© With the permission of Wilfrid Laurier University

Transcription:

Oscar Peterson, known as Canada’s "Golden Boy of Jazz," is acclaimed by many critics as the greatest living pianist. His partners in the triumphant trio are Ray Brown, bassist, who has been part of the Dizzy Gillespie wing of the bop revolution and Ella Fitzgerald’s accompanist, and Louis Hayes, drummer, who achieved fame as a member of the Horace Silver and the Cannonball Adderly combinations.

Mr. Peterson began his formal piano training at the age of six in Montreal. He emerged as a celebrity at Carnegie Hall, New York,  September 18, 1949 to win rave reviews and an international audience that multiplies concert by concert. He’s No. 1 at Regal Recordings Ltd., which produces his albums, and at Tomi Music Ltd., which publishes his compositions, both firms based in Toronto.

Like WLU (thanks, alumni!), Oscar Peterson takes special pride in his $7,500 Steinway Concert Grand Piano. If there isn’t a Steinway, Oscar doesn’t play. Together - man and piano - they make sounds that turn a cold Turkey into a real cool cat.

Says Jack Battan in MACLEAN’S (April 17, 1965) reporting a concert:

"The effect of the music on Peterson’s followers was galvanizing. By the third number, a stomping blues tune, most of the audience was tapping, swaying and in such a restless motion that it seemed as it the floor beneath them must have grown unbearably hot. Peterson, for his part, rocked easily back and forth on his bench, occasionally cocking his head to his left to catch some subtelty [sic] of Ray Brown’s bass, more rarely surveying his audience, apparently absentmindedly, as if he felt a duty to acknowledge that he wasn’t after all, playing alone, for his private pleasure."

Russ Wilson, CALIFORNIA TRIBUNE critic, says of the combo: "Not only are its members outstanding instrumentalists who can and do play exceptional solos, they also are so closely knit in their musical thinking as to be truly a combination of ‘one for all and all for one’."

Strictly Ad Libitum [L] *

Abbr. Ad Lib [Show Biz]

* As One Wishes;

[Oscar Feels It Coming On]

* * To Any Extent;

[Full Range of jazz Enjoyment]

* * * At Pleasure.

[All the Way, Man!]

Ushers: Kathy Becker, Penny Edwards, Olwen Smithson, Bob Schmitt, Dave Watson, Keith Knights, Jean Widmeyer and Bob Nisbet.

Oscar Peterson:

Ray Brown:

Louis Hayes:

Steinway Concert
Grand Piano:

Memorabilia

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