Well, somewhere in the Holiday Season comes Christmas, and somewhere in there is some celebration of a new life. On the other hand, the great pianist Oscar Peterson died the day before Christmas Eve. (See an AP story/obituary here, for example.) At about 6:00pm on Christmas Eve, I usually pronounce it time to have the first strong drink of the evening, and declare Christmas as having begun (defying everyone else who seem to want to start it earlier every year) by playing Carols, and other relevant music, the Christmas tree having been erected. It was again so this year, and I dug out my only “Christmas CD” and put it on. The first track was – of course – the excellent version of Thad Jones’ “A Child is Born” , by Oscar Peterson. In order to share this with you, I thought I’d see if perhaps the man himself might be playing it somewhere on YouTube, but was unable to find it. However, someone else was playing the piece, styling it after and reproducing Oscar Peterson’s famous version, and so I give you – with warm wishes for Christmas and the New Year – “A Child is Born”, Oscar Peterson’s version, channeled through the playing of an unknown (to me) pianist. (Hang on for some actual Peterson in a mo’):
Oscar Peterson was simply amazing, and (especially, for me, as an accompanist to several singers I love) he brought me a huge amount of musical joy, and it is sad to tell him goodbye, but so be it. Here he is, at somewhere near the height of his powers in 1969 (?), playing “Goodbye”.
Goodbye Oscar Peterson.
-cvj
Magnificent.
I am mystified that Oscar Peterson has 193,000 sites liked to his name and B. Spears has 104,000,000.
Oscar is truly a Legend!!!! I hate he’s gone, I wish I could had the chance to see him live.
Heard about Oscar’s death on the BBC World Service in the early hours of Christmas morning. A sad moment, but one can only celebrate his life and music. 40+ years ago a neighbour lent me her only jazz LP to play on our new Dansette, “Night Train” opened up the world of jazz for me
I was hoping you would make mention of Oscar’s passing and tremendous contribution to the world of music. I had the great pleasure of being able to hangout with him a number of times in the late 1960s (along with Artie Shaw, a personal hero at the time). His wife at the time (number one as i recall and quite a good jazz singer) was on staff at the UCLA Fernald School working with children identified with various learning disabilities. My scholarship job (three years worth) was to provide motor performance skills instruction for the kids, and that involved a great deal of games and dance work. Oscar would show up to play some accompaniment to some group movement class or another, and it was always a school-wide treat (Julie Andrews was someone else who made regular appearances). He was hysterically funny, a great practical joker, and all the kids (mixed races) loved him dearly. We all did.
Some of us (those that were more serious music lovers) pooled our resources to purchase a single membership at the Playboy Club in Hollywood, where Oscar would hold forth quite often (he also played at Gene Krupa’s club downtown too). In those days a member could bring one guest per night, and i could find out when Artie or Oscar were playing, or who was scheduled for the Playboy After Dark television show that was taped there (yes the Grateful Dead did bring the actual kool-aid to the club). Hanging out in the lounge listening to Oscar for hours, we “closeted” hippies (you couldn’t let your freak flag fly at the club–coats and ties required) would secretly let our legs dance under the tables to his amazing riffs.
Thanks Professor for the vid clips. I think perhaps there might be some Playboy After Dark Oscar material around (maybe on Myspace video storage or Viacom–i can’t remember who bought the rights to all of that?).
A sad moment but many thanks for the link to the video. I’ll certainly be putting on one of his albums this afternoon to wind down to.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!