Montreal Hands On Deck: Oscar Peterson 100

Oscar Peterson Trio - Nigerian Marketplace

We're gonna start off the weekend with the first half of a two-parter, designed to honor milestone birthdays of two Hall of Fame players that are musically interrelated.

To kick it off in the grandest possible style, we have the centenary of, beyond doubt, one of the most universally treasured musicians that has ever lived.

I've wanted to put him up here since I started this page, so today is finally the day! It's cool that after almost 12 years, there are still plenty of this galactic-class caliber of person for me to cover.

If you postulated that he's in the conversation for Greatest Jazz Pianist of all time, you'd not be merely blowing smoke.

Born in the MTL and without question the single most revered Jazzer in the history of Canada, he did things sitting on a bench in front of 88 keys that still leave people with their jaws slack.

When I was studiously hard at work here, assembling this weekend's share fare, there were moments when he'd play a run and I would just laugh out loud at the astonishing speed, dexterity and melodic profile he was conjuring from the air. In between my highly suggestive bouts of Jazz dancing, that is.

It's fun listening to the crowd reactions when he goes off like that, it's pure Rock Star. There were moments whilst whipping these shows into shape when I said out loud, "Jesus Christ, it's as if Art Tatum and Eddie Van Halen had a baby!"

The pure, primal ecstasy in the audience when he breaks free is what happens when the world is at 24 frames a second, and Oscar Peterson -- born this day in 1925 -- is assaulting the keyboard in 48 frames-per-second time.

Can you call a piano player a shredder? There are times when you're sure the whole Steinway was sure to spontaneously combust from what this guy was capable of doing.

Of course, if his attributes stopped at featuring the fastest fingers, he'd just be another pyrotechnician.

The fact that he brought the entire arsenal of chops for millennia, perfect melodic grace and toppermost compositional skills to the table will have folks feasting forever on what he left behind.

OP is one of those figures that words just can't and don't adequately describe, but thankfully there comes a time in these screeds when I have the sense to STFU and let the sounds do the speaking.

Oscar Peterson Trio
Europe 1987/88

I.

Oscar Peterson Trio

Jazz à Juan

Juan-les-Pins

Antibes, France

7.23.1987

01 Falling In Love with Love

02 Cool Walk

03 Cakewalk

04 Who Can I Turn To?/Love Ballade

05 You Look Good to Me

06 Soft Winds

07 Old Folks

08 Nigerian Marketplace

09 The Gentle Waltz

10 Sushi

11 medley: Do Nothing Till You Hear from Me/Take the "A" Train/Lush Life/Caravan

12 Blues Etude

13 Mack the Knife

Total tiime: 1:37:41

disc break goes after Track 07

Oscar Peterson - piano

Dave Young - bass

Martin Drew - drums

digital capture of a 2021 analog France Musique rebroadcast

re-edited for smoother track transitions -- with volume boosted +2 dB throughout 

and intrusive scat-singing remux-reduced 75% -- by EN, August 2025
623 MB FLAC/direct link below

II.

Oscar Peterson Trio 

"ZDF Jazz Club"

Stadthalle Leonberg

Leonberg, Germany 

4.25.1988

01 The Lamp Is Low 

02 Who Can I Turn To? 

03 Love Ballade 

04 Cakewalk 

05 My Foolish Heart/Body and Soul 

06 City Lights 

07 closing medley: I Got It Bad/Satin Doll/C-Jam Blues/Lush Life/Caravan/Blues Etude

Total time: 1:08:19

Oscar Peterson - piano

David Young - bass 

Martin Drew - drums

256/48k audio extracted from a PAL DVD of a digitally captured, stereo European digital satellite broadcast

converted to 16/44 CD Audio, edited, tracked & remastered by EN, August 2025
381 MB FLAC/direct link to both shows

Both these performances date from well prior to Oscar Peterson's stroke that he suffered in 1993, that severely diminished his capacities until his eventual passing in 2007. So he is just at the peak of his powers throughout these concerts, resulting in an energy in the spaces he's playing that simply crackles with fervor.

On a technical note, the Antibes segment had a weird issue in it where (I think it's) the drummer was getting really vocal and grunty in the more driving, uptempo portions of the music, and I guess one of the overhead microphones on his kit picked it up, causing something of a scratchy, annoying distraction. I used the AI stem separation tool to reduce this significantly, but left moments of it at the edge of audibility to preserve what I saw as the authentic emotion of the performance.

Anyway that's a minor point. The major takeaway from 8/15/2025 -- his centennial -- has got to be that there will perhaps never be another piano deity on the level of Oscar Peterson, should the universe live to infinity. Not that OP needs proof, but I'll return in 24 hours to tribute this towering figure -- and another, with whom he often played, who's thankfully still with us -- with yet more in the way of witness.--J.

8.15.1925 - 12.23.2007