[Dixielandjazz] Oscar Peterson honored

[Robert Ringwald]

Life-Size Sculpture to Honour Jazz Giant Peterson
by Martin Knelman
Toronto Star, March 19, 2010
The bronze fingers will not fly nimbly across the ivories, but the image of jazz
icon Oscar Peterson will preside steps from Parliament Hill on Canada Day and from
then on.
It's his country's tribute to an artist Louis Armstrong dubbed "the man with four
hands" and Duke Ellington called "the maharajah of the keyboard."
"It's a complicated process that takes more than a year," says sculptor Ruth Abernethy,
who has made a specialty of creating life-size bronze statues of Canadian giants,
including that other genius of the piano, Glenn Gould, whose statue is a fixture
at the CBC Broadcast Centre in Toronto.
The Oscar Peterson statue will be unveiled June 30 just outside the National Arts
Centre, steps from Parliament Hill and the Canadian War Memorial, as part of Canada
Day celebrations.
This week, a group of leading Canadians and Oscar fans, including those other noted
pianists, Stephen Harper and Bob Rae, kicked off a $210,000 fundraising campaign
to pay for the statue.
Orchestrating the whole venture are Peter Herrndorf, CEO of the arts centre, and
Brian Robertson, the veteran producer who collaborated with Herrndorf and others
on organizing the memorable tribute to Peterson at Roy Thomson Hall shortly after
Peterson's death at 82 in late December 2007.
"Oscar Peterson is a quintessential Canadian success story," says Harper. "He came
from humble roots to become a legendary performer who inspired countless artists
all over the world. He deserves to be honoured in this prominent location of our
nation's capital."
Born in 1925, the son of a train porter, Peterson grew up in a working-class area
of Montreal. He became a local celebrity in the 1940s when he played at the Alberta
Lounge and was heard live on radio.
His big breakthrough was being discovered by the top jazz impresario, Norman Granz,
who took Oscar to Carnegie Hall. After that, in a career that lasted more than 60
years, he collaborated with all the jazz greats of the period and toured the world.
As a black artist, he often felt the sting of discrimination and humiliation.
For the last half of his life, Peterson's home was in Mississauga, where his family
endured his lengthy absences with a degree of pain that was poignantly captured in
the 1992 documentary film In the Key of Oscar, by his niece Sylvia Sweeney. Married
four times, he had six children.
The statue will not be complete for a couple of months, but, according to Abernethy,
it will look exactly the same as the temporary wax version now in the process of
being transformed into bronze.
Abernethy, who began her career in the Stratford Shakespeare Festival's props department,
has also created bronze sculptures of Toronto actor Al Waxman, in Bellevue Square
Park in Kensington Market, and Manitoba Theatre Centre co-founders John Hirsch and
Tom Hendry, in Winnipeg.
In her sculpture, Peterson is seated on a bench by a grand piano. Following the same
concept used in her Glenn Gould statue, the Oscar sculpture invites passersby to
sit with the pianist and play a duet.
As for the funding campaign, Bob Rae says: "Our national committee members hope to
engage jazz lovers and Canadians everywhere to contribute to this wonderful tribute
to one of our country's national treasures.
Among the first donors were Stephen and Laureen Harper.
Both the Prime Minister and Rae, a senior figure in the Opposition, have played the
piano at the NAC.
Members of the national committee include William Davis, Roy McMurtry, Senator Tommy
Banks, Gail Asper, Denise Donlon, Tim Armstrong, Harvey Glatt, Valerie Pringle and
Ross Porter.
Donations can be made online at
http://www.nac-cna.ca/oscar


--Bob Ringwald K6YBV
rsr at ringwald.com
Fulton Street Jazz Band
916/806-9551

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