This is the 100th birthday of one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time – Oscar Peterson. Oscar Emmanuel Peterson was born in Montreal on 15th August 1925 and died in Toronto on 23 rd December 2007.
His father taught him to play the trumpet and piano at the age of five. After contracting tuberculosis at the age of seven, he didn’t have the puff for the trumpet and so he focused on the piano. He quickly gained a reputation as a technically brilliant and melodically inventive jazz pianist, becoming a regular guest on radio programmes. He made his first appearance at Carnegie Hall in 1949 when he was 24.
During his long career he played with everyone in jazz who mattered – Ray Brown, Herb Ellis, Ed Thigpen, Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, Stan Getz, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Anita O’Day, Clark Terry and Joe Pass, among others.
Here is an examples of his talents both as a musician and a musical commentator: a short television performance featuring songs from West Side Story with Oscar Peterson on piano; Ray Brown, bass, and Ed Thigpen, drums, from a 1965 concert.
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