Two years later they added guitarist Barney Kessel. In 1950, Peterson worked in a duo with double bassist Ray Brown. In the documentary video Music in the Key of Oscar, Peterson tells how Granz stood up to a gun-toting Southern policeman who wanted to stop the trio from using "whites-only" taxis. This was more than a managerial relationship Peterson praised Granz for standing up for him and other black jazz musicians in the segregationist south US of the 1950s and 1960s. He remained Peterson's manager for most of his career. In 1949 he introduced Peterson in New York City at a Jazz at the Philharmonic concert at Carnegie Hall. Granz had seen Peterson before this but was underwhelmed.
Cbc child piano prodigy driver#
He was so impressed that he told the driver to take him to the club so he could meet the pianist. Duos, trios, and quartets Īccording to an interview with Norman Granz, he heard a radio program broadcasting from a local club while taking a cab to the Montreal airport. By the time he was in his 20s, he had developed a reputation as a technically brilliant and melodically inventive pianist. He gravitated toward boogie-woogie and swing with a particular fondness for Nat King Cole and Teddy Wilson. From 1945 to 1949 he worked in a trio and recorded for Victor Records. In his teens he was a member of the Johnny Holmes Orchestra.
Cbc child piano prodigy professional#
He became a professional pianist, starring in a weekly radio show and playing at hotels and music halls. After that victory, he dropped out of the High School of Montreal, where he played in a band with Maynard Ferguson. In 1940, at fourteen years of age, he won the national music competition organized by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Only in his later years did he decrease his practice to one or two hours daily. For many years his piano studies included four to six hours of daily practice. Īt the age of nine, Peterson played piano with a degree of control that impressed professional musicians. He was called "the Brown Bomber of the Boogie-Woogie". But he was captivated by traditional jazz and boogie-woogie and learned several ragtime pieces. Peterson was persistent at practising scales and classical études.Īs a child, Peterson studied with Hungarian-born pianist Paul de Marky, a student of István Thomán, who was himself a pupil of Franz Liszt, so his early training was predominantly based on classical piano. His father was one of his first music teachers, and his sister Daisy taught him classical piano. At the age of five, Peterson began honing his skills on trumpet and piano, but a bout of tuberculosis when he was seven prevented him from playing the trumpet again, so he directed all his attention to the piano. It was in this predominantly black neighbourhood that he encountered the jazz culture. Peterson grew up in the neighbourhood of Little Burgundy in Montreal. Peterson was born in Montreal, Quebec, to immigrants from the West Indies ( Saint Kitts and Nevis and the British Virgin Islands) His mother, Kathleen, was a domestic worker his father, Daniel, worked as a porter for Canadian Pacific Railway and was an amateur musician who taught himself to play the organ, trumpet and piano. He is considered among the best jazz pianists and jazz improvisers of the twentieth century. Peterson won eight Grammy Awards during his lifetime between 19. Their last recording, On the Town with the Oscar Peterson Trio, recorded live at the Town Tavern in Toronto, captured a remarkable degree of emotional as well as musical understanding among three players. Ashby, who was a swing guitarist, was soon replaced by Kessel. Shortly afterward Smith was replaced by guitarist Irving Ashby, who had been a member of the Nat King Cole Trio. In the early 1950s, he began performing with Brown and drummer Charlie Smith as the Oscar Peterson Trio.
He considered the trio with Ray Brown and Herb Ellis "the most stimulating" and productive setting for public performances and studio recordings. Peterson worked in duos with Sam Jones, Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, Joe Pass, Irving Ashby, Count Basie, and Herbie Hancock. He was called the " Maharaja of the keyboard" by Duke Ellington, simply "O.P." by his friends, and informally in the jazz community, "the King of inside swing". He played thousands of concerts worldwide in a career lasting more than 60 years. Considered a virtuoso and one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time, Peterson released more than 200 recordings, won eight Grammy Awards, as well as a lifetime achievement award from the Recording Academy, and received numerous other awards and honours. Oscar Emmanuel Peterson CC CQ OOnt (Aug– December 23, 2007) was a Canadian jazz pianist and composer.
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