Who is Oscar Peterson?

Oscar Emmanuel Peterson, CC (Order of Canada), CQ (national order of quebec), OOnt (Order
of Ontario), jazz pianist, composer, educator (born 15 August 1925 in Montréal, QC; died 23
December 2007 in Mississauga, ON). Oscar Peterson is one of Canada’s most honoured
musicians. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time. He was
renowned for his remarkable speed and dexterity, meticulous and ornate technique, and
dazzling, swinging style. He earned the nicknames “the brown bomber of boogie-woogie” and
“master of swing.” A prolific recording artist, he typically released several albums a year from
the 1950s until his death. He also appeared on more than 200 albums by other artists,
including Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Billie Holiday and Louis Armstrong, who called him
“the man with four hands.” His sensitivity in these supporting roles, as well as his acclaimed
compositions such as Canadiana Suite and “Hymn to Freedom,” was overshadowed by his
stunning virtuosity as a soloist. Also a noted jazz educator and advocate for racial equality,
Peterson won a Juno Award and eight Grammy Awards, including one for lifetime
achievement. The first recipient of the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award for Lifetime
Achievement, he was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and the International Jazz
Hall of Fame. He was also made an Officer and then Companion of the Order of Canada, and an
Officer in the Order of Arts and Letters in France, among many other honours.

Peterson was married four times, first to Lillian Fraser (1944–58), with whom he had two sons
and three daughters. After his marriage to Sandra King (1966–76), he had one daughter with
his third wife, Charlotte Huber (1977–87). His marriage to Kelly Peterson (née Green), with
whom he had one daughter, lasted from 1990 until his death in 2007.

Childhood, Family and Education

Oscar Peterson was the fourth of five children. He was raised in the poor St. Henri
neighbourhood of Montreal, also known as Little Burgundy. His parents hailed from St. Kitts
and the British Virgin Islands. His mother, Kathleen, was a domestic worker. His father, Daniel,
was a boatswain in the Merchant Marines who became a porter with the Canadian Pacific
Railway. A self-taught amateur organist and strict disciplinarian, he led the family band in
concerts at churches and community halls. He insisted that all of the Peterson children learn
piano and a brass instrument. Each in turn taught the next youngest child.

Oscar began playing trumpet and piano at age five. He focused solely on piano at age eight
following a year-long battle with tuberculosis. (The disease claimed the life of his eldest
brother, Fred, at age 16.) Oscar’s first instructor was his sister, Daisy. She became a respected
piano teacher in Montreal’s Black community. Her later pupils included the jazz musicians
Oliver Jones, Joe Sealy and Reg Wilson. Peterson’s brother, Chuck, became a professional
trumpet player. His other sister, May, taught piano. She also worked for a time as Oscar’s
personal assistant.

Peterson studied piano during his youth and teens with teachers of widely different
backgrounds. At the age of 12, he briefly took piano lessons from Louis Hooper, a classically
trained Canadian veteran of the Harlem jazz scene of the 1920s. Later, Peterson attended the
Conservatoire de musique du Québec à Montréal. At 14, he studied with Paul de Marky, a
Hungarian concert pianist in the 19th-century tradition of Franz Liszt. Peterson was also a
classmate of trumpet player Maynard Ferguson. They played together in a dance band led by
Maynard’s brother, Percy.

Early Career

At age 14, Peterson entered an amateur contest sponsored by radio personality Ken Soble. (He
was encouraged to enter by his sister Daisy, who also helped pay for his studies.) Oscar won
the $250 first prize. Shortly thereafter, he began his own weekly radio show, Fifteen Minutes
Piano Rambling, on the Montreal station CKAC. In 1941, he was featured on CBM’s Rhythm
Time. By 1945, he was heard nationally on the CBC’s Light Up and Listen and The Happy Gang.

Peterson’s growing command of the keyboard reflected his classical background. However, the
influence of the popular American pianists Nat King Cole, Teddy Wilson and especially his idol,
Art Tatum, steered him towards a future in jazz. Even a chronic case of arthritis, which first
became apparent in his teens, could not slow his progress. During his teen years, he received
offers from Jimmie Lunceford and Count Basie to move to the US and join their bands. His
parents felt he was too young and wouldn’t allow it.

Oscar Peterson emerged as a celebrity in Montreal’s music scene in the early 1940s. He
dropped out of high school at age 17 to play as a featured soloist in Johnny Holmes’s popular
(and otherwise white) dance band from 1943 to 1947. Peterson’s father was skeptical of letting
his son leave school to pursue a career in music. He reportedly told Oscar, “If you’re going to
go out there and be a piano player, don’t just be another one. Be the best.”

Canada’s First Jazz Star

Peterson made his first recordings for RCA Victor in March 1945. These early releases, notably
“I Got Rhythm” and “The Sheik of Araby,” reveal the talent for boogie-woogie that earned him
the nickname “the brown bomber of boogie-woogie.” They also reveal the extraordinary
technique that would characterize his playing throughout his career. Peterson made sixteen
78s (32 songs in total) for RCA Victor between 1945 and 1949, The last of these suggest the
influence of bebop. These songs were compiled on CD by BMG France in 1994; they were
repackaged by BMG Canada in 1996 as The Complete Young Oscar Peterson (1945–1949).

The popularity of these records established Peterson as the first jazz star that Canada could
truly call its own. His exposure on CBC Radio and his two tours of Western Canada in 1946 also
contributed to his growing fame. By 1947, he was headlining Montreal’s Alberta Lounge with
his own trio. It consisted of Austin “Ozzie” Roberts on bass and Clarence Jones on drums.
(Guitarist Ben Johnson occasionally subbed in for Jones.) The trio was heard on Montreal radio
station CFCF in broadcasts from the lounge. The other recorded document of Peterson’s
Montreal years is the soundtrack for Norman McLaren’s innovative and award-winning
National Film Board short, Begone Dull Care (1949).

By the end of the 1940s, Peterson had all but exhausted the limited jazz market in Canada.
Word of his talent had spread to the US. Following a tour to Montreal, Dizzy Gillespie told
composer and record producer Leonard Feather, “There’s a pianist up here who’s just too
much. You’ve never heard anything like it! We gotta put him in concert.” However, Feather
took no action. Similarly, American jazz impresario and record producer Norman Granz heard
about Peterson through Coleman Hawkins and Billy Strayhorn. But Granz also failed to reach
out to the Canadian pianist until a 1949 visit to Montreal. Granz was on his way to the airport
to leave the city when he heard Peterson playing on the radio from the Alberta Lounge. He
told the cab driver to take him there immediately.

Criticism and Praise

Paradoxically, Peterson’s greatest strength, his technique, brought him his greatest criticism:
that his performances, for all their facility, were an overwhelming mélange of style over
substance and lacked emotional warmth. In 1973, Times of London music critic John S. Wilson
wrote, “For the last 20 years, Oscar Peterson has been one of the most dazzling exponents of
the flying fingers school of piano playing. His performances have tended to be beautifully
executed displays of technique but woefully weak on emotional projection.” The New York
Times noted in his obituary that, “many critics found Mr. Peterson more derivative than
original, especially early in his career. Some even suggested that his fantastic technique lacked
coherence and was almost too much for some listeners to compute.” JazzTimes critic Thomas
Conrad described Peterson’s achievements as “more athletic than aesthetic.” He claimed that
songs which should have been occasions for self-revelation became, in Peterson’s hands,
“elegant, flawless and detached.”

Noted musicologist Max Harrison and New Yorker columnist Whitney Baillett found Peterson’s
style to be glib and superficial. No less a figure than Miles Davis criticized Peterson’s ability for
interplay, saying that, “nearly everything he plays, he plays with the same degree of force. He
leaves no holes for the rhythm section.” The Toronto Star’s Peter Goddard once observed that,
“wowing audiences with flash fingering bothered critics who thought speed was all he had… In
the 1950s hailed as ‘the greatest living jazz pianist,’ by 1961 it was an opinion that ‘would not
be considered in serious jazz circles,’ snapped British critic Burnett James.”

However, Peterson’s champions typically outnumbered his critics. Duke Ellington nicknamed
him “the Maharaja of the keyboard” and said he was “beyond category.” In the early 1990s,
esteemed American pianist Hank Jones said, “Oscar Peterson is head and shoulders above any
pianist alive today. Oscar is the apex. He is the crowning ruler of all the pianists in the jazz
world. No question about it.” Acclaimed pianist Marian McPartland described him as “the
finest technician that I have seen,” and pianist and conductor André Previn called him “the
best” among jazz pianists.

Following Peterson’s death, the Independent described him as “an explosion of talent” who
“could overwhelm any style of jazz piano and… swing harder than any other player. In fact, the
best way to define the elusive quality of ‘swing’ might be to use a Peterson performance as an
illustration. He had a deep knowledge of jazz history and could play two-fisted stride, or
complex and intricate bebop. His timing and imagination also made him one of the great ballad
players. He had everything, with only an occasional penchant for rococo decoration to detract
from his achievements.”

Oscar Peterson faced numerous challenges along his path to success due to racism. With
incredible courage, he persevered through adversity, fought for equal rights, and accomplished
so much despite many roadblocks that were meant to prevent black people from succeeding.

Music is a powerful median and can be used to reach people, tell a story, and connect with
their emotions. It often leaves a lasting impression. In 1962 Oscar Peterson composed Hymn to
Freedom. The song was embraced by people around the world as an anthem for the Civil
Rights Movement. The lyrics are just as meaningful today as they were over fifty years ago.

Awards

2 Juno Awards

8 Grammy Awards

Honorary Degrees

55

Discography:

106