Downtown Toronto...
opened a major student residence in March 2008 as "Oscar Peterson Hall".
Former Canadian prime minister Jean Chrétien
Jean Chrétien
Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien , known commonly as Jean Chrétien is a former Canadian politician who was the 20th Prime Minister of Canada. He served in the position for over ten years, from November 4, 1993 to December 12, 2003....
wanted in 1993 to put Peterson forward to the Governor General of Canada
Governor General of Canada
The Governor General of Canada is the federal viceregal representative of the Canadian monarch, Queen Elizabeth II...
for appointment to the post of Lieutenant Governor of Ontario
Lieutenant Governor of Ontario
The Lieutenant Governor of Ontario is the viceregal representative in Ontario of the Canadian monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, who operates distinctly within the province but is also shared equally with the ten other jurisdictions of Canada and resides predominantly in her oldest realm, the United...
, but Peterson felt that his health could not stand up to the many ceremonial duties that this position would require. "He was the most famous Canadian in the world," said Chrétien. Chrétien also said that Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing...
glowed when meeting Peterson. "It was very emotional. They were both moved to meet each other. These were two men with humble beginnings who rose to very illustrious levels."
A major memorial concert, held on January 12, 2008, filled the 2500-seat Roy Thomson Hall
Roy Thomson Hall
Roy Thomson Hall is a concert hall located at 60 Simcoe Street in Toronto, Ontario. It is the home of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir. Opened in 1982, its circular architectural design exhibits a sloping and curvilinear glass exterior. It was designed by Canadian...
in Toronto. People had queued for more than three hours to get in. Governor General Michaëlle Jean
Michaëlle Jean
Michaëlle Jean is a Canadian journalist and stateswoman who served as Governor General of Canada, the 27th since Canadian Confederation, from 2005 to 2010....
reported at the concert that "thousands" more could not get in. Among the performers were Grégory Charles
Gregory Charles
Gregory Charles is a Quebec performing artist of French Canadian and Trinidadian origin.-Biography:...
, Herbie Hancock
Herbie Hancock
Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock is an American pianist, bandleader and composer. As part of Miles Davis's "second great quintet," Hancock helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the "post-bop" sound...
, Quincy Jones
Quincy Jones
Quincy Delightt Jones, Jr. is an American record producer and musician. A conductor, musical arranger, film composer, television producer, and trumpeter. His career spans five decades in the entertainment industry and a record 79 Grammy Award nominations, 27 Grammys, including a Grammy Legend...
, Phil Nimmons
Phil Nimmons
Phillip Rista Nimmons, is a Canadian jazz clarinetist, composer, bandleader, and academic.Born in Kamloops, British Columbia, the son of George Rista and Hilda Louise , he attended Lord Byng Secondary School, graduating in 1940. He then received a B.A. from the University of British Columbia in...
and singers Audrey Morris and Nancy Wilson
Nancy Wilson (singer)
Nancy Wilson is an American singer with more than 70 albums, and three Grammy Awards. She has been labeled a singer of blues, jazz, cabaret and pop; a "consummate actress"; and "the complete entertainer." The title she prefers, however, is song stylist...
. The "Oscar Peterson" quartet played key pieces; they are Monty Alexander, Jeff Hamilton, Ulf Wakenius
Ulf Wakenius
Ulf Wakenius is a Swedish jazz guitarist. Wakenius was a member of the Oscar Peterson quartet from 1997. He was also a member of the Ray Brown trio...
and Dave Young. All toured with Peterson during his late "one-handed" period" except Alexander. The Nathaniel Dett Chorale
Nathaniel Dett Chorale
The Nathaniel Dett Chorale is a Canadian choral group that specializes in Afrocentric music of all styles including classical, spiritual, gospel, jazz, folk and blues. Brainerd Blyden-Taylor formed the choral group in 1998....
, University of Toronto Gospel Choir and Sharon Riley & the Faith Chorale, under the direction of Andrew Craid along with opera soprano Measha Brueggergosman
Measha Brueggergosman
Measha Brueggergosman is a Canadian soprano who performs both as an opera singer and concert artist. She has performed internationally and won numerous awards...
closed the show, singing an excerpt from Peterson's "Hymn to Freedom". The show was made available for download.
In 2008, a young pianist named Connor Derraugh in Winnipeg, Manitoba wrote a tribute song to Oscar Peterson. He would later play it at an Oscar Peterson tribute concert at a local church and receive a standing ovation. The event was broadcasted on CBC Radio.
A movement was begun on Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
to rename the Lionel-Groulx Metro station
Lionel-Groulx (Montreal Metro)
Lionel-Groulx is a station of the Montreal Metro rapid transit system operated by the Société de transport de Montréal . It is located in the Saint-Henri area of the borough of Le Sud-Ouest in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is a transfer station between the Green Line and Orange Line.The station...
, a transfer station between Montreal's Green Line
Line 1 Green (Montreal Metro)
The Green line is one of the four lines of the metro in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The line runs through the commercial section of downtown Montreal underneath Boulevard de Maisonneuve, formerly Rue de Montigny...
and Orange Line
Line 2 Orange (Montreal Metro)
The Orange line is the longest, most congested, and first-planned of the four lines of the Montreal Metro, in Montreal, Canada. It formed part of the initial network, and was extended between 1980 and 1986...
, in honour of Oscar Peterson. The Montreal Transit Corporation
Société de transport de Montréal
The Société de transport de Montréal is a public transport agency that operates transit bus, and rapid transit services in Montreal, Quebec, Canada...
, however, has refused to end its moratorium on renaming Metro stations. The city's policy on landmark tributes is to wait at least a year after a public figure's death.
An Ontario school named Oscar Peterson Public School was opened in Stouffville in the Regional Municipality of York on 30 April 2009, and commenced operation in the 2009-2010 school year.
Grammy Awards
- 1974 Best Jazz Performance by a Group The TrioThe Trio (1973 album)The Trio is a 1973 live album by Oscar Peterson, Joe Pass and Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen.At the Grammy Awards of 1975, The Trio won the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Performance by a Group.-Reception:...
- Oscar Peterson, Joe Pass and Niels- Henning Orsted Pedersen - 1977 Best Jazz Performance by a Soloist The GiantsThe Giants (album)The Giants is a 1974 album featuring Oscar Peterson, Joe Pass, and Ray Brown. At the Grammy Awards of 1978, Peterson won the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Performance by a Soloist for his performance on this album...
- Oscar Peterson - 1978 Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Soloist Oscar Peterson Jam – Montreux '77
- 1979 Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Soloist Oscar Peterson and The Trumpet Kings – Jousts - Oscar Peterson
- 1990 Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Group The Legendary Oscar Peterson Trio Live at the Blue NoteLive at the Blue Note (Oscar Peterson album)Live at the Blue Note is a 1990 live album by Oscar Peterson.-Track listing:# Introductions – 1:56# "Honeysuckle Rose" – 8:50# "Let There Be Love" – 12:00...
- 1990 Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Soloist The Legendary Oscar Peterson Trio Live at the Blue NoteLive at the Blue Note (Oscar Peterson album)Live at the Blue Note is a 1990 live album by Oscar Peterson.-Track listing:# Introductions – 1:56# "Honeysuckle Rose" – 8:50# "Let There Be Love" – 12:00...
- 1991 Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Group Saturday Night at the Blue NoteSaturday Night at the Blue NoteSaturday Night at the Blue Note is a 1990 live album by Oscar Peterson. -Track listing:# "Kelly's Blues" – 11:57# "Nighttime" – 10:11# Medley: "Love Ballade"/"If You Only Knew" – 10:57# "You Look Good to Me" – 6:39...
- 1997 Lifetime Achievement Award Instrumental Soloist Lifetime Achievement
Honorary Degrees Conferred
- 1973 Carleton University - Doctor of Laws
- 1976 Queen's University - Doctor of Laws
- 1979 Concordia University - Doctor of Laws
- 1980 Mount Alison, Sackville N.B. - Doctor of Music
- 1981 McMaster University - Doctor of Laws
- 1981 University of Victoria, B.C. - Doctor of Laws
- 1982 York University - Doctor of Letters
- 1983 Northwestern University, Illinois - Doctor of Fine Arts
- 1985 University of Toronto - Doctor of Laws
- 1985 Laval University - Doctor of Music
- 1991 York University: Installed as Chancellor by the Board of Governors
- 1994 York University: Chancellor Emeritus
- 1994 Western Ontario Conservatory of Music - Licentiate in Music Diploma
- 1994 University of British Columbia - Doctor of Laws
- 1996 Niagara University, New York - Doctor of Fine Arts
- 1999 University of Western Ontario - Doctor of Laws
Instruments
- BösendorferBösendorferBösendorfer is an Austrian piano manufacturer, and a wholly owned subsidiary of Yamaha. The brand is known for producing pianos with a uniquely rich, singing, and sustaining tone...
pianos - exclusively in the 1990s and 2000s - YamahaYamahaYamaha may refer to:* Yamaha Corporation, a Japanese company with a wide range of products and services** Yamaha Motor Company, a Japanese motorized vehicle-producing company...
- Acoustic and Disklavier- 1998-2006 in Canada (Touring and Recording) - Steinway & SonsSteinway & SonsSteinway & Sons, also known as Steinway , is an American and German manufacturer of handmade pianos, founded 1853 in Manhattan in New York City by German immigrant Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg...
pianos - most performances from 1940s through the 1980s, some recordings. - BaldwinBaldwin Piano CompanyThe Baldwin Piano Company was the largest US-based manufacturer of keyboard instruments, most notably pianos. It remains a subsidiary of the Gibson Guitar Corporation, although it ceased domestic production of pianos in December 2008.-History:...
pianos - some performances in the USA, some recordings. - C. Bechstein PianofortefabrikC. Bechstein PianofortefabrikC. Bechstein Pianofortefabrik AG is a German manufacturer of pianos, established in 1853 by Carl Bechstein.-Before Bechstein:...
pianos - some performances and recordings in Europe. - ClavichordClavichordThe clavichord is a European stringed keyboard instrument known from the late Medieval, through the Renaissance, Baroque and Classical eras. Historically, it was widely used as a practice instrument and as an aid to composition, not being loud enough for larger performances. The clavichord produces...
- on album "Porgy and Bess" with Joe PassJoe PassJoe Pass was an Italian-American jazz guitarist of Sicilian descent. He is generally considered to be one of the greatest jazz guitarists of the 20th century... - FenderRhodes pianoThe Rhodes piano is an electro-mechanical piano, invented by Harold Rhodes during the fifties and later manufactured in a number of models, first in collaboration with Fender and after 1965 by CBS....
electric piano - several recordings. - SynthesizerSynthesizerA synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...
- several recordings. - Hammond organHammond organThe Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond in 1934 and manufactured by the Hammond Organ Company. While the Hammond organ was originally sold to churches as a lower-cost alternative to the wind-driven pipe organ, in the 1960s and 1970s it became a standard keyboard...
- some live performances and several recordings. - Vocals - some live performances and several recordings.
External links
- Alan Hustak, Jazz Legend, Oscar Peterson, dies at 82, The Montreal Gazette, 24 December 2007
- Canadian Broadcasting Corporation full obituary, December 24, 2007
- CBC Digital Archives: Oscar Peterson: A Jazz Giant
- Image of the Oscar Peterson postage stamp
- Jazz Giant The Oscar Peterson Discography
- John Fordham, Oscar Peterson (obituary), The Guardian, 25 December 2007
- Live performance photographs Jazz Alley, Seattle, 29 June 2004
- Marian McPartland and Oscar Peterson on NPR
- Oscar Peterson official website
- Oscar Peterson video interview in which his passion for photography is discussed
- Oscar Peterson, A Portrait, 2002
- Oscar Peterson on Jazz Police
- Oscar Peterson's Concert Hall
- Oscar Peterson entry at the Jazz Discography Project
- Oscar Peterson: A Jazz Sensation—A Virtual Exhibition from Library and Archives Canada
- Oscar Peterson Tribute: Feelings from the Heart. From The Living Arts Centre, February 14, 2008.
- Oscar Peterson (Obituary), The Telegraph, 26 December 2007
- Oscar Peterson (obituary), The Times, 26 December 2007
- Steve Voce, Oscar Peterson: Virtuoso pianist who dominated jazz piano in the second half of the 20th century (obituary), The Independent, 26 December 2007
- Oscar Peterson transcriptions December 2010
