Didja Feel The Music of...Oscar Peterson

The stage was a large one in this impressive amphitheatre. I’d seen big casts perform musicals comfortably on it, and good-sized bands backing world-renowned vocalists. There had even been a respected ballet company that danced easily and expansively back and forth across it. But, this particular summer evening all that stood, slightly off-center on the stage, was a solitary piano.

At first, I thought the other instruments hadn’t been set up yet; after all, we always arrived early. There’d be at least the bass and drums to complete a trio. A guitar might be added since he’d done many performances, live and recorded, with a quartet. Even so, there’d be plenty of room to spare and they could certainly spread out.

He was introduced, walked out, and graciously, but briefly, acknowledged the swell of applause.  He sat down at the piano. Alone.

From where I sat, partway up a hill in the “lawn” section, he and the piano seemed a bit less than I had expected. Less than others in the audience had expected too, it seemed, from the restless movements and murmurs around me.

He played, then, and it was nothing like what I’d expected and so much more than I ever could have. 

  

It was somewhere well into the first half hour of his concert, as the sun had set and the spotlight on him had brightened, that I realized how his sound filled the entire stage and, indeed, the whole amphitheatre and park beyond. There was no need for other players, no room in fact.

Oscar Peterson’s music, at times full and vibrant, and at others quiet and refined, bebop and ballads and most beautifully the jazz and classical combination of third stream, was all and everything that night.

To get a feel of what I had the privilege of hearing, listen here to Oscar Peterson’s solo performance of “Old Folks.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KneOi4QLbtU

And, here he solos on a lovely third stream composition, “To A Wild Rose.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_iqWUBWvsg