Oscar Peterson, Short List

[StarThrower]

Oscar Peterson recorded a zillion albums. I'd like to know your short list of favorites. So far after a bit of listening on YouTube, I like The Sound Of The Trio, and If You Could See Me Now on Pablo w/ NHOP and Joe Pass.

[JSngry]

I heard a cut off his Christmas album (on Telarc) that I very much enjoyed, the phrasing of the melody was exquisite. If was going to have an Oscar Peterson record, I think that might be it.

 

[jlhoots]

Stratford Shakespearean Festival

[Ted O'Reilly]

2 hours ago, jlhoots said:

Stratford Shakespearean Festival

That's a real good one.

Also consider  two other albums he made at home (in Canada, that is) :  On The Town (http://www.allmusic.com/album/on-the-town-mw0000624961) and OP Trio + One (http://www.allmusic.com/album/oscar-peterson-trio-one-mw0000615538) with Clark Terry.

I've always liked what I think was his first solo record, Tracks (http://www.allmusic.com/album/tracks-mw0000319509) 

Then, there's that gang of releases from the London House, and wonderful accompaniments to Lester Young, Louis Armstrong, the latter day Pablo album with Dizzy...

 

Now that I think of it, there's one hell of a lot of great music from this guy, and those who find it all a bit too much, so be it.

[lipi]

"Night Train" (1962) and the first album he did with Count Basie, "Satch and Josh" (1974).

[Chuck Nessa]

"Live from Chicago", "Very Tall", "West Side Story", " Night Train" and "My Favorite Instrument" worked for me.

[Stonewall15]

1959 Trio "A Jazz Portrait Of Frank Sinatra". OP really swings!

[Larry Kart]

The '50s Basie tribute album with Buddy Rich is nice -- has a very "in there" feel. Stratford and Concertgebouw of course for that trio.

I will dissent for the most part on OP as an accompanist for the likes of Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins, and other major figures of that vintage. His comping for them IMO tends to be quite airless and clotted -- compare, for example, his comping on Harry Edison's "Gee Baby Ain't I Good To You" with  that of Jimmy Rowles on "Sweets," with essentially the same band. An odd example is the "Getz and J.J. Johnson at the Opera House" recordings from 1957 -- half in mono from one concert (supposedly from L.A.), half in stereo from another (supposedly from Chicago -- in fact, I think the locations of the two concerts may be the other way around, not that it matters). In any case, OP and the rest of the rhythm section ( H. Ellis, R. Brown, and Connie Kay) are terrific on the mono tracks,  as are Getz and J.J., while OP is quite discombobulated/insensitive on the stereo tracks, which has a negative effect on Getz especially -- this divergence on performances separated by just a week. My guess is that on the stereo tracks the members of the group were placed too far apart on the stage for them to hear each other or the horn soloists adequately, but the difference between OP's comping on these two concerts still seems weird to me.

[l p]

17 hours ago, Ted O'Reilly said:

accompaniments to  Lester Young, Louis Armstrong

these 2.

[Larry Kart]

1 hour ago, l p said:

these 2.

Yes, it varied. But when OP's comping was bad IMO, it was inexplicably so along the lines I mentioned -- clottled, insensitive. Wish I could recall what musician said this, but I remember one worthwhile musician complaining as well that OP played the "wrong" changes, meaning (or so I understood this remark) that at times OP delved into his chunk-a-chunk bluesiness when the piece at hand was not a blues or even that blues-tinged.

[Guy Berger]

1 hour ago, Larry Kart said:

Yes, it varied. But when OP's comping was bad IMO, it was inexplicably so along the lines I mentioned -- clottled, insensitive. Wish I could recall what musician said this, but I remember one worthwhile musician complaining as well that OP played the "wrong" changes, meaning (or so I understood this remark) that at times OP delved into his chunk-a-chunk bluesiness when the piece at hand was not a blues or even that blues-tinged.

Miles Davis, in a blindfold test, commenting on Oscar playing "Joy Spring" [lifted from an Ethan Iverson blog item]:

 

Oscar makes me sick because he copies everybody.  He even had to learn how to play the blues.  Everybody knows that if you flat a third, you’re going to get that blues sound.  He learned that and runs it into the ground worse than Billy Taylor.  You don’t have to do that.

Now take the way he plays that song.  That’s not what Clifford meant.  He passes right over what can be done with the chords.  It’s much prettier if you get into it and heard the chords weaving in and out like Bill Evans and Red Garland could do – instead of being so heavy.  Oscar is jazzy; he jazzes up the tune.  And he sure has devices, like certain scale patterns, that he plays all the time.

Does he swing hard like some people say? I don’t know what they mean when they say ‘swing hard’ anyway.  Nearly everything he plays, he plays with the same degree of force.  He leaves no holes for the rhythm section.  The only thing I ever heard him play that I liked was his first record of “Tenderly.”

Edited February 15, 2017 by Guy Berger

[l p]

these particular lester and armstrong albums are so nice, i really don't care who's playing the piano. the pianist doesn't annoy me when i listen to these.

[Larry Kart]

But OP is in good form as an accompanist on those albums.

[HutchFan]

The Oscar Peterson records that I've enjoyed the most are:
- Night Train (Verve)
- Oscar Peterson Trio + One [with Clark Terry] (Verve)
- My Favorite Instrument (MPS)
- Tracks (MPS)
- Oscar Peterson & Harry Edison (Pablo)

Oscar provoked (provokes?) some STRONG reactions, doesn't he?!?!  Both pro and con.  Along with Miles, Thelonious famously dismissed Peterson's playing by pointing to a toilet. And then others think he's one of the greatest pianists ever. ... I guess I fall somewhere in between.  Sometimes Peterson's playing is astonishing.  And sometimes it can be "too much of a good thing" -- at least for my tastes.  

Is OP is the jazz world's equivalent to György Cziffra in classical music??? From what I've learned of Cziffra, he seemed to provoke the same sort of extreme responses, both for and against.

[Larry Kart]

Another  OP goodie, but fairly obscure, is "Tenderly" (Just a Memory), with the Ellis, Brown trio from a 1958 Vancouver concert. Issued in 2002, with liner notes by Peterson discple Oliver Jones, it seems to be legit and is in excellent sound. Right up there with Stratford and the Concertgebouw.

3 hours ago, HutchFan said:

 

Is OP is the jazz world's equivalent to György Cziffra in classical music??? From what I've learned of Cziffra, he seemed to provoke the same sort of extreme responses, both for and against.

Not quite like Cziffra I think, who had a fabulous swashbuckling technique but also was known for taking notable liberties with the text.

[JSngry]

Seriously, this is some seriously nice phrasing.

 

[Hardbopjazz]

His duet album with Niles-Henning Ørsted Pedersen "Digital at Montreux" is great. Oscar's runs on the first two tracks "Old Folks" and Soft Winds" are beyond human.

 

 

[Ted O'Reilly]

Here's an OP live recording that wasn't released for 40 years, but it's good for me even if the piano's a bit wonky...

http://www.allmusic.com/album/the-oscar-peterson-trio-at-zardis-mw0000193920 

[jeffsjazz]

OP recorded many great ones ! Just off the the top of my head

1.Exclusively for my (MPS) 4 cd box recorded exquisitely in Germany

 2. Night Train

3. Affinity

4.Live in Tokyo /Japan (Jazz Lips - or some other Andorran grey label.A very well recorded live outing with R. Brown and E. Thigpen

5. Prez w/OP trio - outstanding !

[duaneiac]

 

 

 

[Olie Brice]

I'm far from an Oscar Peterson fan, but I do love the Ben Webster album with the OP trio.  Webster on sublime form, some of the best Ray Brown on record and OP at his least obtrusive...

[Gheorghe]

The funny thing is, Oscar was one of the first jazz musicians I heard, cause it seems a lot of people who usually didn´t listen to jazz, would eventually buy the one or the other OP album. OP or Garner, so maybe that´s how I got to know him, when I was a kid.

I think the two albums I heard then was the above mentioned "Night Train" and "We Get Requests". Those albums are not so "overplayed" like later stuff would be. I like some OP if he doesn´t exagerate the pianistic thing.

I like the more subdued stuff, a nice thing if the often critized "In Tune" with the Singers Unlimited, that was in fashion then , and I recently got the CD as a Chrismas present from my wife. That´s nice stuff, not so overplayed.

And lesser known, there´s a nice Pablo album Eddy Lockjaw Davis with the Oscar Peterson Trio at Montreux......

[Big Beat Steve]

6 hours ago, Gheorghe said:

The funny thing is, Oscar was one of the first jazz musicians I heard, cause it seems a lot of people who usually didn´t listen to jazz, would eventually buy the one or the other OP album. OP or Garner, so maybe that´s how I got to know him, when I was a kid.

 

Same impression here. I can't recall if he was one of the first I heard but he certainly was omnipresent (e.g. in jazz programs on radio in my early jazz years). This may have been one the reasons I did not search him out actively for rather a long time (and whenever I listened to or bought JATP recordings it certainly wasn't for OP either).

So in the end it was tunes that caught my ear on radio that spurred me into buying OP records that became my favorites:

- His "Exclusively for my Friends" albums recorded for MPS in the 60s, particularly the "Travelin' On" album.

- His very early 1945-49 recordings for RCA. Fine stuff with me any time. No doubt many will quibble that this is not "THE OP" as we all know him but I find them amazing anyway, no matter if to some they are more a case of OP trying to "out-teddywilson" Teddy Wilson. I bought them on the strength of tracks heard on radio and actually more as another document of 40s jazz but I am fine with that. I just take them for what they are.

 

 

Edited February 28, 2017 by Big Beat Steve

[Teasing the Korean]

The OP wants to know about Oscar Peterson, yet everyone is talking about the OP's playing. 

[Big Beat Steve]

Isn't that what a musician is all about? His playing? And if you want to know what somebody's favorites are an explanation of what they like about those favorites would not be amiss IMHO - not least of all because this should allow the OP to evaluate better why this or that recording is preferred by somebody else out these. He just "might" have different priorities and this will allow him to judge the replies accordingly. A case of "one man's meat ..." you know ...