I was never a bonafide jazz person. I like it but never to the extent where I had to listen to 2 sides to get me going in the morning like my old friend Sheila. She was an Esther Phillips fan and had everything (I think) by the great jazz singer.
But Oscar Peterson was someone who transcended the lines between popular, blues and jazz and had fans who loved different genres than jazz; just like someone who is not a hockey fan will appreciate Wayne Gretzky or Sidney Crosby.
He was a Canadian, born in Montreal in 1925 and was originally trained by a classical teacher. While he was still a teenager he got a job playing piano on radio at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. A National Film Board short on Oscar and his trio landed them a spot at Carnegie Hall and the rest, as they say, is history.
My favorite memory of him was a radio interview when he recalled when his father, a CPR porter, brought an Art Tatum record home one day and put it on the phonograph. When Oscar heard the music coming from the next room he asked his father, “Hey, who’re those two piano players?”
A favorite of Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong, Peterson recorded more than 100 albums and won 3 Grammy’s. His achievements in his home country did not go unnoticed and he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada in 1985, his country’s highest honor.