[Dixielandjazz] Recent Oscar Peterson interview

[Nancy Giffin]

Hello List mates,
I thought some of you would be interested in reading this recent interview
with Oscar Peterson. What's so great about it is that Jim and Oscar have
known each other for so long that readers can be like flies on the wall,
listening in on a comfortable and candid conversation between old friends.
It's too long to print it here, so I'll include a few excerpts and let you
read the rest at the Web site. Or, I can e-mail the entire text to anyone
who requests it.
Love and hugs,
Nancy

http://www.thewholenote.com/wholenote/index.html


OSCAR PETERSON 
in conversation with Jim Galloway

Oscar Peterson was the guest of honour and President's Award recipient
during the 3rd Annual Gala Dinner, hosted by Nancy Wilson, at the IAJE
conference in Toronto in early January. This interview with Oscar Peterson
took place in the relaxed atmosphere of his home in Mississauga, November 19
2002. 

JIM: I hardly know where to begin Oscar, because I doubt if there's a
Canadian in the arts who's received more honours, more decorations, more
awards than you have. So that made me wonder, when did you first realise
that you were special? There must have been a moment, there must have been
some time when you said I've got something here...

OSCAR: I think when my piano teacher said to me one day - "You know, I'm
just giving you some little things I think you're going to need, but you
won't need that much help, because I think you know where you want to go."
And I think then it started to dawn on me that maybe I had something to say.

JIM: Knowing where you were going, where do you think jazz is going as a
music? 

OSCAR: I hope it's going to continue to develop, without being outlandish.
That's the one fear I have. Because I have experienced this - people that
have come into the jazz medium and, whether it's an ego trip, or what, they
figure they're going to take it out in a different direction, and many times
it's so far afield from the original concept, that I have a fear of it
dying.... No one has the right to say they're taking jazz in one specific
direction. They're not heavy enough to do that. I don't believe that
Ellington ever thought that way. He was a contributor, he thought he was a
contributor. And that's the way I feel; I like to be a contributor, to its
longevity, hopefully.

JIM: There's a lot of music out there today, Oscar, that I have trouble
calling Jazz. I tend to think of it as contemporary creative music, but I
don't really think it has the elements that for me are jazz.

OSCAR: No, that's the unfortunate part of it. You know, you get into the
area of people that don't have the musical credentials and background to
really do something worthy jazzwise. And so they start taking it in another
direction, or so they try. You can't take jazz in another direction, you can
only give -  inject your own personality into it, that's as far as you can
go. Dizzy was another contributor. Dizzy had a certain idea of how he would
play; he didn't think that he encompassed the whole jazz scene. That's the
problem with ego, it's an ego trip, isn't it, when someone says, I'm
changing the face of jazz. You know I've heard a lot of people that might
think that way. They're not going to change my belief in what I think jazz
should be. I think it's predicated on respect of what has gone before you
... When I sit down to play I think of everybody from Fats Waller, or Hank
Jones, right back to Cripple  Clarence Lofton if you want, and I have
respect for that, and I will always have that respect.

JIM:  Do you have any goals that you're still striving for?

OSCAR: Perfection (laughs)... That still hangs over the whole thing...

JIM:  All the time... and you hope you never reach it..?

OSCAR: Well, no, I'd like to reach it. I know I won't, but.

JIM: Then there's no place to go...

OSCAR: People always seem to think I want to have a big band at some point.
I don't. I like the small group format, it's very personal, you know, it's
very close, and very warm and inspiring, and I think the transmission is
quicker in a small group than it is in a big band, emotionally speaking.

JIM: I find that too - and the things you have done with the trio, well
there's a magic in the air...

OSCAR: We had a unanimous growth together. A lot of work went into that..
not all mine. Herbie (Ellis) and Ray (Brown), Ray and Ed (Thigpen), they'd
practise time, playing time for me, and Ray had a thing where he'd say
"let's turn up the steam." And they had some kind of a signal going, they'd
say, lets do this for him now, let's do that for him. That's the beauty of
jazz. ... I started off classical, you know, and I'm not putting down
classical music, but  it's a different emotion for me, it's a totally
different emotion for me, because it's a different transmission of the music
that I'm looking at in front of me, whereas the jazz end of it is my guts
speaking, so to speak...

JIM: You're interpreting something, but in jazz you're actually making it...

OSCAR: You're making it happen with that particular tune at that particular
moment..I have a thing we did for Norman  (Granz), with Milt (Jackson),
Grady (Tate), Ray and myself. It's called "Aint But a Few Left", I think,
something like that - how prophetic that is!  And there's a thing on there.
Norman loved the blues, and he said, "Play some blues for me, you know,
don't get out there and kibitz around too much, play some blues for us,
whatever you do, however you feel, you start." And I said okay; so we went
into the blues thing, and, .. it's my favourite recording. It's my favourite
recording of Bags (Milt), it's my favourite recording of Grady, it's my
favourite recording of Ray, and I think it's the best solo I ever played in
my whole jazz history.

Roy Eldridge had come down just to hang out and he was in the control room
with Norman, so when it was over, Norman said, "I had to collar Roy; he was
sitting there, he had his horn, and he said, 'I want a piece of this, I got
to have some of this', and I said, you can't go out there!" (laughing).  It
was incredible, Roy got so excited at the groove we had going, he said, 'No,
got to have some, I don't care about the recording, I'm going out there",
and  Norman said , "No you're not!" and he grabbed him... but I think you
can feel that emotion in that recording.

JIM: I've got to get my hands on that one.

*** 

JIM: Is there anything you're intolerant of now, that gets to you?

OSCAR: Yeah, I don't like to get into this... I'm intolerant about what they
call music today, I think it's an insult, best I can say, I don't want to
get into any personalities. It's putrid, I'm sorry, it's putrid. I like to
see people get along, get ahead in the world, but because somebody has a
nice voice, it doesn't mean they should make an album right away, with no
experience  with accompaniment or with a group; and all of a sudden, there
they are, getting albums put in the windows of record stores in New York and
everywhere else, and then I hear some of those so-called groups...that 
always amazes me, I have to say this, Jim, what happened that people stopped
taking responsibility for the group by saying, this is the Oscar Peterson
Trio, or the Jim Galloway Quartet,  - why has it got to be The Naked Dead,
or some such thing...nobody wants to be named!...It's true! What is that?
Are they worried about assassination or something? What is it? I hate that!

*** 

JIM: Do you like to know the words to a tune, if it's a song with a lyric?

OSCAR: I do try to learn them..... it became the thing where I would learn
the lyrics to a ballad, apart from just learning the harmonic and the
melody, because I loved the lyrics..

JIM: They help you to play the tune, too.

OSCAR: Oh, don't they though... I always recommend, when I'm teaching if you
have a chance, at least look at the lyrics so you know where the tune is
supposed to be at. 

*** 

AND THERE"S SO MUCH MORE GOOD STUFF!
AGAIN THE URL IS:
http://www.thewholenote.com/wholenote/index.html