Canadian jazz legend Oscar Peterson dies

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/st...1224?hub=Canada

Sad......Another GREAT goes to heaven....
he will be missed!

OMG!! Oscar Peterson had to be the ultimate Jazz pianist. What a loss, I'm in total shock. He was the first Jazz pianist I ever listened to. He was much of the inspiration that kept me taking piano lessons, when my 17 and 18 year old friends thought the piano was for sissies.

I may have told this story in the past but at 17 years old when I worked for local middle of the road radio station WPRO-FM as an announcer. Sometimes I worked the graveyard shift and always veered off the play list and would place at least 1 or 2 Oscar tunes on air per hour. One of the albums was a "Jazz Portrait of Frank Sinatra." Short story is one morning about 2 I got a call from the program director telling me he knew the play lists and Oscar's music was not programmed to be played as much. When I moved on to another job he gave me the Jazz portrait album as a remembrance of working at the station. I still have the album although it's pretty worn.

May he RIP.



[This message has been edited by Stephenm52 (edited 12-24-2007).]

Yeah...I met Oscar at Yamaha's head office in Scarborough, Ontario several years ago...did a 9000pro clinic with him for a whole afternoon.

I was very nervous...he could tell and was able to put me right at ease...a real genuinely nice guy and totally down to earth.

He will be missed for sure.

Ian

Had the great honor of visiting with Oscar in 1985. A great piano player/friend here in Lexington had toured with him as an understudy and piano tuner. He and I visited with Oscar at the Singletary Center just before he performed with that wonderful huge Bosendorfer.

What a jazz giant.

I am honored to have met him.

Russ

MY Idol for years. I have many of his albums.
Bebop

First piano album I bought was Oscar's 'Night Train'. The man is on a non-stop to heaven tonight. Another legend lost to us.

WOW ...... what a loss ... quite possibly my favorite artist ...

Steve ... I have that album, among others ...
What a talent ...
t.

I need to include myself on this thread.
I have been a lifelong fanatical of this great pianist.
For me, Oscar is (I cannot yet bring myself to write in the past tense) the greatest jazz pianist , including Art Tatum, to have lived.
Oscar and Art Tatum,Errol Garner have been part of my music life for the last 70 years.
How lucky we are to have his awesome talent preserved on tape,record and disk.
I have a treasured Tape of his broadcast on BBC Television of his "Easter Suite" in 1984 which was broadcast on Good Friday.
He had been asked to write it.
He talked us through the movements one by one and explained the influence on him and how he came to write the different tones he felt.
Probably the most evocative was his movement he titled "Why hast thou forsaken me"
Thank you Oscar, I will never forget your amazing music.


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Eddie from Rotherham
Skype:eddiefromrotherham
www.yamahakeyboards.info

Tony, I love his rendition of Birth of the Blues from that album. Smooth as silk rendition.

Ian and Russ, incredible! You got to meet him definitely an honor!



[This message has been edited by Stephenm52 (edited 12-26-2007).]

Oscar's TV show in the early seventies (maybe late sixties, I'm not sure) on the BBC in England was the moment I decided I would never be a good jazz pianist! He set the bar so incredibly high, with taste and power and incredible pianism, and swung like a madman too!

His show was REAL 'must watch TV', unlike anything on nowadays.

RIP.... I just hope I get to see him and Joe Z. jam in Heaven after I go....