Peterson, Oscar (Emmanuel)

Peterson, Oscar (Emmanuel) pianist, singer, one of the most popular of all jazz musicians; b. Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Sept. 15, 1925. He was part of a very musical black community. His older sister Daisy was a legendary piano teacher. His father started him on classical piano at age six, culminating with studies with Hungarian classical pianist Paul deMarky. He quit school at 16 to pursue his career; by his teens, he was playing on a weekly radio show. In 1944, he was playing with the Johnny Holmes Orch. in a style reminiscent of Teddy Wilson, Erroll Garner, and Art Tatum. He had trouble reading music but overcame this by having members of his group immediately memorize the arrangements for the trios. From 1945, he recorded in Canada for RCA, and in 1949 he came to Carnegie Hall with Norman Granz’s Jazz at the Philharmonic. He has been associated with Granz on the Verve and Pablo labels ever since, except for a period on European MPS in the mid-1970s when Granz was “retired.” In 1950, Down Beat named him pianist of the year, an award he won 12 times. On at least one occasion in Cleveland, he got to jam with Tatum after hours. He led a Nat Cole-styled trio with Ray Brown on bass and Irving Ashby, succeeded by Barney Kessel, then Herb Ellis (from 1953), on guitar. In 1958, the guitar was replaced by drummer Ed Thigpen, in turn replaced in by Louis Hayes in 1965; Sam Jones took over from Brown on bass. Peterson occasionally sang, notably on With Respect To Nat (1965), very much in Cole’s style. After 1970, he concentrated on solo piano performances and has worked with symphony orchestras since the mid 1970s. He was made an Officer of the Order of Canada (1973). In 1991, he was named chancellor of York Univ. in Toronto, where he continues to do some teaching. He toured 40 weeks a year, but always maintained a home in the Toronto area. The pace of his schedule took its toll on his personal life: his first three marriages, which produced six children, ended in divorce. He also has 11 grandchildren and one great-grandchild. In 1993, he suffered a stroke while playing at a club in N.Y. He required three months of intensive therapy at home to recover from the stroke’s physical effects. Peterson says that he also needed a push from his physiotherapist to recover emotionally. It took him 14 months, until July 1994, before he felt comfortable playing publicly and touring again. The stroke partially paralyzed the left side of his body, limiting his use of the left hand, but fortunately not enough to prevent him from playing well. His playing has often been criticized for a glib excess of notes (there was a famous mutual antagonism between Peterson and Monk related to this), specifically that it lacks drama, but his music has undeniably powerful drive and swing and the light emotional tone of his work is in keeping with much of his generation. He is one of the great accompanists, and in that role he has provided a cushion of support on hundreds of recordings with great warmth and modesty. In 1997, he was living in Mississauga, a suburb of Toronto. In summer of 1997, he appeared at several jazz festivals in Europe. Since the stroke, he spends no more than eight weeks a year on the road, and the balance of his time at home with current wife Kelly, an American. When not touring, he is composing and playing in his basement, which is equipped with a grand piano, high-tech keyboards, his musical library and a recording studio. Peterson is one of the most recorded musicians, probably the most recorded pianist, with over 250 albums as a leader or sideperson. He doesn’t believe in perfect pitch but says “I come as close as someone who claims to have it.” He is the subject of a South Bank documentary and of Life in the Key of Oscar.

Discography

I Got Rhythm (1945); Complete Young Oscar Peterson (1945); Rockin’ in Rhythm (1947); Oscar Peterson at Carnegie Hall (1950); Piano Solos (1950); Keyboard Music by Oscar Peterson (1950); Romance (1952); At the Stratford Shakespearean Festival (1956); Louis Armstrong Meets Oscar Peterson (1957); At the Concertgebouw (1957); Jazz Soul of Oscar Peterson (1959); Jazz Portrait of Frank Sinatra (1959); Harold Arien Songbook (1959); George Gershwin Songbook (1959); Very Tall (1961); Trio: Live from Chicago (1961); Sound of the Trio (1961); Night Train, Vol. 1 (1962); Live at the London House (1962); Affinity (1962); We Get Requests (1964); Plus One (1964); Oscar Peterson Trio Plus One (1964); Canadian Suite (1964); With Respect to Nat (1965); Eloquence (1965); Canadian Concert of Oscar Peterson (1965); Blues Etude (1965); Great Oscar Peterson on Prestige (1968); Motions and Emotions (1969); Tristeza on Piano (1970); History of an Artist, Vol. 1, 2 (1972); Satch and Josh (1974); Oscar Peterson in Russia (1974); In Russia (1974); Oscar Peterson and Roy Eldridge (1974); Oscar Peterson and Harry Edison (1974); Oscar Peterson and Dizzy Gillespie (1974); Oscar Peterson and Clark Terry (1975); Oscar Peterson and Joe Pass (1975); Big Six (1975); Satch and Josh Again(1977); Royal Wedding Suite (1981); Nigerian Marketplace (1981); Freedom Song (1982); Saturday Night at the Blue Note (1990).

Bibliography

R. Palmer, Oscar Peterson (Tunbridge Wells, 1984); G. Lees, Oscar Peterson: The Will to Swing (Toronto, rev. ed., 1999).

—Lewis Porter/Nicolas Slonimsky/Music Master Jazz and Blues Catalogue