[Dixielandjazz] Oscar Peterson interview on Individuality

[Don Mopsick]

Chris Tyle writes:

<<I love the stuff Oscar mentions about using Lester Young's licks for 
"Sometimes I'm Happy" in his own solos. So much for those people who 
carp about playing someone else's licks! I think it deserves to be 
reiterated here:

"The funny thing about it: I don't have any inhibition about
saying I learned such-and-such-a-person's solo. I can play you Nat's solo on
"Easy Listening Blues," I can play you Lester's "Sometimes I'm Happy," I can
play you numerous solos. I can sit there and sing them for you cause I
absorbed them in my growing up process. I'm not ashamed of that."

So for those people who say that copying someone else's ideas or solos is not creative, I say if it's good enough for Oscar, it's good enough for ANYONE! And I'll also mention that ALL the really great jazz players had the ability to play, note-for-note, some great solo by one of their mentors that they admired or were influenced by.>> 

Chris, I look at it this way: great jazz improvisation captured on record is just great music, period. Over the years, the jazz tradition has accumulated a vast body of such work, much of it created "on the fly." Armstrong's solo on Potato Head Blues, Lester's solo on Lady Be Good, come to mind. 

The question for the player cultivating an improvising mind is how much of his playing is habitually created truly "on the fly" and how much is quoted, either from masterworks or from the player's own past solos. It varies. The better players that I get to hear always have something of their own to add to an existing piece of work. So-called "hipsters" who insist that every note of a jazz solo must be completely original usually themselves turn out to be Coltrane or Bird abusers. You've heard them—the guys who can't swing—so what business do they have commenting about OP in the first place? 

mopo

Don Mopsick, Riverwalk Jazz Webmaster