Oscar Emmanuel Peterson CC CQ OOnt (August 15, 1925 – December 23, 2007) was a Canadian jazz pianist and composer. He was a highly skilled musician known as one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time. Peterson made over 200 recordings, won eight Grammy Awards, and received a lifetime achievement award from the Recording Academy, as well as many other honors. He performed in thousands of concerts around the world during a career that lasted more than 60 years. Duke Ellington called him the "Maharaja of the keyboard," his friends called him "O.P.," and he was known in the jazz community as "the King of inside swing."

Peterson considered his 1953–1958 trio with Ray Brown and Herb Ellis to be the most exciting and productive time for his public performances and recordings.

He also performed solo, as an accompanist, and in duos and trios with musicians such as Sam Jones, Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, Joe Pass, Irving Ashby, Count Basie, and Herbie Hancock.

Peterson won eight Grammy Awards between 1975 and 1997. He is regarded as one of the best jazz pianists and jazz improvisers of the twentieth century.

Early life and education

Peterson was born on August 15, 1925, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, to parents who had moved from the West Indies (Saint Kitts and Nevis and the British Virgin Islands). His mother, Kathleen, worked as a domestic worker, and his father, Daniel, was a porter for the Canadian Pacific Railway. Daniel also played the organ, trumpet, and piano as an amateur musician. Peterson grew up in the neighborhood of Little Burgundy in Montreal, which was mostly inhabited by Black people. There, he was introduced to jazz music. At age five, he began learning to play the trumpet and piano. However, when he was seven, he became very sick with tuberculosis, which made it impossible for him to continue playing the trumpet. He then focused entirely on the piano. His father was one of his first music teachers, and his sister, Daisy, taught him classical piano. Peterson practiced scales and classical études regularly and was determined to improve his skills.

As a child, Peterson studied with Paul de Marky, a pianist from Hungary who had been a student of István Thomán. Thomán had been a pupil of Franz Liszt, a famous pianist. This means Peterson’s early training was mainly in classical piano. However, he was also deeply interested in traditional jazz and boogie-woogie music. He learned many ragtime pieces and became known as "the Brown Bomber of the Boogie-Woogie."

At age nine, Peterson played the piano with skill that impressed professional musicians. For many years, he practiced piano for four to six hours each day. Later in life, he reduced his practice time to one or two hours daily. In 1940, when he was 14, Peterson won a national music competition organized by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. After this success, he left high school in Montreal, where he had played in a band with Maynard Ferguson. Peterson became a professional pianist, performing on a weekly radio show and playing at hotels and music halls. In his teens, he was part of the Johnny Holmes Orchestra. From 1945 to 1949, he played in a trio and recorded music for Victor Records. He was especially influenced by boogie-woogie and swing styles, and he admired musicians like Nat King Cole and Teddy Wilson. By the time Peterson was in his 20s, he was known as a highly skilled and creative pianist.

Career

According to an interview with Norman Granz, Granz heard a radio program from a local club while traveling by taxi to the Montreal airport. He was so impressed that he asked the driver to take him to the club to meet the pianist. Granz had seen Peterson before but was not very impressed. In 1949, Granz 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. This was more than a managerial relationship; Peterson praised Granz for supporting him and other Black jazz musicians in the southern United States during the 1950s and 1960s. In the documentary Music in the Key of Oscar, Peterson described how Granz stood up to a Southern policeman who threatened to stop his group from using taxis reserved for white passengers.

In 1950, Peterson performed in a duo with bassist Ray Brown. In the early 1950s, he began performing with Brown and drummer Charlie Smith as the Oscar Peterson Trio. Later, Smith was replaced by guitarist Irving Ashby, who had previously played with the Nat King Cole Trio. Ashby was soon replaced by Barney Kessel, and then Herb Ellis joined in 1953 after Kessel grew tired of touring. The trio remained together from 1953 to 1958, often touring with Jazz at the Philharmonic.

By 1956, Peterson’s performances were broadcast on national radio by Ben Selvin through the RCA Thesaurus transcriptions library. He considered the trio with Brown and Ellis to be the most stimulating and productive setting for his performances and recordings. Their final recording, On the Town with the Oscar Peterson Trio, captured a strong emotional and musical connection among the three musicians.

When Ellis left in 1958, the trio hired drummer Ed Thigpen because they believed no guitarist could match Ellis’s skill. Brown and Thigpen worked with Peterson on albums Night Train (1963) and Canadiana Suite (1965). Both left in 1965 and were replaced by bassist Sam Jones and drummer Louis Hayes (later replaced by drummer Bobby Durham). The trio performed together until 1970. In 1969, Peterson recorded Motions and Emotions, featuring orchestral arrangements of Beatles songs. In 1970, the trio released the album Tristeza on Piano. Jones and Durham left in 1970.

In the 1970s, Peterson formed a trio with guitarist Joe Pass and bassist Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen. This group achieved success similar to his earlier trio with Brown and Ellis, performing at festivals and winning the 1974 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Performance by a Group. In 1978, Peterson performed during a break in the Eurovision Song Contest in Paris. In 1974, he added British drummer Martin Drew to his group, which toured and recorded worldwide. Guitarist Joe Pass once said in an interview: “The only musicians I’ve heard who come close to total mastery of their instruments are Art Tatum and Peterson.”

Peterson worked with other jazz musicians, including saxophonist Ben Webster, trumpeter Clark Terry, and vibraphonist Milt Jackson. In 1961, he recorded the album Very Tall with Jackson. Solo recordings by Peterson were rare until he released Exclusively for My Friends (MPS), a series of albums inspired by pianists like Bill Evans and McCoy Tyner. After the Pablo label was founded in 1973, Peterson recorded for it, including the soundtrack for the 1978 film The Silent Partner. In the 1980s, he performed in a duo with pianist Herbie Hancock. In the late 1980s and 1990s, after a stroke, he performed and recorded with his student Benny Green. In the 1990s and 2000s, he recorded albums with a small group for Telarc.

Peterson had arthritis since childhood and later had difficulty buttoning his shirt. He was never very thin, and his weight increased to 125 kg (276 lb), making it harder to move. He had hip replacement surgery in the early 1990s, but his mobility remained limited. He later taught at York University and served as its chancellor for several years. He also wrote piano exercises for practice.

In 1993, a stroke weakened his left side and kept him from working for two years. That same year, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, a friend and fan, offered him the position of Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario. Peterson declined due to his health. Although he recovered some use of his left hand, his piano playing was affected, and he relied mostly on his right hand. In 1995, he returned to occasional performances and recorded for Telarc. In 1997, he received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and an International Jazz Hall of Fame Award. His friend, Canadian politician Bob Rae, once said, “a one-handed Oscar was better than just about anyone with two hands.”

In 2003, Peterson recorded the DVD A Night in Vienna with Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, Ulf Wakenius, and Martin Drew. He continued to tour the U.S. and Europe, though only for about a month each year, with rest between concerts. In 2007, his health worsened. He canceled plans to perform at the Toronto Jazz Festival and a Carnegie Hall concert in his honor. Peterson died on December 23, 2007, from kidney failure at his home in Mississauga, Ontario.

Personal life

Peterson was married four times. He had seven children with three of his wives. He smoked cigarettes and a pipe. He tried many times to stop smoking, but each time he did, he gained weight. He enjoyed cooking and stayed overweight for his entire life.

Peterson taught piano and making up music on the spot in Canada, mostly in Toronto. He worked with others to start and lead the Advanced School of Contemporary Music in Toronto for five years during the 1960s. The school closed because touring required him and his colleagues to travel, and it did not receive money from the government.

Musical style and influences

Oscar Peterson was inspired by musicians such as Teddy Wilson, Nat King Cole, James P. Johnson, and Art Tatum. Many people compared Peterson to Tatum later in his career. When Peterson’s father played a recording of Tatum’s "Tiger Rag," Peterson felt frightened and discouraged. He stopped playing the piano for several weeks. Peterson once said, "Tatum scared me to death," and added that he never again felt overly confident about his piano skills. During the 1940s and 1950s, Tatum served as a role model for Peterson’s musical abilities. Tatum and Peterson became close friends, though Peterson was often uncomfortable being compared to Tatum and rarely played piano when Tatum was present.

Peterson also credited his sister, a piano teacher in Montreal who taught other Canadian jazz musicians, for helping shape his career. Under her guidance, Peterson studied classical piano techniques and expanded his musical range. He mastered fundamental classical pieces, including scales, preludes, and fugues by Johann Sebastian Bach. Peterson encouraged his students to study Bach’s works, such as The Well-Tempered Clavier, The Goldberg Variations, and The Art of Fugue, which he considered essential for serious pianists. Some of his students included pianists Benny Green and Oliver Jones.

Peterson built on Tatum’s musical style and incorporated influences from Tatum’s favorite works, such as piano concertos by Sergei Rachmaninoff. Peterson’s recordings often included harmonies and passages from Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto. His most famous group, the Oscar Peterson Trio, included bassist Ray Brown and guitarist Herb Ellis. During the 1960s and 1970s, Peterson released many recordings with his trio, showcasing his varied musical style, which blended jazz, popular music, and classical traditions.

Pianist and educator Mark Eisenman noted that some of Peterson’s finest performances were as an accompanist for singer Ella Fitzgerald and trumpeter Roy Eldridge.

Legacy

Oscar Peterson was considered one of history's great jazz pianists. Duke Ellington called him the "Maharaja of the keyboard," while his friends knew him as "O.P." In the jazz community, he was often called "the King of inside swing."

Oscar Peterson was honored on two postage stamps: one from Austrian Post in 2003 and another from Canada Post in 2005.

In 2021, Barry Avrich produced a documentary about Peterson's life titled Oscar Peterson: Black + White. The film had its first showing at the Toronto International Film Festival that same year. Also in 2021, Peterson was the subject of a Heritage Minute on Canadian television. Contemporary jazz pianist Thompson Egbo-Egbo played the role of young Peterson in the segment.

In 2022, Oscar Peterson was featured on a commemorative one-dollar coin (called a "loonie") produced by the Canadian mint.

Awards and honours

• 1975: Best Jazz Group Performance: The Trio
• 1977: Best Jazz Soloist Performance: The Giants
• 1978: Best Jazz Solo Instrumental Performance: Oscar Peterson Jam – Montreux '77
• 1979: Best Jazz Solo Instrumental Performance: Oscar Peterson and The Trumpet Kings – Jousts
• 1990: Best Jazz Group Instrumental Performance: Live at the Blue Note
• 1990: Best Jazz Solo Instrumental Performance: The Legendary Oscar Peterson Trio Live at the Blue Note
• 1991: Best Jazz Group Instrumental Performance: Saturday Night at the Blue Note
• 1997: Lifetime Achievement Award for Instrumental Soloist

• Pianist of the Year, DownBeat magazine (1950), and won again for the next 12 years
• Order of Canada: Officer (1972); Companion (1984)
• Canadian Silver Jubilee Medal (Queen Elizabeth II), 1977
• Canadian Music Hall of Fame, 1978
• Martin Luther King Jr. Achievement Award, Black Theatre Workshop, 1986
• Roy Thomson Award, 1987
• Toronto Arts Award for Lifetime Achievement, 1991
• Governor General's Performing Arts Award, 1992
• Order of Ontario, member (1992)
• 125th Anniversary of the Confederation of Canada Medal, 1992
• Glenn Gould Prize, 1993
• International Society for Performing Artists Award, 1995
• Loyola Medal of Concordia University, 1997
• Praemium Imperiale World Art Award, 1999
• Oscar Peterson Concert Hall named at Concordia University, 1999
• UNESCO Music Prize, 2000
• Toronto Musicians' Association Musician of the Year, 2001
• Canadian Golden Jubilee Medal (Queen Elizabeth II), 2002
• SOCAN Special Achievement Award, 2008
• Canada's Walk of Fame, 2013
• Canadian Jazz and Blues Hall of Fame
• Juno Award Hall of Fame
• BBC Radio Lifetime Achievement Award
• National Order of Quebec, Chevalier
• Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France
• Civic Award of Merit, City of Mississauga, 2003
• Oscar Peterson Theatre, Canadian Embassy, Tokyo, Japan, 2007
• Oscar Peterson Hall, University of Toronto Mississauga, 2008
• Oscar Peterson Public School, Stouffville, 2009
• Parc Oscar-Peterson, Little Burgundy, Montreal, renamed in honor of Oscar Peterson, 2009
• Statue of Oscar Peterson unveiled in Ottawa by Queen Elizabeth II, 2010
• "Jazz Born Here" mural by Gene Pendon depicting Oscar Peterson, at Rue Saint-Jacques and Rue des Seigneurs in Montreal
• Historica Canada Heritage Minute, 2021
• Honorary degrees from Berklee College of Music, Carleton University, Queen's University, Concordia University, Université Laval, McMaster University, Mount Allison University, Niagara University, Northwestern University, University of Toronto, University of the West Indies, University of Western Ontario, University of Victoria, and York University
• (Announced) Public square to be named in honor of Oscar Peterson, Montreal, 2021

Instruments

• Bösendorfer pianos – used in the 1980s and 2000s, with some performances from the 1970s onward.
• Yamaha – Acoustic and Disklavier models; used for touring and recording in Canada from 1998 to 2006.
• Steinway & Sons Model A (located at Village Studios in Los Angeles) – most performances from the 1940s through the 1980s, with some recordings.
• Baldwin pianos – used in some performances in the United States and in some recordings.
• C. Bechstein Pianofortefabrik pianos – used in some performances and recordings in Europe.
• Petrof pianos – used in some performances in Europe.
• Clavichord – featured on the album Porgy and Bess with Joe Pass.
• Fender Rhodes electric piano – used in several recordings.
• Synthesizer – used in several recordings.
• Hammond organ – used in some live performances and several recordings.
• Vocals – used in some live performances and several recordings.