© 1990 USA Today. Reprinted with permission

Transcription:

Music / By James T. Jones IV

USA TODAY - Tuesday, November 13, 1990

Armed with three new albums, Oscar Peterson is reinstating his position as the best pianist in jazz.

Having played with everyone from Louis Armstrong to Ella Fitzgerald during his 46 year career, Peterson, 65, is back from a three-year recording hiatus with three very different recordings.

They all swing to high heaven.

Oscar Peterson Live! (Pablo), recorded with guitar veteran Joe Pass, celebrates Bach’s 300th birthday; Live at the Blue Note (Telarc) features the long-awaited reunion of the Oscar Peterson Trio with bassist Ray Brown and guitarist Herb Ellis; and My Favorite Instrument (MPS/BASF) is a reissue featuring his solo work.

Again, fans are heralding the Toronto resident’s dazzling finger work and technical virtuosity. Influenced by legend Art Tatum, Peterson is a ferocious player who literally attacks the keyboard. His style combines the best qualities of swing and be-bop.

But his fingers are playing an additional instrument these days: the pen. He just finished documenting his life in an autobiography, coming out next summer. (He’s also the subject of Gene Lees’ book, The Will to Swing.)

The Canadian government had commissioned him to write the Live! album’s Bach Suite, a richly textured three-part medley that cleverly blends classical elements with jazz swing and soulful blues.

And he’s writing a tune for Montreal’s 300th birthday, which he’ll perform next year with his trio and a symphony.

"Writing is very satisfying to me," Peterson says. "I get a chance to take an inside look at myself."

He’s also writing most of the songs for the next album, on which, surprisingly, he’ll play synthesizers. That should shock fans who are used to his straight-ahead, grandiose approach. He scoffs at jazz purists who put down synthesizers.

"That’s silly. That’s like saying they don’t exist." But he insists the music is still "going to be jazz. I only play what I know."

While he’s excited by that project, the jazz world is ecstatic about the long-awaited, historic reunion of the Oscar Peterson Trio, which will tour Europe starting Wednesday.

Originally from Montreal, Peterson made his U.S. debut in New York’s Carnegie Hall in 1949 with Brown. They later added Ellis, and the trio attracted worldwide acclaim.

By the ‘60s, they’d embarked on separate careers, running into each other occasionally on the road. Once, in Paris, Brown allowed Peterson to sit in with his group and asked him about reuniting the trio.

"I had to admit," Peterson says. "It was my favorite trio of them all. I said, ‘Let’s do it. It would be fun.’ "

Though they hadn’t recorded together since the ‘50s, they decided not to rehearse for the reunion album.

"We wanted to do it as honestly as possible," Peterson says. "I thought it would be very interesting to see what would happen if we just came in and started playing.(sic)"

"We opened in Tokyo first, and we played there a week. And then we came to New York and recorded live at the Blue Note. It worked out beautifully.... When you play with that type of talent, it’s pretty hard to go wrong."

[Photo]
The pianist says ‘Jazz is a matter of being mature in your choice of what you play and create.’

Pianist Oscar Peterson is worried about who’s carrying on the jazz legacy. He’s not impressed with the media hype over the emergence of so-called young jazz like trumpeter Roy Hargrove and pianist Harry Connick Jr., leading Time to declare a new jazz age.

"They’re a little early for all this praise," Peterson says. "Duke (Ellington), Dizzy (Gillespie), Roy Eldridge and Coleman Hawkins didn’t make it overnight."

He’s worried that the younger players may be overly concerned about album sales.

"They are a little more involved with what’s going to sell or what’s viable commercially, rather than just going in there and playing from a creative standpoint.(sic)"

"It’s just not a matter of paying dues," he says. "You have to have those years of experience. Jazz is a matter of being mature in your choice of what you play and create. You can’t just manufacture that because somebody walks into a record studio and says, ‘I’m going to make a star out of (you)."

Peterson is not just standing around complaining. Between performances, he’s an adjunct professor at York University in Toronto.

"I played with everybody from the old school (swing) to what was then the new movement (be-bop)," he says. "I learned a lot. And I’m still learning. That’s what it takes."

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