[Dixielandjazz] Oscar Peterson honored

[Harry Callaghan]

Knowing of the great admiration that Diana Krall had for Oscar Peterson, I'm
guessing that the only reason she has not yet recorded an album in tribute
to him is because he was not also a vocalist as was Nat "King" Cole.

She recorded an excellent album in tribute to Cole and I think her
reluctance to do so with Peterson is that she may not feel that the public
would buy an album that was absent of her vocals.

In the case of both Diana and Harry Connick Jr., I personally have had equal
admiration for them as both vocalists and pianists but I guess I'm not
everybody.

Incidentally, Oscar Peterson was one artist who saw fit to record an album
in tribute to Frank Sinatra, while Frank was still alive.and able to
appreciate.it.

He was a true jazz giant who I do not believe during his lifetime was
afforded the same recognition as Errol Garner, George Shearing and Art
Tatum  .But it's never too late to give a listen to some of his albums and
see what you might have been missing

Tides,
HC.


On 3/20/10, Robert Ringwald <rsr at ringwald.com> wrote:
>
> 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
>
> Check out our latest recording at www.ringwald.com/recordings.htm
>
> Doesn't "expecting the unexpected" make the unexpected expected?
>
>
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