Oscar Peterson

Dec 27 2007 by David Charters, Liverpool Daily Post

HIS father, Daniel, was an amateur pianist and railway porter, whose dancing fingers were wasted gripping the hands of suit-cases, left on the platforms for him to hump.

So when the son decided that he was going to leave high school to become a jazz pianist, Daniel had some prophetic words: “You have to be the best. There is no second best”.

And young Oscar Peterson, wide of shoulder with long fingers of shimmying speed, set out to fulfil his father’s ambition.

This he did with great aplomb, becoming not only the best jazz pianist of his own glittering generation, but, in the opinion of many, though not himself, simply the finest pianist who had ever lived.

Blues, boogie-woogie and bebop were the styles with which he was most associated, but when he was on that stool, his round-eyes shut and the cuffs gleaming through his dinner-jacket, those black and white keys succumbed to his every wish.

He could, in fact, play everything and anything.

That was why he played with Billie Holliday, Ella Fitzgerald, Charlie Parker, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Nat King Cole and Dizzie Gillespie; and, on special occasions, before our Queen and President Richard Nixon.

He also wrote a suite dedicated to Prince Charles and Princess Diana at the time of their wedding.

Peterson was the fourth of five children born to Daniel and Kathleen in a limestone house on Delile Street, in the black quarter of Montreal.

His father, who had learned the piano while serving with the Merchant Marine, taught all his children to play.

Oscar, who also blew the trumpet, shone from the start, while harbouring a desire to be a baseball player.

But, as he listened to jazz on the radio, he was drawn more to music. He was immensely appreciative, even awe-struck, by what others could do, not touching the piano for a month after listening to a record of Art Tatum, his hero.

Peterson’s formative talent was developed under the tutelage of Paul de Marky, a Hungarian classical pianist.

Although a brilliant soloist, Peterson performed some of his most memorable pieces with his trio of Herb Ellis on the guitar and Ray Brown on the bass.

His records included marvellous interpretations of compositions by Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, as well as classical composers.

Oscar Peterson, pianist; born, August 15, 1925, died, December 23, 2007.