He was a, perhaps the, leading light of music in his native Canada. A Companion of the Order of Canada - the highest recognition that a private citizen can attain - Peterson, who dropped out of high school to become a piano player, ended up with honorary doctorates from no less than 10 Canadian universities and a school in Ontario named for him. Montreal's Concordia University named their music hall after him, and the courtyard in Toronto's largest office complex, the Toronto-Dominion Centre, is Oscar Peterson Square. He's a man who commands the respect of an entire nation.
But what he was more than anything else was a piano player, admired, beloved, and universally revered. Duke Ellington made a telling comment about him onstage one evening 40 years ago. "When I was a small boy my music teacher was Mrs Clinkscales. The first thing she ever said to me was, 'Edward, always remember, whatever you do, don't sit down at the piano after Oscar Peterson.'"
The daunting aside to that comment, of course, is that every piano player to come along since then has sat down at the piano after Oscar Peterson. And every piano player to come along in the future will, too. His is a shadow that may be inescapable. And while his death adds to 2007's unforgivable cruelty to the jazz world, it serves both to cap and to remind us of a long, rich, beautifully lived and realized life. The tireless artist, entertainer, educator, and ambassador is finally resting.
So long, Oscar.
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Article comments
1 - Pico
Whenever a jazz great has left us you always seem to rise to the occasion, Michael. Yet another informative, eloquant and thought-provoking tribute from Mr. West.
Rest peacefully, Oscar.
2 - Michael J. West
Thank you, Pico. Man, this was a hard one to write.
3 - MrD
Thanks for the best review of Oscar's contribution to our love of jazz.
Your comment "Let’s forget for a moment about what he might arguably have been and talk instead about what Peterson definitely was" should have been applied by many of the newspaper writers who just repeated the old mantra that Peterson was just technique with no soul
4 - Lorenzo
...Duke Ellington made a telling comment about him onstage one evening 40 years ago. "When I was a small boy my music teacher was Mrs Clinkscales. The first thing she ever said to me was, 'Edward, always remember, whatever you do, don't sit down at the piano after Oscar Peterson.'"
This sentence is puzzling me... and making me laugh!
The Duke was born in 1899, and Peterson in 1925... so, when Ellington was a small boy... I think you can draw an inference...
Thus, either Mrs Clinkscales (nice name!!!) was a prophet, or, in the late '40s, when Peterson was becoming famous, Ellington, notorious "Peter Pan", was still a small boy...
I apologize for my sarcasm, but I'm wondering who have invented such a canard...
5 - Michael J. West
Lorenzo -
Duke was making a joke. :-)
6 - David Palmquist
Duke's "put-ons" were compliments.