[Dixielandjazz] Oscar Peterson on Originality

[Steve Barbone]

Bob Ringwald wrote: (polite snip)

> Sometimes people's writing gets misconstrued.
> 
> I think some people on DJML who advocate learning other people's solos,
> especially the great ones, don't necessarily mean playing them onstage.  But
> learning them can be a great learning or teaching process. Unless of course
> you are doing a recreation band gig or recording.

Here I am agreeing with you, Bob. <grin>.

Even the Peterson quotes get misconstrued. For example he said:
 
"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."

He did not, though he could, play them on his many recordings, or in live
performance, (to my knowledge). What he did was quote a snip here and there,
from the huge collection of music that he heard and had stored in his mind.
Jazz and Classical. IMO the closest he comes to sounding like someone else
is when he issued his tribute album to Nat King Cole. Played a lot of Cole
things, and sang like Cole. That was by design.

BTW, he also felt strongly that if jazz pianists were not classically
trained, they were not realizing their full potential. For example, he would
wonder what Erroll Garner could have been etc. Or listening to Horace
Silver, he would say the piano should be played as a piano, not as a horn.

OP had almost total recall as well as mastery of the piano and therefore
could play just about everything he ever heard. But those who have listened
to a lot of OP also realize that he created his own music. His trios were
legendary in that they challenged each other to excel every night. They
really got inside the tunes and pushed each other creatively. Those who have
seen him live a few times know exactly what I mean.

Somewhere there is a story about him at a cutting session with a challenger
who played a great solo on some song. Peterson in turn, repeated the guy's
solo, a series of ascending figures, then reversed them and played them as
descending figures, then mixed them half up and half down. He was a unique
giant of jazz and with his passing, may well have ended the era.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone