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-[piano keys tuning octaves] -[musicians chatter]
[bass riff playing]
I could listen to about four notes,
and I'd say, "That's Oscar." [chuckles]
[Herbie Hancock] It's a beautiful day.
To be here, feeling the spirit of Oscar,
it's a very, very special, special thing for me.
[various instruments playing]
It's been amazing, just...
in company of such great musicians.
If I can honor him
the best that I can, that's enough,
and I'm sure that's all he would ask.
[jazz music]
My first guest is someone who is most simply described
as the best jazz pianist in the world.
[jazz piano music]
He has such virtuoso technique
and such a... breathtaking imagination.
[jazz piano music]
It's my pleasure now to introduce--
-Oscar Peterson! -Oscar Peterson.
Oscar Peterson!
[audience applauds]
[jazz piano music]
[Oscar Peterson] I get up in the morning, I think "piano".
I go to bed at night, I think "piano".
During the day, I think "piano".
I am a jazz pianist. That's all I want to be.
What he just threw away for five seconds,
I would cut off my arm to be able to do.
Who's at the top of the heap? Oscar.
[jazz piano music]
He's certainly one of the
greatest exponents of jazz music
of our time, and even anytime.
[Ramsey Lewis] Oscar Peterson was the best in piano playing.
The best that there could be.
[jazz piano music]
[Jon Batiste] Oscar Peterson comes along,
and he just fits in this
wonderful mosaic puzzle of jazz in the history.
He fills another gap. He fills a void.
[jazz piano music]
You can't talk about jazz
in the middle of the 20th century
without understanding
what a phenomenon Oscar Peterson was.
[jazz piano music]
[audience applauds]
♪ ♪
[slow jazz piano music]
He plays with power, but also
there's a certain lightness to it,
because it's so easy.
[Botos] One of the first albums I heard,
records I heard, was "Oscar Peterson Plus One."
The major things I remember feeling was
the freedom, the swing.
S-W-I-N-G, swing. [chuckles]
That is what I think about Oscar Peterson.
I mean, he embodies swing.
[jazz music]
[speaking French]
[playing "Place St. Henri"]
Oscar, I'm sure that our viewers would like to know
some more about your very exciting career.
Tell me, how did it all get started?
[Oscar] Well, it all started with my dad.
He became a musician
because of being a sailor.
He bought himself some kind of little organ,
and taught himself how to play organ.
He taught my mom how to play and then he decided,
as the children came along,
that we should all have a workable knowledge of music.
And I think it was wonderful. I started on trumpet originally.
-Did you really? -Yes, I did.
-What age? -Five.
But I had tuberculosis.
When I came out of the hospital about a year later,
they asked me not to play a wind instrument,
and go back to the piano, which I did.
Do you think you were destined
for the piano in some way?
At that age, I thought
I was destined to play baseball.
[audience laughs]
[jazz music]
[Joel Michaels] And his dad would come home, expecting Oscar to be able to do
what he had studied the week before.
And Oscar, a few hours before his dad came home,
he'd sit down and figure everything out,
and that's how Oscar trained.
[jazz music]
♪ ♪
The two teachers I really remember, of course, were my sister Daisy,
and then a gentleman who had a great, great influence on me,
a Hungarian classical pianist by the name of Paul De Marky.
I taught him... technique,
speedy fingers,
because that's what you need in jazz.
[Oscar] In music, he made me believe
that I did have something to offer the music world.
I attended a conservatory for a very short time.
By that time I had more or less decided on jazz,
which was not what the conservatory was teaching.
So, I sort of had to make it up,
with live role models.
People like Teddy Wilson,
Nat King Cole.
[jazz music]
In an effort to deflate the ego of my youth,
my father brought home an Art Tatum record.
It actually haunted me that
someone could play the piano this well.
-Yeah. -[audience laughs]
[Oscar] I gave up the piano for two solid months,
and had crying fits at night.
[Russonello] And so many musicians rightly have that moment,
and recognize that indeed,
nobody was going to beat Art Tatum.
If there's one musician of the 20th century, who...
had that moment and proved himself wrong,
it's Oscar Peterson.
[jazz trio playing]
♪ ♪
[Oscar] My sister got me on the amateur show here in Canada,
and I won my division.
And then came guest shots, and so forth, and so on.
[announcer] Young Oscar Peterson, 220 pounds
of terrific musical sense and piano technique,
has been cutting a rhythmic, blazing
path of success over the airwaves.
A combination of Art Tatum, Teddy Wilson,
still going to school,
he manages to make his presence felt
on as many occasions that his homework will allow.
[jazz music]
[woman] How old were you when you first started
playing the nightclub circuit?
[Oscar] Well, I started playing dance halls,
I would say around 16 or 17.
[man] Were you playing with any name bands?
[Oscar] Yes, I'm playing with Johnny Holmes' orchestra.
He's also my manager.
[Johnny Holmes] That piano is the piano that Oscar Peterson played on
when he started with us in 1942.
When he came into our band at 17,
he was a diamond-in-the-rough.
He would blow everything in the first chorus.
But I had a talk with him.
He criticized and, you know,
praised, if it was needed.
[jazz music]
I had an offer from Count Basie, first of all,
and he asked me, if I ever got to New York, to look him up.
From my opinion, music is opening up in Canada and
there's a much greater future on its way
to all the young musicians in Canada.
and I'd like to stick and be here when it does.
[jazz music]
[Quincy Jones] Everyone I knew had heard the rumors about
this incredible, young piano player
from, of all places, Montreal.
Now, I must admit, back then,
I didn't even know they had Black people in Canada.
[audience laughs]
Here's what I'm thinking,
the first verse, maybe even,
I don't know, just really light,
I'm just, I'm not gonna do just one note, I'm gonna go like--
-[piano playing] -[humming in rhythm]
♪ ♪
I met Oscar when he first came to Halifax,
while I was living there.
I think about him a lot, when I hear the music.
Especially when I play the music.
He came in. The plane was late.
He jumped on the stage, he was playing solo piano,
and it was amazing.
[jazz music]
After having succeeded at winning a CBC radio contest,
after having getting a contract with RCA Victor--
like that was big time, in the day.
When he was finally situated at the Alberta Lounge,
he was heard by Norman Granz.
[Russonello] Norman Granz takes jazz and he brings it
into a realm of a sort of a signifier of sophistication.
[man] Norman Granz, the originator of Jazz at the Philharmonic
and the greatest impresario in jazz.
Many years ago, when I was
touring Canada and the United States
with Jazz at the Philharmonic,
I was told by Coleman Hawkins
and Billy Strayhorn
about a marvelous piano player in Canada,
and I finally had a chance to hear
Oscar Peterson in Vancouver.
I was so unimpressed with Oscar Peterson,
I didn't bother even to listen to him anymore.
I must admit, I completely forgot about Oscar.
♪ ♪
Well, I was in Montreal then,
I took a taxi for the airport,
and the cabbie had his radio going,
and I heard this wonderful piano playing.
I thought it was a disc jockey.
At the end of the number, I asked him
if he could give me the name of the station.
He said, "No, that wasn't a station.
That was the Alberta Lounge, where
it was a group playing, Oscar Peterson."
And I very dramatically said,
"Turn right around and let's go there."
[Oscar] I said, "My God, it's Norman Granz!"
And I couldn't believe that he's sitting in the lounge.
He said, "I'd like you to take a shot at
the American jazz market."
He invited me to be a guest artist
on the Carnegie Hall concert that fall,
with Jazz at the Philharmonic.
And I remember how reticent I was to even take you up on the offer,
because I wasn't ready to play in that sort of league.
[woman] But you held out for a long time.
Yeah, but it wasn't the right time,
really and it was wrong.
It was, I was really immature,
personally, mentally, whatever way you want to...
I was a kid of 13, mentally.
A 13-year-old kid, their heads would be turned.
You have to be pretty objective about yourself to say,
I have to hone my craft and I'm gonna do it.
Oh, I didn't say it, my mother and father said it.
I was trying to talk them into it.
-Oh, really? -Yeah!
But they said, "No, no, not at 13.
We don't want you smokin' pot till you're... 21."
I finally agreed to do it. He decided it should be at Carnegie Hall.
He said, "Take your best shot and you'll know in one shot.
If you make it, you'll know it. if you don't make it, you'll know that too.
[jazz music]
Actually, I was not supposed to play when I went down there,
You're not allowed to play or work
in the United States without a visa.
So when I came through, one of the
immigration officers, he said,
"You're not planning to play down there, are you?"
I said, "No, not me." "So what you coming down for?"
I said, "I'm going to hear a concert in New York.
He said, "Oh, okay."
[jazz music continues]
I went down for Norman Granz's concert there,
and I even sat in the audience. As a matter of fact,
my name didn't even appear on the program.
He came down and got me. He said,
"I want you to go out there and do your thing.
Just go there and play."
I said, "No wait a minute. I haven't been playing solo piano."
He said, "Oh, I'll tell you what, I'll let you use Ray Brown.'"
Up until the time Ray Brown and myself stepped on stage,
we really didn't know what was going to happen,
or what to expect, until suddenly...
[audience applauds]
[fast jazz piano music]
[audience applauds]
How would I have known about Oscar Peterson
if it wasn't for Norman Granz?
[chuckles]
[Jones] I first heard about him because I was going to
Jazz at the Philharmonic all the time,
and I heard that Norman Granz
was grooming some new piano player,
who was 17 years old. And it was Oscar.
[Bill King] He's coming from Canada. He's coming from Montreal.
So he's coming in without the influence of
the club scene in America.
And I think that kind of shaped his style of playing.
[Batiste] But then he also has the soul of somebody
who grew up playing in like, down home blues joints,
juke joints, speakeasies.
Being a Canadian,
and not coming up in that tradition,
it was in his DNA somehow.
You know, when he came out, it was just so polished.
[Russonello] For Oscar Peterson to arrive into that
as essentially a rookie,
but somebody who was so deeply proven at home,
it's almost like you're in the big leagues,
and you're already known as an enormous star.
And that set the tone for Oscar Peterson's career.
All I know is that I wanted to play.
I came to play, and that was my main intent.
Norman Granz saw that and
gave him a lot of running room.
I guess you can more-or-less say this was
the beginning of an international career.
[jazz music]
[Oscar] The following fall,
I did the full tour of Jazz at the Philharmonic,
and I believe that it's sincerely what launched me
on the music scene in the United States.
[fast jazz music playing]
[Jones] They were the best players in the world,
and Norman Granz took them all over the world.
And crowds, everywhere they went, they went crazy,
myself included.
[Russonello] Granz had had this idea
to bring these virtuoso Black musicians
into the concert hall.
It made going to the Philharmonic to hear jazz,
a society activity.
Jazz at the Philharmonic
put jazz musicians
on a national and even international stage.
[Granz] We're happy to be back in Amsterdam for our annual concert.
[audience applauds]
The Oscar Peterson Trio!
[piano music]
[Granz] Jazz at the Phil had never been to Japan,
and they had a parade, they had the whole thing
down the streets of Tokyo, with the confetti and
it was quite an auspicious occasion.
[Oscar] I remember when we went to Japan,
he made the announcement.
I still can't believe this...
in Japanese.
[Granz speaking Japanese]
On piano, Oscar Peterson.
[audience applauds]
[Oscar] We were all standing in the wings
with our mouths open saying,
"I thought he was American!" [laughs]
But that's how deeply he would get,
and become involved in these things.
[Ramsey Lewis] Norman Granz made sure that
Oscar, and Ella, and all the other ones
that was under his umbrella,
were treated properly, were treated
as well as classical musicians
and played the best halls.
♪ It was just ♪
♪ One of those things ♪
[Oscar] When you play, certainly on a show like Jazz at the Phil,
it's a matter of competition.
We traveled many times so much by bus.
You know, Ella, Roy,
Norman, you know Ray,
Herbie Ellis, it was a family.
And when Ella was singing something like that--
It was a beautiful afternoon, and she started singing.
And next thing you know,
Herbie got his guitar out, and he started playing for her,
and Ray took his bass and sat halfway in the aisle with the bass.
And she was singing these beautiful tunes,
and the sun was just going down,
and I'll never forget that scene as long as I live.
But it was a family, and he wanted it that way.
I'm thankful that I was fortunate enough
to be able to hear all of these greats
and learn from them.
[Ella] ♪ Here's hoping We meet now and then ♪
♪ It was great fun ♪
♪ But it was just ♪
♪ One of those things ♪
[audience applauds]
[fast jazz piano music]
[Russonello] The format of the guitar, the piano, and the bass
was the one that he went to early in his career,
when he first landed in New York.
I had a chance to ask Oscar about that,
and he said that Nat Cole was a big influence on him.
[jazz music]
His trio influenced my choice of sound
when I formed my own trio with bass and guitar.
[jazz trio music]
♪ ♪
That's about the time that Herbie Ellis joined us on guitar,
and it really made a trio out of us.
♪ ♪
[Herb Ellis] It was really a trio that
we were completely involved,
musically and personally,
[Ray Brown] So he, you know, he said,
"Hey man, let's just get ours together and...
so that it operates under any kind of conditions.
And we want to be able to play any song and make it work.
[Hancock] It was Ray Brown that influenced almost
every bass player that I've ever met.
[Oscar] I can remember the great feeling of exhilaration that I had,
being able to call the tunes that I wanted,
and to have them played exactly the way
I wanted them played.
♪ ♪
[Ellis] Ray and I have often talked about that.
We tried to play for Oscar.
I mean, everybody wasn't out for himself.
And we all got our individual solos,
and Oscar gave us plenty of chance to play.
But when Oscar played,
we really played to make him sound
as good as we could make him sound.
[Branford Marsalis] Well, I mean, none of them worked
as well as that trio. That was the great trio.
One of the things
that is very important in a band
is that you have musicians who understand
what their function is.
I just think that Oscar Peterson was such a listener,
such a person who could
give it all to you on the keyboard,
while also maintaining this incredible awareness
of what was going on around him.
[Lewis] Oscar would look back at, you know, Ray Brown, and Herb Ellis,
and he was saying, "Don't drag it!"
'cause Oscar liked to, he used to like to push the beat.
What was he able to do was take the trio, the standards,
and make the whole trio sound like a big band.
[Oscar] We went into a Basin Street place,
opposite a big band, a well-known big band.
We finished our set, and the leader got up on the stand.
He said "We don't know what to follow that with."
[jazz music playing]
♪ ♪
Right after that, Herbie Ellis on guitar was replaced
by Ed Thigpen on drums,
and while we were in that period, we also did a bit of singing.
[jazz music playing]
♪ What makes me treat you ♪
♪ The way that I do ♪
♪ Gee, baby Ain't I good to you? ♪
You also have to watch how you approach playing with the drummer, believe it or not,
because most people think that it's complete freedom. It isn't!
To the contrary to me,
you have to then complement what the bass player is doing.
[Ray Brown] After all of us being with Jazz at the Philharmonic,
and now we wind up with that group.
There's a lot of stuff that you
have accrued over those years
of playing with all those giants.
And now this stuff can come out.
[Hancock] Because of the kind of players that he had,
his generosity and,
allowing their sound to be
so much a part of the sound of the band.
♪ ♪
[Russonello] That trio, essentially,
sort of sets a new standard for being able to
have this incredible amount of power,
and a sound that really takes advantage of Oscar Peterson's
ability to play all 88 keys.
[bass jazz music]
[Brown] Perhaps because this particular group
melded so well,
and we became so sensitive,
one to the other.
This poster showed a picture of the three heads,
but Oscar's, of course, was dominant,
and it was like we were really inside of each other.
That was the idea of the orchestra became an instrument,
and each had a particular place,
but it was shifting all the time.
And he was the focal point
because stylistically, as an arranger, he's incredible.
There was a love in that group
that I would have to say, showed in the music.
We weren't afraid of anything at that time. I've changed now!
We may have been wrong, but we were strong!
[both laugh]
[jazz music playing]
[jazz piano music playing]
Solo piano and group piano,
two totally different things.
Because solo piano is a very free form.
You can do almost anything, go anywhere.
You can change key at a second's notice,
where you don't have tell anyone what key you're going to.
Group has to know.
And if you pull that on the group, as I said,
you're gonna be playing solo piano the next night,
whether you want to or not!
♪ ♪
[Russonello] He has the ability to span across a whole lot of the keyboard.
I mean, he's equipped to play the piano,
in all sorts of ways, and he went there.
[Hancock] His sense of swing, and melody,
and just the sound that he would get on the instrument.
And his stuff was funky,
and it could be beautiful and tender,
and all those different emotions.
[slow jazz music]
[Oscar] Playing to me, cannot possibly always be fun.
It takes a lot out of me to play,
so, I guess where it really is fun,
is if it's a recording date, hearing the result.
♪ ♪
[Marsalis] My entree to Oscar was that record
"In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning"
and I listened to that record
at least two times a day,
every day for a year and a half.
My dad showed me a Oscar Peterson record.
"Au Privave" was on the record, "Scrapple from the Apple."
I remember listening to those two tracks over and over.
And I just wondered how he was able to make the piano
sound like he had four hands.
Just sounded like there was so much goin' on.
[Joel] When I was a kid, those jazz records
were really, really important to me.
And I would play these jazz albums on,
into the wee hours of the night,
while I was still living at home with my mom,
and she'd bang on the wall, "Turn that down!"
I'd say, "It's Oscar Peterson!'
[Russonello] He's somebody that
people who've used him as an accompanist,
come back to him.
This ability to engage in
ostentatious, virtuoso,
just unbelievable playing, but also
to be somebody that's actually a joy to work with
and to be somebody that does not
drown out his collaborators,
is remarkable.
At that time we were serving sort of
as the house rhythm section for Norman,
while he had Verve Records.
And each player needs a certain thing.
What we played, for instance, for Sonny Stitt,
we could never play for Stan Getz.
The way we played for Charlie Parker,
we would not play that way for Benny Carter.
And the intrusions you might pull off on Dizzy Gillespie,
there is no imaginable way
we would take these liberties for Lester Young.
Oscar, on those records says everything
that you need to know,
and people that don't know, won't understand
anything until they hear it.
And when they hear it, oh, my God!
If you put on an Oscar Peterson record,
you know you're going to feel lifted.
[slow piano music]
Musicians like Oscar Peterson showed, that indeed
there was a new kind of American classical music,
and it was created by Black people in this country.
[jazz piano music]
This is an American idiom.
This is an American art form. We invented it.
If you don't know about it, there's a missing link
in your appreciation of music.
[Oliver] There's a way that Black musicians create
that is at a different level,
that's hard to harness and really box in and understand.
So, as soon as you grasp one part of
"Oh, this is what we're doing,"
we're working on doing something differently.
And adding something to it.
So, that constant changing and transformation
is what has kept jazz alive.
[slow piano jazz music]
♪ ♪
That's the beauty of jazz.
It's in the moment and allows a person
to express himself
with a generous heart.
[Oscar] Jazz is instant composition.
That's the simplest way of putting it.
I think, the origins, and the roots of jazz,
belong to the Negro.
But that, to me, is only a first instance.
♪ ♪
When I went to the United States,
I'd go in the studio to do radio shows or television shows,
and I look over at the orchestra and there wouldn't be any Blacks in the orchestra,
and I knew, really, that it was a, you know, a clique.
This is why Black musicians had to go
the way of the jazz route.
We had no other route to go.
And I decided that if the only way I was going to make it,
was to frighten the hell out of everybody pianistically,
if that's what it took to get the attention,
then I was going to do my best to do it that way.
[soft jazz piano music]
♪ ♪
[woman] You used to play a lot of boogie-woogie.
[Oscar] I think boogie-woogie just represents
another transitional period in jazz.
In boogie-woogie, you actually have complete
separation of two hands.
The left hand does something completely independent.
It's not sympathetic rhythmically speaking, to what the right hand does.
[Lewis] Oscar is so good because he plays all 88 keys.
His left hand is just about as good as his right hand.
A lot of piano players, they'd say this.
Their left hand is not as good as their right hand.
How do you comp for yourself? Your left hand.
You think about your left hand.
[piano notes]
[stomping and snapping]
[piano notes and snapping fingers]
It's like a big band that's playing
[Joel] You would drive yourself crazy trying to figure out
what he's actually playing. Only he knew.
[Russonello] You hear Oscar Peterson and you hear this
kind of ebullience, this kind of
powerful warmth, that was his,
you know, his alone.
[jazz piano playing]
Jazz brings out the inner-being of a player.
It brings up a statement from the player
that you might not get otherwise because they're out there taking chances.
And I think, that's a very healthy thing for any player.
When you see him play, you see somebody whose
body is completely in command,
but whose mind is a few steps ahead.
[Joel] I'm trying to follow his fingers on his right hand
and it was impossible. It was a blur.
I didn't know that a piano could be played that fast
off the top of your head.
[Hancock] In my mind, I was like, how is he able
to get all of that with those big fingers?
[laughs]
I think a lot of young musicians, when they hear Oscar,
they have to decipher it.
There's a decoding that has to happen.
It's almost like an expansion of your mind.
You start to realize, "Oh wow, this is possible."
[Oscar] My music is really an expression.
It's my opinion, it is our opinions about certain tunes.
And that's what I always say about jazz.
It's an interpretive art.
As a very dear friend of mine and a great musician
in the jazz field, Milt Jackson, said once,
"You have to be careful that you don't rehearse
all of the soul out of the tunes."
That means, playing them over and over and over.
During a guest appearance, and I said,
"Listen, would you run it down for the sound crew?" "Fine!"
Went through it, in the up tempo, said, "Fine."
"Would you do it once more for us, please?"
"'Fine. Did it again. Three times?"
Now, Ray's looking at me funny, right?
Then by the time, you know, I finished the 17th playing
for the cameras and so forth,
I told the director, I said,
"You know, I really don't wanna play that tune tonight."
[audience laughs]
[man speaking French]
[Oscar speaking French]
[speaking French]
[jazz music playing]
[Lewis] It was as if he had his own metronome inside himself.
Not a metronome that states, "Steady, steady, steady,"
As we all know, Oscar used to try to--
push the beat forward.
If he decides that he's gonna pull a little harder on the swing,
you're gonna feel it.
Adventurous.
Nothing scared him. He'd try anything.
[jazz music]
How do I come up...
with this thing you call invention or improvisation?
I just happen to listen and echo it.
It's the simplicity of the lines.
First of all, if it doesn't reach you, you're in trouble,
but if it does reach you, and if you can't come up with that,
in some way, shape or form, you're not going to play.
Well, the big trick with Matt, I always thought, was
that he not only knew what to play, but he knew,
-what to leave out. -To leave out.
This was the big thing.
He'd have tremendous spaces
-in his playing. -[piano music]
His real genius as a pianist was smothered, so to speak,
overshadowed by his great singing.
♪ I just found joy ♪
♪
♪ I'm as happy as a baby boy ♪
♪ With another brand new Chew-chew toy ♪
♪ When I met my sweet Lorraine, Lorraine, Lorraine ♪
[Oscar] He came in to hear me one night in New York,
and he was amazed at the arrangements.
He loved the arrangements we were doing.
And he said, "I'll make a bargain,
if you say to me, you won't sing anymore, I won't play piano."
You know, I was gonna make that bargain with him.
[chuckles]
I love the singing too much. And his piano playing!
♪ Each night I pray ♪
♪ ♪
♪ That no one will Steal her heart away ♪
♪ I can't wait until That lucky day ♪
♪ When I marry sweet Lorraine ♪
♪ ♪
You make a pact with the instrument,
that you're going to play it a certain way,
and you're going to talk to it a certain way,
and hopefully, it will respond to you.
[Batiste] Then there's the spiritual component of it,
which is the joy of playing.
No matter what he's playin', there's a sense of joy
and connection to joy that comes through.
That's what gave his music so much substance,
because he was always giving.
That's what we have to learn.
It's not about the notes that we play.
It's about the heart
that's in the person that's playing the notes.
[Oscar] I try never to take this instrument for granted,
and the medium, of course.
I look at this instrument as a new affair,
every night, every time I play.
Oscar Peterson revolutionized
the piano by his technique.
By the things he played.
He reinvented the piano, really.
If you haven't heard him, you're missing.
You gotta listen to this guy.
[fast jazz piano music]
[audience cheers and applauds]
[Russonello] Oscar Peterson had walked in fully formed,
ready to play, traveling the country,
completely celebrity status.
[playful jazz piano music]
♪ I was walking along ♪
♪ Minding my business ♪
♪ When out of An orange-colored sky ♪
♪ Flash! Bam! Alakazam! ♪
♪ Wonderful you came by ♪
♪ I was hummin' a tune Drinkin' in-♪
[Oscar speaking]
♪ Then the ceiling fell in And the bottom fell out ♪
♪ I went into a spin And I started to shout ♪
♪ "I've been hit, this is it, This is it!" ♪
Oscar, it must be a pretty nice feeling to be
back home again in Montreal after your traveling.
How long have you been away on this tour?
Well, this last tour kept me away for four months, Fred.
[Sinclaire] ♪ Flash! Bam! Alakazam! ♪
♪ Out of an orange-colored sky ♪
♪ ♪
Now, we'd always run over to London House,
and up top, it said, "Oscar Peterson, now appearing."
That's where I first heard Oscar.
And that's where he blew my mind.
[song continues]
♪ ♪
♪ One look And I yelled "Timber" ♪
♪ Watch out for flying glass ♪
♪ Then the ceiling fell in And the bottom fell out ♪
♪ I went into a spin And I started to shout ♪
♪ "I've been hit, this is it This is it!" ♪
I was intrigued to hear you say that you're going to Tokyo.
Yes, I am, Kevin. As soon as we finish the Continental Tour,
which starts this coming Thursday,
we leave the continent around the end of May,
and we open in Tokyo on the first of June.
♪ ...Orange colored, Purple striped ♪
♪ Pretty green polka-dot sky ♪
♪ Flash! Bam! Alakazam and goodbye! ♪
♪ ♪
[audience whistles and applauds]
Sometimes it's hard for people to appreciate,
how challenging it was to be a Black person
in the 1920s, the 1930s, the 1940s,
and frankly, to this day.
[Marsalis] You did not have freedom of movement.
You got paid significantly less
for doing the same work that other people did.
Coming down to the South, it had to be
so shattering in so many ways.
First of all, you had the signs that were saying
no dogs or Blacks allowed.
So the separate bathrooms,
the separate water fountains,
the awareness that
you were not welcome
would be the first thing
that would hit them.
I think the worst moment of my life,
was when I saw true
racial hatred for the first time.
[man] How did that make you feel?
Mad!
[slow piano music]
[Martin Luther King, Jr.] There are those who are asking
the devotees of civil rights,
-"When will you be satisfied?" -[crowd] Never!
[King] We can never be satisfied
as long as the Negro is the victim
of the unspeakable horrors
of police brutality.
We can never be satisfied,
as long as our body is heavy
with the fatigue of travel,
cannot gain lodging in the
motels of the highways
and the hotels of the cities.
[crowd cheering]
We can never be satisfied
as long as our children
are stripped of their self-hood
and robbed of their dignity
by signs stating, "For Whites Only."
[crowd cheering]
[Sadlier] "Hymn to Freedom" just meant
so many things at that time,
but it became the anthem
for the civil rights movement in the United States, and across the world.
♪ When every heart ♪
♪ ♪
♪ Joins every heart ♪
♪ ♪
♪ Together yearns for liberty ♪
♪ ♪
♪ That's when we'll be free ♪
We were in studio, this day with the trio,
at that time was Martin Luther King time
and the protests, and the marches,
and it was dedicated to that.
I played the first chorus,
then the second chorus.
Ed and Ray joined me,
and that was recording. Norman came back in,
and said "Now that's my kind of music."
♪ ♪
And that's how the Hymn to Freedom was born.
It came through him, it channeled through him,
and that resonates with me whenever I hear somebody
express it so unadulterated. It's so pure.
Essentially, it's a tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr.
and his approach to nonviolent confrontation,
nonviolent ways of dealing with civil rights in the United States.
[Marsalis] It has power because it's good.
Sonny Rollins wrote "The Freedom Suite,"
Max Roach wrote the "Freedom Now Suite".
It's a beautiful hymn, and that's why it endures.
I see "Hymn to Freedom" as one of those moments in his career
that we're lucky it was documented.
♪ When men will live ♪
♪ In dignity ♪
♪ That is when we will be free ♪
♪ Oh, oh... ♪
[Oliver] The beauty of "Hymn to Freedom" is
starting so small and at the core
of people's voice.
With that spiritual and then Blues flavor to it.
And that becomes the thread
I follow through the entire piece.
So it's ancestral.
[Batiste] This guy was so serious
in terms of his pursuit of justice
and putting his life on the line
and standing up in a way that was
beyond controversial for the time.
[Oscar] A little later, Norm thought there should be lyrics to it,
and he called a lady by the name of Harriette Hamilton,
who wrote some beautiful lyrics.
["Hymn to Freedom" playing]
[Oliver] Music was, went hand in hand
with those acts of resistance.
Whether you were writing songs, or writing music
with the intention of highlighting
what was going on and also saying,
here's how we need to move forward.
And Oscar Peterson very definitely did that
with "Hymn to Freedom".
I don't mean to brag about this, but it turned out
bigger than I ever expected.
["Hymn to Freedom" continues]
♪ ♪
It wasn't easy, man.
It wasn't easy.
You go downtown,
and the hotel,
"Sorry, we're full up."
But you find out that they don't take Black people.
♪ ♪
When Oscar would be traveling,
he would be denied
the opportunity to join
his fellow band members in the hotels.
Probably the hotels that maybe they were even playing in.
And so, what started to happen is that Norman
chose to stay in the Black hotels.
[Jones] This is when every place had white and colored,
to wait in the bus stations,
and the water fountains all over America.
You couldn't stay in a white hotel anywhere.
♪ And when every man ♪
♪ Comes along ♪
♪ And joins in our song ♪
♪ Then together, we will sing ♪
♪ In harmony ♪
♪ That's when ♪
♪ That's when we'll be free ♪
♪ Yeah-ah! ♪
We get to Dallas, Texas. The sun's up.
The biggest church in town
has an effigy of a Black dummy hanging.
Lynched.
We landed at the airport, down in Fort Worth,
and Norman right away looked to get Ella settled,
"Fitz, you can ride downtown with me."
They had a row of cabs sitting out there and he said,
"Take this first cab."
And there was a cop standing there,
and he shut the door, he said, "Uh-uh, that's a white cab.
She doesn't get in that cab."
Norman said, "Who are you to tell us she can't get in the cab?"
And the cop pulled his gun out and put it in Norman's stomach.
He stood his ground!
The policeman said, "You know something funny?
I hate you worse than I hate those niggers!"
And Norman said, "Sorry, she's on her way to the hotel. That's all that counts."
[Quincy Jones speaking]
[Oscar] We were playing a concert hall somewhere.
I went to go into the men's room.
Policeman said, "Where are you going?"
I said, "I'm going to the men's room."
"You can't. No, you can't!
You have to go outside and use something else outside.
So I called one of the guys, I said, "Go get Norman."
Norm said, "I rented this hall to put on a concert.
He said, "Well, I'm here to see that, you know,
there are no riots, or anything."
He said, "Fine, well then you go with the hall.
As I own the hall, it's my hall tonight,
use the bathroom."
Life in America.
["Hymn to Freedom" continues]
The other part about "Hymn to Freedom"
is that it was the song
that was sung by a children's choir
at the first inauguration of Barack Obama.
The choice of that piece
makes a profound statement
of culture, of history,
and also of unity.
Because we have tasted the bitter swill
of civil war and segregation,
and emerged from that dark chapter
stronger and more united.
The music then became the
consistent act of resistance.
♪ ♪
♪ And when every hand All across the land ♪
♪ Joins every hand ♪
♪ Then together we can mold ♪
♪ Our destiny ♪
♪ That's when we will be free ♪
♪ Any hour ♪
♪ Any day ♪
♪ The time soon will come ♪
♪ ♪
♪ When man ♪
♪ He's gonna live in dignity ♪
♪ That's the day ♪
♪ That's the day we all Will be free ♪
♪ When every man, every woman ♪
♪ Every child ♪
♪ Joins in our song ♪
♪ Can't you see it Can't you feel it ♪
♪ Oh, sing it in harmony ♪
♪ That's when we'll be free ♪
♪ All over the world ♪
♪ That's when we'll be free ♪
♪ ♪
Stop killing Black people!
♪ ...we'll be... ♪
♪ This is the anthem To the world ♪
♪ Hold it tight Hold it tight! ♪
♪ This is the gift from ♪
♪ Oscar Peterson ♪
♪ That's when we'll be ♪
♪ Free! ♪
♪ Oh-oh-oh! ♪
[song ends]
[playing coda to "Hymn to Freedom"]
[audience cheers and applauds]
[applause continues]
[man] Back on the concert circuit, anywhere from Tokyo to Paris,
everyone wants to hear him play.
Everyone wants to meet him.
[jazz music playing]
-Oscar could play, man. -Yeah, Oscar could play.
That motherfucker could play his ass off!
[both laughing]
[jazz piano music playing]
This son of a gun--
[audience laughs]
is a genius.
[jazz music]
[Joel] We were playing the Toronto Maple Leaf Gardens,
somebody says to me,
"Hey, Oscar Peterson wants to say hi!"
I said, "Yeah, yeah, sure he does."
And he was there!
He came to see me!
Oscar Peterson is a man who's blessed with great talent,
who's acquired tremendous skill,
and executed with... unlimited authority.
[Ella Fitzgerald] He's like a brother and a friend,
and one of the greatest that you'll ever meet.
[presenter] The best jazz instrumental soloist is--
Oscar Peterson!
[audience applauds]
[man] Ladies and gentlemen, who else, Oscar Peterson!
[k.d. lang] The winner is...
"If You Could See Me Now,"
The Oscar Peterson Four.
[audience applauds]
Oscar Peterson is probably
today's finest jazz pianist,
Mr. Peterson!
[Oscar] When I was awarded this great honor,
it meant an awful lot to me.
Because it means to me that
at least the country I live in
recognizes, to some degree, what I've been trying to do.
♪ ♪
[Oscar] Being on the road with all the excitement and the...
people coming and going and the different
famous people that were coming to hear me,
and the things that were being asked of me,
"Would you go there? Would you do this?"
And the itinerary itself
that kept me on the road
was detrimental to a marriage.
I know one of my insecurities is that
I would like to be able
to try a normal existence,
without the pressures of
the competitive professional world
on my shoulders.
[soft jazz piano music playing]
I found out that the...
traveling the road is, is one of the loneliest things
in the world that somebody can do.
And it can be a very,
a very debilitating
experience from a personal aspect.
If you go out and have one hell of a concert,
there's a tingling, there's an excitement.
Who do you tell?
You're there with the four walls. It's quiet.
[soft jazz piano music]
[man] Obviously, you paid a price in your personal life.
Big price!
Um, depends on how much
you want one or the other.
Three unsuccessful marriages, I can call that a price.
And the trail... upheaval that it leaves,
there's a selfish factor to it also.
The fact that while this is going on...
in my life, I'm out doing this.
I felt guilty, I felt sick,
I felt immature, whatever.
Um... Not easy.
[jazz piano music playing]
It was lonely,
but music filled that gap for me.
The performance, playing with Ray, and Barney Kessel,
and Herbie Ellis, Buddy Rich...
filled that gap for me.
It didn't hurt being away as much.
When I leave for the road, I'm all business.
You know, I don't want to hear it about my home.
I don't wanna about what, I mean,
as far as thinking about that,
I'm primarily concerned with what I do.
When I come home, I don't want to hear about the road.
[all laugh]
[soft piano music]
♪ ♪
It's been amazing, just
in company of such great musicians.
It's unbelievable. It's important that I be present
and I show my admiration for Mr. Oscar Peterson,
'cause I'm such... not only a fan,
but just in awe of his musical talent.
"Love Ballade" says everything
without even having text.
So it's one of these beautiful melodies,
that stick with you and require nothing further,
but for you to breathe life into them.
The music speaks for you.
My parents were jazz fans
and listened to Oscar's recordings.
And actually, then the year that I graduated,
my mother, brother and I went to Oscar's concert,
which was just incredible.
So, little did I know that
four years later, I would meet him.
-[playing "Love Ballade"] -[vocalizing melody]
[piano and singing continue]
I had just become dining room manager at the restaurant,
while Oscar was playing a concert in Sarasota.
And we almost didn't meet because I didn't want to play
this one concert. I was gonna cancel it.
And I was really disappointed, because I knew I couldn't go
to the concert. I had to work.
Next thing I know, Oscar's walking in the door
of Charley's Crab.
I said, "She's really cute."
There was an openness about her, that I liked.
And I would stop and check on them periodically.
And he kept saying, "Sit down, have a drink."
I said, "No, I'm, I'm working."
So, he handed me a business card
with his phone number on it.
and said--
"Why don't you come to New York on the weekend?"
And I thought, Wow, how charming.
So finally, I had to ask,
"Why do you keep asking me if I'm gonna come to New York?
What do you expect from me?"
He said, "You just seem like a nice person
and I want to get to know you better."
["Love Ballade" continues]
I went to New York, that was July of 1981.
And then, I moved to Toronto
to live with Oscar in 1986.
["Love Ballade" continues]
It was the tour right before we got married,
when I realized I was pregnant.
And I didn't tell him till we got to Japan,
because I didn't want him to make me go home from Europe.
I wanted to go to Japan.
I was happy.
I'm a... sucker for kids.
He was able to spend time with her.
She's also the only one of his children,
who he got to witness
when she took her first steps.
And she's the only one of his children
who was able to travel with him.
We went everywhere as a family.
He didn't tour without us.
And it was wonderful.
["Love Ballade" continues]
He's been married three times, I know he's had affairs.
And I guess I was still a little apprehensive after
"D-3" as I call it.
What makes me think that this will be different?
And I proposed to her and she said, "Yes!"
It was just a sense that I had,
and a belief that I had that it was different.
Here we are.
["Love Ballade" continues]
[song ends]
He wrote that one for me.
[laughs]
[soft piano music]
♪ ♪
[audience applauds]
I was playing too many events, working too hard.
It was a...
week at the Blue Note with
Jeff Hamilton, Ray Brown, and Herb Ellis.
Oscar came back to the hotel that night and said,
"Something's wrong with the pedal carriage on that piano.
I don't know what's going on, but, you know,
I missed a note or something.
And, and Brown was looking at me."
And Ray Brown came to me said, "You okay?"
I said, "Yeah, why?"
"You started missing that finger."
I said, "We're all human, right?"
Somethin' like that, and I brushed it off.
I didn't really think about it.
[Kelly] And he came back the next night
and said the same thing.
And then, the next day, which was their last day,
I noticed that he seemed to be having difficulty.
I just felt something was wrong.
I couldn't put my finger on it, but he, he wasn't feeling great,
and he kept saying, the pedal carriage.
I went to the Blue Note for the second set...
[soft piano music]
and I heard Oscar miss notes.
Something happened that, caught my attention,
and I bent over to Kelly, and I said,
"Something, something's wrong. Something's not right."
That had never happened.
I had never heard that before.
My wife was in the audience I remember,
she had a very concerned look on her face.
We talked and I said, "I think you need to see a doctor.
Something's going on."
He said, "No, no, no. I'm okay. I'm okay."
[Oscar] We finished there, and I came here,
for the Gould's Prize.
I knew I felt kind of strange at times.
You know, like, sort of--
Wow, where are we? You know, but it didn't bother me.
And by that time, I was pretty convinced
that Oscar had had a stroke.
And in the program, they had it set up for me to play a solo,
and all I know is that my whole left side had seized.
I can't do my solo.
And... so he played,
and did that, and it wasn't until we got home that night,
that he finally just--
Kelly said something,
she came to wake me in the morning.
I didn't recognize her.
I mean, it all kind of, he--
collapsed and he just was,
said, "Okay, I'm ready to go to see a doctor."
It was scary.
And I spoke to Kelly,
and Oscar went to the doctor and was diagnosed
as having suffered a stroke.
Mentally, I was in deep trouble.
I was not happy to see each dawn, you know.
So it's another day, one of those things.
What now? That's when I was thinking of giving it up.
It got to the point where...
I wouldn't even listen to music.
Oscar always said,
"If I can't play the way I expect,
I'm not walking out on the stage."
I'm a reasonably devout person
and I prayed at different times
that I would be able to play again,
and I believe that the good Lord listened.
I must say also David Young, who I love dearly,
used to come out and make me play.
He'd come out, pull his bass out of his wagon,
and I said, "What are you doing with that? He said, "We're gonna play somethin'."
And I said, "I don't feel--" And he said, 'No, we're gonna play something."
And he insisted on it.
And we did, and he said, "I'm going to be in your face
every day, if that's what it takes."
And that's what brought me back.
And that helped so much,
because it lifted Oscar's spirits.
[Oscar] Between the understanding of my wife
and the love of my little girl,
I managed to climb out of that morass,
and finally went back to the piano.
The stroke was in May of '93.
In April of '94, we were in New York,
and he was in a recording studio with Itzhak Perlman.
So he made that recording, and then he felt good.
And he had four concerts booked for that summer.
So a year after his stroke, he was back out on stage.
[upbeat jazz music playing]
[audience applauds]
♪ ♪
I couldn't envision the fact that I would never, ever be able to play.
Ever since then, I hadn't catered to my left hand.
I just pretended whatever shape it's in, it's in.
He regained some. He never regained it fully,
but he did, because of being so determined.
However impacted his left hand was, it was still, you know,
thousands of times better than anybody else's left hand.
And no one, I don't think,
really ever would have known the difference.
His right hand was so amazing, you didn't even notice, how his left hand was!
[jazz music playing]
[audience cheers and applauds]
I came out on stage, and--
they must have given me a five-minute standing ovation.
I remember Norman put his arms around me from behind.
I was sitting at the table, and he said,
"I just want you to know, I'm very proud of you.
I've never been that proud of you.
To see you do what you did tonight."
I saw brother Oscar in the Blue Note
in New York right after he had his stroke.
He playin' the piano with one arm!
And you listen to it, it looks like it's three arms working!
And you say, "Oh, my God, what genius,
Canada's somethin' else!"
[jazz piano playing]
♪ ♪
You are now to assume the function
of Chancellor of York University.
[audience applauds]
Dr. Oscar Emmanuel Peterson!
[audience applauds]
["I Got Rhythm" continues]
A new elementary school,
that's been given a giant of a name.
It will be called Oscar Peterson Public School.
On behalf of Toronto City Council,
do hereby proclaim June 22nd, 2004
as Oscar Peterson Day in the City of Toronto.
[cheers, applause]
["I Got Rhythm" continues]
[speaking French]
Mr. Oscar Peterson!
[cheers, applause]
["I Got Rhythm" continues]
♪ ♪
In 2002, for Queen Elizabeth's Golden Jubilee,
there was a big concert.
Oscar's Quartet was one of the
performing groups on the bill.
It's a real pleasure to have you here in Canada with us.
-[audience applauds] -Thank you for coming.
[audience applauds]
["I Got Rhythm" continues]
♪ ♪
We found out that there was an Oscar stamp in Austria.
This guy defines Canada,
so we proceeded to campaign
to bring his stamp, on his 80th birthday in Toronto.
["I Got Rhythm" continues]
He had the idea of recording in Vienna.
So we asked if we could co-produce it with him,
and at the time, make a DVD of the recording,
and an album of the recording.
["I Got Rhythm" plays]
The fact that they went out as companion pieces
made all the difference in the world.
In fact, we ended up going platinum.
Everything we had done in our development of our relationship
for the last seven or eight years
culminated in that very moment.
-["I Got Rhythm" continues] -[audience applauds]
-[song ends] -[audience applauds]
[audience cheers and applauds]
[soft piano music playing]
♪ ♪
It was early December, I guess,
and I started worrying that he was getting pneumonia again,
because he had a very bad cough.
We would talk on the phone, and it was very clear
that he wasn't right.
He had been sick for a while, and it became evident
in ways that were very painful.
[soft piano music]
And he was, you know, not, not doing very well.
So I called the doctor.
Oscar was still in bed.
And she came upstairs and sat and talked to him,
and he sat up and talked
and she said, "You know, Kelly's worried about you.
So what do you think, you want to get dressed and go downstairs?"
And he said, "Yeah, okay."
We had a good week.
Our wedding anniversary, all of that.
And then, I went to bed
and then I could hear him struggling.
And he died very early in the morning.
It was, you know, pretty awful.
I was glad I was there.
I was glad I was right with him.
The hard part was...
when I woke up and there was silence.
I don't want to get up.
I don't want to turn a light on.
I don't want it to be real.
I don't want to go wake Celine up and tell her.
I woke her up and
she came and stood in the doorway.
And she said, "No, Mom. He's just sleeping."
And I said,
"He's not just sleeping."
Our boxer went in the bedroom, went over,
and was licking Oscars hand,
that was at the edge of the bed,
and Oscar didn't wake up.
And Celine was saying, "He's gonna to wake up.
He's gonna wake up."
And then Smedley started licking Oscar's face--
And Oscar didn't wake up.
And then Smedley jumped
right on top of Oscar.
This, you know, 75-pound boxer,
and that's when Celine knew...
that he really was gone.
I picked up the phone, and Celine said, "He's gone."
I miss him.
Oh, yeah.
[whispers] Yeah.
[soft music playing]
There's so much, you know, to miss.
The laughter and...
zest for life.
Tonight we report on the passing of a music legend,
Jazz great Oscar Peterson
has died at his home in Canada.
[in German] The jazz legend, Oscar Peterson is dead.
[in French] The Montreal pianist Oscar Peterson died yesterday.
He was 82.
[woman newscaster] Oscar Peterson is being remembered
as one of the greatest jazz pianists of his generation,
[speaking Danish]
♪ ♪
[song ends]
[audience applauds]
♪ This was a lovely way ♪
♪ To spend an evening ♪
♪ Can't think of anything ♪
♪ ♪
♪ I'd rather do ♪
♪ ♪
Oscar Peterson got a send-off today,
rarely seen in this country.
There was a special tribute concert in Toronto,
broadcast live.
When I first saw Oscar,
it would be equivalent to U2
and the Stones comin' to town.
It's a real Canadian story, you know,
a kid from Saint-Henri in Montreal,
and went on to become the
greatest jazz pianist in the world!
So I owe him everything, and he's irreplaceable!
Oscar Peterson has left an indelible mark
on the cultural heritage
of the entire world.
[applause]
♪ ♪
His legacy will outlive all of us.
I'm certain of that.
[reporter] Parliament Hill is sprinkled with statues
of past prime ministers,
but just down the street there's a new guy in town,
and Oscar Peterson's already stealing the show,
just like he always did.
The Bosendorfer technician
came from Vienna, and said,
"I want to come and look after Mr. Peterson's piano for you."
So he came, he said,
"The piano is in wonderful condition,
but it needs to be played."
Then the idea came,
what if I invite other pianists
to come here and play
Oscar's compositions on Oscar's piano?
And then we launched with a concert on this very stage.
And the audiences love it.
We've sold out every single concert.
And to me, that's people coming
because it's Oscar's music.
[piano music playing]
[audience applauds]
I'm truly honored to be standing here tonight,
accepting this very special honor for my father.
Dad said, "I've always wanted to feel wanted at home.
I've always wanted to feel respected at home,
and I've always wanted to feel honored at home."
Well, Dad, you are, and we love you.
Thank you so much.
[loud audience applause]
Jazz is very healthy.
There are new artists that are
incorporating jazz with other genres
so that the lines are more blurred
between jazz and R&B,
and hip hop and pop.
Take Kendrick Lamar,
his first really huge record was
"To pimp a butterfly."
Who were his producers?
There were all jazz guys.
Jazz music will remain alive and well
with the crew of young musicians
who actually love Oscar Peterson.
[Batiste] There's gonna be imitations,
there's going to be things that are derivative,
but it will never be Oscar.
When you figure that out,
people will listen to it forever.
The greatest there was.
He's the absolute greatest, man.
He was.
There's Oscar. There's Duke.
These are the center of the universe.
Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson,
those guys were gods to me.
Someone says, "Randy, who is Oscar Peterson?"
I say...
"We stand on the shoulders of giants."
[Lewis] Oscar Peterson is
what Muhammad Ali meant to the boxing,
and what Michael Jordan meant to basketball.
I mean, they were the best in their business.
We need to be mindful of how talented he was,
because he was Canada's gift to the world.
He's one of these musicians
who comes up as a child prodigy,
and then never sputters.
Oscar Peterson was the ultimate real deal.
Nobody will ever take Oscar's place.
He stands at the top of the mountain.
[soft dramatic piano music]
♪ ♪
[Oscar] I have nothing to be regretful about.
There have been some ups and downs in my life.
I'm very happy that
for the better part of my life
I've been a very fortunate
and thankful person for
what's happened to me.
[piano music ends]
[light piano jazz plays]
♪ ♪
[audience applauds]
Hey Oscar, this is for you.
[fast-paced piano melody]
♪ ♪
Woo! Ba dop doo dee, man, O. P.!