© Courtesy of the New York Amsterdam News

Transcription :

Amsterdam News

February 8, 1960

By Leonard Feather

Back in the bad old days, when jazz was still a dirty word, the musicians who wanted to study it had to rely on a process of trial and error, or guilt by association.

Today, to become a jazz musician, you don’t have to do it just by hanging around the poolroom with other jazz musicians. You can go to a jazz school.

Oscar Peterson, the burly, good-humored 35-year old Canadian who can play as much swinging jazz piano as any living man, has pioneered in this field by giving up several months of each year to the development of his Advanced School of Contemporary Music Ltd. in Toronto.

The members of the Peterson Trio, bassist Ray Brown and drummer Edmund Thigpen, are the only Americans on the faculty, which includes composer Phil Nimmons and four other top Canadian jazzmen.

"It’s a challenge for us as well as for the students," says Peterson whose trio recently opened opposite Ella Fitzgerald at the Crescendo in Hollywood. "We started with an experimental course two years ago; using eight actual playing students as guinea pigs. Next season, we advertised in local papers and in Down Beat, this past year we had 56 students. We hope to accommodate 100 this year. Our youngest student is 17 and our oldest is in her mid-fifties."

"How long do the courses run?" I asked.

"We’re extending them next season from 17 to 20 weeks. Allowing for all the preparations, I’ll be home in Toronto at least five months."

"We try to keep away from the classroom feeling. The student gets private instruction on whatever instrument he is majoring in; theory and piano and ear training are mandatory; and we have playing forums for both improvisation and written music."

"The students have tremendous fervor. Of course we can tell them that we cannot teach jazz as such, but if they can play and like to play we can mold them, give them direction. As far as control and technique on the instruments is concerned, ironically our biggest fight has been in getting them to revert to the classical medium."

Peterson is too modest to say so, but much of the success of his school stems from the esteem in which he is held by jazz fans. Discovered in 1949 by jazz impresario Norman Granz, he started touring with Granz’s Jazz at the Philharmonic unit and immediately began to win the annual music magazine polls as the top jazz pianist.

His dynamic style is one of the most directly communicative and compelling sounds in jazz. Ray Brown, too, is a poll-winner and a Norman Granz protege [sic]. Drummer Thigpen, who joined the Peterson Trio two and one-half years ago, is one of the most gifted and scholarly of the newer percussion stars.

I asked Peterson whether he might open branch offices with a view of becoming a sort of Arthur Murray of jazz.

"I don’t want to do that unless we can control the methods carefully. We must be sure our principles are followed. But perhaps we can do that making instructors out of our own students."

"There’s already talk of our doing it in Germany, in collaboration with the West German government; some people from a music academy approached us."

To which I can only add the suggestion that if you can’t conveniently get to West Germany or Toronto [sic] Oscar and Nimmons and most of the faculty members are handsomely represented by their LPs on Verve Records.

They may not do as much for you as private tuition, but they sure make a pleasant correspondence course in music appreciation.

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