Oscar Peterson | |
|---|---|
 Peterson in 1977 | |
| Background information | |
| Born | Oscar Emmanuel Peterson (1925-08-15)August 15, 1925 |
| Died | December 23, 2007(2007-12-23) (aged 82) Mississauga,Ontario, Canada |
| Genres | |
| Occupations |
|
| Instruments |
|
| Years active | 1945–2007 |
| Labels | |
| Website | oscarpeterson.com |
Oscar Emmanuel PetersonCCCQOOnt (August 15, 1925 – December 23, 2007)[1] was a Canadianjazz pianist and composer. As avirtuoso who is considered to be one of the greatestjazz pianists of all time, Peterson released more than 200 recordings, won eightGrammy Awards, as well as a lifetime achievement award from theRecording Academy, and received numerous other awards and honours. He played thousands of concerts worldwide in a career lasting more than 60 years. He was called the "Maharaja of the keyboard" byDuke Ellington, simply "O.P." by his friends, and was informally known in the jazz community as "the King of inside swing".
Peterson worked in duos withSam Jones,Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen,Joe Pass,Irving Ashby,[2]Count Basie,[3] andHerbie Hancock.[4] He considered the trio withRay Brown andHerb Ellis "the most stimulating" and productive setting for public performances and studio recordings. In the early 1950s, he began performing with Brown and drummerCharlie Smith as the Oscar Peterson Trio. Shortly afterward Smith was replaced by guitaristIrving Ashby, who had been a member of theNat King Cole Trio. Ashby, who was a swing guitarist, was soon replaced byBarney Kessel.[5] Their last recording,On the Town with the Oscar Peterson Trio (1958), recorded live at theTown Tavern inToronto, was said to have captured a remarkable degree of emotional as well as musical understanding among three players.[6]
Peterson won eight Grammy Awards during his lifetime between 1975 and 1997. He is considered among the best jazz pianists and jazz improvisers of the twentieth century.
Oscar Peterson was born inMontreal,Quebec, Canada, to immigrants from theWest Indies (Saint Kitts and Nevis and theBritish Virgin Islands):[7] his mother, Kathleen, was a domestic worker; his father, Daniel, worked as aporter forCanadian Pacific Railway and was an amateur musician whotaught himself to play theorgan,trumpet andpiano.[8][9][7] Peterson grew up in the neighbourhood ofLittle Burgundy in Montreal. It was in this predominantlyblack neighbourhood that he encountered the jazz culture.[10] At the age of five, Peterson began honing his skills on trumpet and piano, but a bout oftuberculosis when he was seven years old prevented him from playing the trumpet again, so he directed all his attention to the piano.[11] His father was one of his first music teachers, and his sisterDaisy taught him classical piano. Peterson was persistent at practicingscales and classicalétudes.
As a child, Peterson studied with Hungarian-born pianist Paul de Marky, a student ofIstván Thomán, who was himself a pupil ofFranz Liszt, so his early training was predominantly based on classical piano. However, Peterson was captivated by traditional jazz andboogie-woogie and learned severalragtime pieces. He was called "theBrown Bomber of the Boogie-Woogie".[12]
At the age of nine, Peterson played piano with a degree of control that impressed professional musicians. For many years his piano studies included four to six hours of daily practice. Only in his later years did he decrease his practice to one or two hours daily. In 1940, at fourteen years of age, he won the national music competition organized by theCanadian Broadcasting Corporation. After that victory, he dropped out of theHigh School of Montreal, where he played in a band withMaynard Ferguson.[13] Peterson became a professional pianist, starring in a weekly radio show and playing at hotels and music halls. In his teens, he was a member of the Johnny Holmes Orchestra. From 1945 to 1949, he worked in a trio and recorded forVictor Records. He gravitated toward boogie-woogie andswing with a particular fondness forNat King Cole andTeddy Wilson.[14] By the time Peterson was in his 20s, he had developed a reputation as a technically brilliant and melodically inventive pianist.[15]
.jpg)
According to an interview withNorman Granz, Granz heard a radio program broadcasting from a local club while taking a cab to theMontreal airport. He was so impressed that he told the driver to take him to the club so he could meet the pianist.[citation needed] Granz had seen Peterson before this but was underwhelmed.[citation needed] In 1949, he introduced Peterson in New York City at aJazz at the Philharmonic concert atCarnegie Hall.[12] He remained Peterson's manager for most of his career. This was more than a managerial relationship; Peterson praised Granz for standing up for him and other black jazz musicians in the segregationist south US of the 1950s and 1960s. In the documentary videoMusic in the Key of Oscar, Peterson tells how Granz stood up to a gun-toting Southern policeman who wanted to stop the trio from usingwhites-only taxis.[16]
In 1950, Peterson worked in a duo with double bassistRay Brown. Two years later, they added guitaristBarney Kessel. ThenHerb Ellis stepped in after Kessel grew weary of touring. The trio remained together from 1953 to 1958, often touring with Jazz at the Philharmonic.[14] By 1956, Peterson's performances were also showcased on national radio networks byBen Selvin within theRCA Thesaurus transcriptions library.[17]
Peterson also worked in duos withSam Jones,Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen,Joe Pass,Irving Ashby,[2]Count Basie,[3] andHerbie Hancock.[4]
He considered the trio with Brown and Ellis "the most stimulating" and productive setting for public performances and studio recordings. In the early 1950s, he began performing with Brown and drummerCharlie Smith as the Oscar Peterson Trio. Shortly afterwards, Smith was replaced by guitaristIrving Ashby, who had been a member of the Nat King Cole Trio. Ashby, who was a swing guitarist, was soon replaced by Kessel.[5] Their last recording,On the Town with the Oscar Peterson Trio, recorded live at theTown Tavern in Toronto, captured a remarkable degree of emotional as well as musical understanding among three players.[6]
When Ellis departed in 1958, they hired drummerEd Thigpen because they felt no guitarist could compare to Ellis.[14] Brown and Thigpen worked with Peterson on his albumsNight Train (1963) andCanadiana Suite (1965). Both Brown and Thigpen left in 1965 and were replaced by bassist Sam Jones and drummerLouis Hayes (and later, drummerBobby Durham). The trio performed together until 1970. In 1969, Peterson recordedMotions and Emotions with orchestral arrangements of "Yesterday" and "Eleanor Rigby" byThe Beatles. In the fall of 1970, Peterson's trio released the albumTristeza on Piano. Jones and Durham left in 1970.
In the 1970s. Peterson formed a trio with guitarist Joe Pass and bassistNiels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen. This trio emulated the success of the 1950s trio with Brown and Ellis and gave acclaimed performances at festivals. Their albumThe Trio won the 1974 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Performance by a Group. On April 22, 1978, Peterson performed in the interval act for theEurovision Song Contest 1978 that was broadcast live from thePalais des congrès de Paris. In 1974, he added British drummerMartin Drew. This quartet toured and recorded extensively worldwide. Pass said in a 1976 interview: "The only guys I've heard who come close to total mastery of their instruments are Art Tatum and Peterson."[18]
Peterson was open to experimental collaborations with jazz musicians such as saxophonistBen Webster, trumpeterClark Terry, and vibraphonistMilt Jackson. In 1961, the Peterson trio with Jackson recorded the albumVery Tall. Solo recordings by Peterson were rare untilExclusively for My Friends (MPS), a series of albums that were his response to pianists such asBill Evans andMcCoy Tyner. He recorded forPablo, led by Norman Granz, after the label was founded in 1973, including thesoundtrack for the 1978 thrillerThe Silent Partner.[19] In the 1980s, Peterson played in a duo with pianist Herbie Hancock. In the late 1980s and 1990s, after a stroke, Peterson made performances and recordings with his protégéBenny Green. In the 1990s and 2000s, Peterson recorded several albums accompanied by a combo forTelarc.
Peterson had arthritis from his youth, and in later years he had trouble buttoning his shirt. He had never been slender, and his weight increase to 125 kg (276 lb) hindered his mobility. He hadhip replacement surgery in the early 1990s.[20] Although the surgery was successful, his mobility was still hampered. He then mentored theYork University jazz program and was the Chancellor of the university for several years in the early 1990s.[21][22] He published jazz piano etudes for practice.
In 1993, astroke weakened his left side and removed him from work for two years. During the same year, incoming prime ministerJean Chrétien, Peterson's friend and fan, offered him the position ofLieutenant-Governor of Ontario. According to Chrétien, Peterson declined the job due to ill health related to the stroke.[23]
Although he recovered some dexterity in his left hand, his piano playing was diminished, and his style relied principally on his right hand. In 1995, he returned to occasional public performances and recorded for Telarc. In 1997, he received theGrammy Lifetime Achievement Award and an International Jazz Hall of Fame Award. His friend, Canadian politician and amateur pianistBob Rae, said: "a one-handed Oscar was better than just about anyone with two hands."[24]
In 2003, Peterson recorded the DVDA Night in Vienna forVerve with Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen,Ulf Wakenius, and Martin Drew. He continued to tour the U.S. and Europe, though at most one month a year, with rest between concerts. In 2007, his health declined. He canceled his plans to perform at theToronto Jazz Festival and a Carnegie Hall all-star concert that was to be given in his honour. Peterson died on December 23, 2007, ofkidney failure at his home inMississauga, Ontario.[1][25]
Peterson was married four times. He had seven children with three of his wives.[26] He smoked cigarettes and a pipe and often tried to break the habit, but he gained weight every time he stopped. He loved to cook and remained overweight throughout his life.[27]
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 touring called him and his associates away, and it did not have government funding.[28]
Peterson was influenced byTeddy Wilson,Nat King Cole,James P. Johnson, andArt Tatum, to whom many compared Peterson in later years.[29] After his father played a record of Tatum's "Tiger Rag", he was intimidated and disillusioned, quitting the piano for several weeks. "Tatum scared me to death," said Peterson, adding that he was "never cocky again" about his ability at the piano.[30] Tatum was a model for Peterson's musicianship during the 1940s and 1950s. Tatum and Peterson became good friends, although Peterson was always shy about being compared to Tatum and rarely played the piano in Tatum's presence.
Peterson also credited his sister—a piano teacher in Montreal who also taught several other Canadian jazz musicians—with being an important teacher and influence on his career.[31] 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 byJohann Sebastian Bach.[32] He asked his students to study the music ofJohann Sebastian Bach, especiallyThe Well-Tempered Clavier, theGoldberg Variations, andThe Art of Fugue, considering these piano pieces essential for every serious pianist.[citation needed] Among his students were pianistsBenny Green andOliver Jones.[33]
Building on Tatum's pianism and aesthetics, Peterson also absorbed Tatum's musical influences, notably from piano concertos bySergei Rachmaninoff.[citation needed] Rachmaninoff's harmonizations, as well as directquotations from his2nd Piano Concerto, are scattered throughout many recordings by Peterson, including his work with the most familiar formulation of the Oscar Peterson Trio, with bassistRay Brown and guitaristHerb Ellis. During the 1960s and 1970s Peterson made numerous trio recordings highlighting his piano performances; they reveal more of his eclectic style, absorbing influences from various genres of jazz, popular, and classical music.
According to pianist and educator Mark Eisenman, some of Peterson's best playing was as an understated accompanist to singerElla Fitzgerald and trumpeterRoy Eldridge.[34]
Peterson is considered one of history's great jazz pianists.[35] He was called the "Maharaja of the keyboard" byDuke Ellington, simply "O.P." by his friends, and was informally known in the jazz community as "the King of inside swing".[36][37]
Peterson was honoured on two postage stamps: one fromAustrian Post in 2003, and another fromCanada Post in 2005.
In 2021,Barry Avrich produced a documentary on Peterson's life titledOscar Peterson: Black + White that had its world premiere at theToronto International Film Festival.[38] In the same year, he was the subject of aHeritage Minute for Canadian television, with contemporary jazz pianistThompson Egbo-Egbo playing the young Peterson.[39]
Oscar Peterson was featured on a circulating commemorativeone dollar coin (a "loonie") from the Canadian mint in 2022.[40]
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) | This article'suse ofexternal links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. Pleaseimprove this article by removingexcessive orinappropriate external links, and converting useful links where appropriate intofootnote references.(April 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
| Academic offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Chancellor ofYork University 1991–1994 | Succeeded by |
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Academics | |
| Artists | |
| People | |
| Other | |
.svg)
