Oscar Peterson Trio -
C Jam Blues
I remember seeing Oscar Peterson play a solo concert at Carnegie Hall when I was in high school. At the end of his set, I was ready to go home and chop my piano into matchsticks. I had seen a mountain that I could never climb. Luckily I learned later that I did not need to climb Oscar's mountain, I could create my own path through the musical landscape.
That said, his mastery of piano technique,creativity and the essence of swing is on full display in this nine minute college dissertation in HOW TO PLAY THE BLUES.
After a 2 1/2 minute AWESOME solo piano intro Oscar finally has the band kick in. Ray Brown and Ed Thigpin (Ed is one of our Los Angeles jazz homeboys) support, cajole and prod the music forward from then on. But wait: at 7:30 Peterson wipes his brow and then launches into a two-handed big band solo. AMAZING
Peterson was born in Montreal, Quebec, to immigrants from the West Indies. At the age of five, Peterson began honing his skills on trumpet and piano. His father, Daniel Peterson, an amateur trumpeter and pianist, was one of his first music teachers. As 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. But he was captivated by traditional jazz and boogie-woogie and learned several ragtime pieces.
At the age of nine Peterson played piano with a degree of control that impressed professional musicians. For many years his piano studies included four to six hours of daily practice. Only in his later years did he decrease his practice to one or two hours daily. In 1940, at fourteen years of age, he won the national music competition organized by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. By the age of 24 he was discovered by Norman Granz. In 1949 he introduced Peterson in New York City at a Jazz at the Philharmonic concert at Carnegie Hall. Granz remained Peterson's manager for most of his career.
From a 1964 concert in Denmark: Please enjoy C JAM BLUES
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