[Dixielandjazz] OSCAR PETERSON (MAY NOT BE YKOM)

[Stephen Barbone]

List mates:

Oscar Peterson is somewhere in the middle. His style was not appreciated
by Miles or Monk. Others see him as a virtuoso, but a clone of Art
Tatum. He plays / played in 4/4 swing time, yet might be too modern for
some on this list. OKOM? Maybe or maybe not, but worth a read if you
like jazz.

I had dinner frequently with him in the New York City of the 50s - 60s.
My best musical buddy was bass player Charlie Traeger. His wife June was
a Canadian and a great friend of Petersons. So we would all gather, when
he was in town, to have a gourmet meal at Traeger's pad in the Village.
Wonderful man, Peterson, and a pretty good singer too, in the Nat Cole
style. He did a tribute album to Cole on which he sings a bunch of songs
that Cole made famous. To an untrained ear, he could be mistaken for
Cole, both in the voice and in the piano style on the album.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone

July 14, 2002  New York Times  By Gene Santoro

'A Jazz Odyssey': Memoirs of a Piano Man

Since September 1949, when he made his debut at Carnegie Hall as a
member of the all-star troupe called Jazz at the Philharmonic, the
pianist Oscar Peterson has amassed a reputation as one of jazz's
virtuosos. He was born in Montreal in 1925, a child prodigy with years
of training and a musical flair that landed him a Canadian radio show at
the age of 15.

Peterson played during his tenure at J.A.T.P. with a formidable cadre of
older luminaries, like the saxophonists Lester Young and Coleman
Hawkins, the trumpeter Roy Eldridge and the singer Ella Fitzgerald.
While bebop's spiky rhythms, convoluted melodies and thickened harmonies
enthralled most of his contemporaries, Peterson found continuing
inspiration in 4/4 swing time, the lyrical skeins of Benny Goodman's
pianist Teddy Wilson and the textured harmonic and melodic ideas of the
keyboard master whom jazz musicians called God, Art Tatum.

After bringing Peterson to the United States and J.A.T.P., the jazz
impresario Norman Granz became his manager and one of his
closest friends. Granz's record companies released Peterson's
recordings, which regularly teamed him with stalwarts like Fitzgerald.
Peterson performed in trios with guitarists like Herb Ellis and bass
players like Ray Brown. Later he soloed with symphony orchestras. His
success meant he generally played upscale clubs and halls and recorded
as many as five or six albums a year.

In 1992, it all ended abruptly, when first hip surgery, then a stroke,
curtailed Peterson's performing. (He has since regained much
of the two-handed dexterity lost to the stroke.) But the brush with
mortality seems to have turned his thoughts toward the receding
past. Hence his memoir, ''A Jazz Odyssey.''

Peterson's father, a West Indian-born Canadian Pacific Railroad porter
who was a strong-minded disciplinarian, decided his children needed
musical training ''without any reference to the family's views.'' His
mother, a cook and housekeeper, sang hymns at home. Peterson describes
pivotal developmental moments: his realization that there are no
''wrong'' notes, his determination to play with two genuinely
independent hands, the formulation of his improvisational thinking. And
he describes what and how he learned from his teachers, like Lou Hooper,
who taught him to communicate with comments like, ''I have always felt
Chopin was looking at a lovely landscape at the time he composed this
piece because everything about it is so lush and green-like,'' and Paul
de Marky, a leading Canadian classical pianist who could, according to
the daunted Peterson, mimic Tatum uncannily.

With J.A.T.P., Peterson was the new kid, so he watched the legendary
lineup as he had watched his father and teachers -- initially
awed and a bit cheeky, then as a friend and colleague. These memories
are among his book's most engaging. Take his chapter on
Fitzgerald, where he explains how musicians translated her onstage body
language into cues: ''The first slight side glance accompanied by a sort
of half-laugh. Meaning: 'What was that change or that line that you
played behind me?' . . . The left hand
cupped to her ear. Meaning: 'Something is out of tune. Is it me or the
piano?' (Note: Bet on it being the piano!). . . . The head tilts
slightly to the side; the left hand starts snapping with a vengeance.
Meaning: The time pulsation is not reaching her the way she
wants it to. Tighten up the time, fellas! . . . The left foot is tapping
time along with a natural snap of the left hand. Meaning: All's
well up front, guys. She's cruising with it. ''

Deepening this insider's look at musicians at work are the tales of
''cutting'' sessions, which Peterson always relished. Here we watch the
competitive drive underlying jazz while eavesdropping on Peterson the
gunslinger. Witness the bout with Marlow Morris, a pianist with an
overgenerous reputation and loud mouth: ''Marlow was now in his third
chorus and as I sat there an obscure sense of relief overtook me. 'I can
take him,' I thought to myself. Suddenly he motioned me to the piano. I
felt wonderfully relaxed and decided to stick the dagger in. There was a
favorite figurative descending run that Marlow had used quite often in
his first playing of the tune, and I decided to use that same run while
adding a couple of notes of my own. To bruise him even more, I did
something with it that he had not done -- I turned the corner with it,
and played it in an ascending direction. To flatten his ego a little
more I ended the chorus by playing it with two hands simultaneously.''

No decent book on jazz history can sidestep race, and Peterson's does
not. His parents were ''deeply immersed'' in Marcus Garvey's Universal
Negro Improvement Association, and for years he performed at their
meetings. Dark-skinned himself, he delivers stinging jabs about
prejudice both within and against black Canadian communities, and
recalls his days as the only black in a band led by the brother of
Maynard Ferguson, as well as how he broke the Montreal color bar in
whites-only clubs. And there are charming and resonant vignettes, like
the sketch of Mom Edwina's Rooming House in Washington, home to black
musicians on the road, where ''any of her guests that committed any
wrongdoing on her premises had to buy her a beer to atone for his
crime.''

But the book has weaknesses, some glaring. Its organization and
chronology can be hazy or haphazard. Appending an editor's note
at the end of a chapter to fill in critical narrative gaps does not
compensate for not having Peterson's own words. His attempts at
verse about musical inspirations and colleagues are often embarrassing.

Then there is Peterson's prose, which can feel as overstuffed and
airless as his piano solos: ''I can't truthfully recall my very first
meeting with the piano but I am sure that it was characterized by the
kind of practical curiosity prevalent in most 5-year-old children,
followed almost immediately by sheer uninterest. I say this simply
because most children of that age, regardless of musical talents and
capabilities, tend to look on any musical instrument as a passing fancy
or perhaps something that should only be used as an attention-getter.
They are keen to play at the precise time that visitors are in the home
attempting to carry on a conversation, or Pop has high-tailed it off to
bed with an overpowering headache.'' Such bombast may tempt the casual
reader to join Pop. But reading on, especially for jazz fans, yields
rewards.

Gene Santoro's most recent book is ''Myself When I Am Real: The Life and
Music of Charles Mingus.'' He is completing ''Made
in America,'' which traces the intermingling of jazz, folk and rock.