Oscar Peterson, R.I.P.

This morning I heard the news that the great Canadian pianist Oscar Peterson died on Sunday. He was 82 and had suffered from strokes in recent years.

Whenever I am asked to list my favorite jazz records, Oscar Peterson somehow manages to show up on at least three:

1. Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald (the best jazz record ever made), which features Oscar Peterson and Buddy Rich
2. Stan Getz with the Oscar Peterson Trio
3. The Oscar Peterson Trio, Night Train

His treatment of Porgy and Bess on the clavichord (a Pablo Release), is one of those records that at first is so unusual that it almost seems a novelty, yet on subsequent hearings reveals a deep musicality and subtlety (the clavichord is the only keyboard instrument with natural vibrato).

Oscar Peterson was a classically-trained pianist who refused classical gigs because the standard amount of rehearsal for an orchestra was insufficient to reach the musical heights he demanded. His drummer-less trio, with the solid discipline of Herb Ellis and Ray Brown was more to his liking.

One music critic (I think it was Burgess), pointed out that Oscar Peterson was really sort of an anti-pianist, because his Mozart-influenced crystaline lines were a refutation of sorts of the Romantic tradition, and that is probably right. Peterson did not use the damper pedal. He had no interest in blurring and over-emoting and all that bag of crap that the Van Cliburn sorts trot out as they vulgarly gush over the "Rach 3". Peterson's music is a more classical music, a more refined music. He stressed melodic inventiveness and the age-old quest for diversity within unity, over the desire to hit the listener over the head with emotion, which is the unfortunate direction that the piano has gone in since the days of Schubert and that prissy Brahms.

Oscar Peterson was also a political conservative, who enjoyed waterskiing with his family. He was a brilliant conversationalist, well-read, and a natural leader, which is essential when working with the likes of Buddy Rich and Stan Getz. The jazz world has lost one of its greatest ever.