Peterson, via Wikipedia.
By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
JULY 11, 2023 | Do you have a favorite Canadian? We do: late piano artist Oscar Peterson. Born in Montreal in 1925, he died in 2007. He is considered to have been the world’s greatest jazz pianist.
Listening to him tinkling the keys was pure joy. He could play amazingly fast, and you wondered how on earth a person could hit all those keys so rapidly, yet make such good music on the piano. He could just as easily caress the piano so gingerly, effortlessly, it seemed, and then break out in an exceedingly fast pace to give you an entirely another dimension in music.
He was an improvisationist from the get-go. Peterson would take a familiar song, provide you a standard playing of it, making you quite content. But he seldom stopped here. Usually he would embark on using that song as the basis for a journey into all sorts of gyrations on that theme, going into another level of action, yet eventually returning to the sedate piece that he started out with. Meanwhile, you thought to yourself of another favorite: “I’ve never heard it played this way.”
Peterson was a large figure, weighing in at 250 pounds on his 6’3” frame, and had enormous hands, someone measuring that his hands spanned 17 or 18 keys. Though large, once his hands started moving, somehow he fit his fingers exactly onto the right keys one after another so very beautifully.
We had the pleasure of seeing Peterson three or four times. The first time was in New Orleans, at a warehouse on Tchoupitoulas Street, about 35 years ago. We were in New Orleans at a newspaper meeting, and happened to hear he would be playing at a club. During his first set that night, playing some familiar tune, this writer, no keen ear himself, thought he heard Peterson hit a sour note. This was during one of Peterson’s innovations of a theme, taking off into an unchartered territory. For about five minutes more he gyrated on the piano…..then came back and hit that sour note again, as if saying, “Yeah, I missed a note earlier, but want you to know that I realized it, and here it is again.” It fit into the musical framework so well. Another jazz pianist, Dave Brubeck, was in the audience that night, and Peterson introduce him before the second set.
We also saw Peterson at least once, if not twice, in Atlanta, still the master musician on stage. And finally, just 10 years ago, we heard him on stage in Chicago.
He wrote both the music and words to one particular piece. Listen in and follow the words to this session, recorded in Oslo in 1964.
When every heart joins every heart and together yearns for liberty,
That’s when we’ll be free.
When every hand joins every hand and together molds our destiny,
That’s when we’ll be free.
Any hour any day, the time soon will come when men will live in dignity,
That’s when we’ll be free, we will be
When every man joins in our song and together singing harmony,
That’s when we’ll be free.
Now enjoy (click here):
Now, perhaps, you can see why he has been our favorite Canadian.
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
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