With Oscar Peterson's death (the man Duke Ellington called the 'Maharajah of the keyboard') on the 23rd December 2007, Canada, and the jazz world, mourns.

The very idea - the very philosophy - of tight, hard swinging modern jazz piano playing is down to just two men: Erroll Garner and Oscar Peterson.The latter was undoubtedly the most influential over the last 50 years or so, with such players as Herbie Hancock, Bill Evans, Billy Taylor, Gordon Beck, Dudley Moore (who was a much better pianist than he was an actor), McCoy Tyner, and that talented new kid on the block, Jamie Cullen, forever in Peterson's musical debt.

Montreal Born

Oscar Emmanuel Peterson was born on August 15th, 1925, in the predominately black, and very poor area of Montreal known as Little Burgundy. His father, Daniel Peterson, earned his living as a railway worker, but spent most of his spare time playing the piano, a passion he was determined to - and eventually did - pass onto his son Oscar. However, Oscar, until he was 8 or 9, thought himself a budding professional baseball player rather than a musician. He spent more time playing ball than practising endless scales with his father -- that is, until he heard some jazz on the radio. From then on he was hooked.

Art Tatum a Huge Influence

One of the jazz musicians Peterson found himself listening to on that old bakelite family radio was the partially blind, Ohio born pianist, Art Tatum, a musician who, in the 1930s and 1940s, took stride piano into a new world of elegant and complicated chord sequences that, happily, never left the melody too far behind. It was this inventive melodic style - with Tatum's 3 or 4-minute pieces memorised and copied by the young Canadian - that Peterson delighted in and maintained throughout the 7 decades of his playing career.

Classically Trained

But Peterson's father had the good sense to ensure his son did more than memorise Tatum's jazz solos, knowing that without a good formal musical education, the talented Oscar would be at a disadvantage. To this end, Daniel Peterson arranged for Oscar to have private lessons with the Hungarian-born classical pianist Paul de Marky, who, in 1920s Budapest, had been taught by Stephan Thoman, a one-time pupil of Franz Liszt.

Teenage Phenomenon

By the time Peterson reached his teens he was already playing in several local Montreal jazz and dance bands, wowing audiences with his incredible technique that he effortlessly coupled with a deep feel for melody and the blues, a combination that eventually created a unique sound that was unmistakably Oscar Peterson's.

A Career is Launched

In those vibrant years after World War Two, Peterson's playing came to the attention of jazz impresario Norman Granz (he heard Peterson play in a Montreal jazz club) who signed him up to play as a surprise guest in one of Granz's 'Jazz at the Philharmonic' (JATP) concerts at Carnegie Hall. And it was at that concert, in 1949, that Peterson first played with bassist Ray Brown - a musical partnership that was to last until Brown's death in 2002.

Composes Music for the Marriage of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer

After that concert Peterson's career went from strength to strength, with - from the mid-1950s onwards - at least five long playing records coming out each year, usually trio recordings, but often recordings with other jazz legends such as Louis Armstrong, Ben Webster and Ella Fitzgerald.

And when not in the recording studio Peterson was invariably on tour, which took him around the world more times than he cared to remember.

A highlight of his career was an invitation to write a piece of music for the marriage of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer in 1981.

As a composer his best known extended work is still the 1964 Canadiana Suite, a piece inspired by the regions, towns and cities of his native Canada.

Awards, Bad Health, and Death

Throughout his long career Oscar Peterson was given many awards for his services to music, not least from his own country, who awarded him The Order of Canada, The Order of Ontario,and The Order of Quebec.

He was also, apart from Queen Elizabeth II, one of the few people to get his picture on a Canadian postage stamp.

In 1993 Peterson suffered a stroke that, for a while, curtailed his playing and touring schedules, although by 2005 he was back on tour, although anyone who had the good fortune to see him play in the last couple of years would have soon realised he was only really playing with his right hand, which sounded better, and was faster, than most jazz pianists with two good hands.

Oscar Peterson died on the Sunday before Christmas from renal failure at his home in the Mississauga suburb of Toronto.

Peterson is survived by his fourth wife, their daughter Celine, and six children from three previous marriages - and some of the best jazz piano to come out of the North American Continent.

Sources

Associated Press, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, and Reuters obituaries.

Plus biographical information from Peterson's 2006 UK Tour.