Does Oscar Peterson get a bad rap?

[Gheorghe]

14 hours ago, Big Beat Steve said:

 

File under "casual/occasional jazz listener". 
I've told the story of my late Ma before (not too long ago actually). She did listen to jazz in her somewhat earlier days (50s/60s) and did stress this when I got into jazz in the mid-70s but her jazz records consisted of several MJQ discs, two by George Gruntz and two of the inevitable "Play Bach". Now what would you make of THAT and what would THAT prove? Was it that after listening to a few Third Stream discs she decided that she didnt care enough about the rest in the field of jazz to get anything more?
Bless her memory but the more I think of it the more I think this likely was the reason. Not feeling comfortable enough with jazz per se to stray too far from substyles of jazz that had ties with classical music.
But what got me into discussions back then of course was that she claimed this (ie. Third Stream) was what all worthwhile jazz was all about.
And no doubt there are many out there who focus on a very, very narrow segment or style of jazz (or even a single artist?) and claim this is it and this is all and this is the ultimate in jazz wherever, whenever ...

Interesting that your mother listened to some jazz. Since my father was a classic fan  (and mostly them long operas written by Wagner) and she had to live with it though this was not her kind of music, she came in my room sometimes when I listened to jazz - also in the mid seventies like in your case - and I don´t think it was my influence because she told from her own initiative that she thought Mingus´ "Meditations on Integration" is some fantastic music that really moves her. Same with some of Pharoah Sanders´ work like "Healing Song" from Live at the East that I already had, it really moved her, and in later years above all Ornette Coleman´s "Lonly Woman". She was born in 1921. When I had borrowed from a friend some  of the supposed to be more pppular stuff like a Peterson Trio, a Brubeck album and yes...... I forgot to mention "Play Bach" which was also in the otherwise non-jazz collections , she would not like it and say this is "kitsch" (she never was a diplomatic person and it came very easy from her lips to express things in a bit negative manner). 

 
Oh yeah, and she loved the sound of Miles Davis, I think that "My Funny Valentine" from 1964 was one of here favourits, or Kind of Blue, but especially the 60´s stuff with Wayne and Herbie.....,and I never forget what she said about Miles Davis as a man: "He is a little devil, quite mean but......he is honest and says it in a very direct manner and I like that". (well that´s natural, since this was her own personality, not always to my pleasure....). 

9 hours ago, Teasing the Korean said:

From his earlier quintet period on MGM - which was his "jazzier" period - I have often found You're Hearing George Shearing, which was a comp that included "East of the Sun" and "September in the Rain," two that were early hits for him.

From the Capitol period - which is when he did lots of pop hybrid records with quintet plus orchestra - you're likely to find albums such as Velvet Carpet and anything with the word "satin" in the title.  

George Gruntz did some classical/jazz hybrid LPs.  Jacques Lousier did at least five volumes of Play Bach, in which Bach compositions are played by  Loussier's piano trio.  They date from a period in the 1960s in which baroque music in general and Bach in particular were experiencing a comeback of sorts.  The Swingle Singers and Wendy Carlos famously participated in the festivities. 

I must admit I never heard Shearing, but love to play one of his compositions "Conception", which has some challenging chords and in the past it was quite hard for me to find fellow musicians who can blow it, but it´s better now, a lot of good musicians coming out...., and "Lullaby at Birdland" I love to improvise on it. 
I heard that he kind of invented them block chords but can´t confirm it since I didn´t hear it. I heard a lot of block chords mostly on later Bud Powell recordings of medium tempo tunes like "Star Eyes" "There will Never be another You", "Like Someone in Love" etc, and another kind of block chords of course by Red Garland. Red Garland is really worth to study, he has a very very special kind of voicings, it´s his own, and I memorized all Garland solos on those Miles albums....

[Big Beat Steve]

16 hours ago, Rabshakeh said:

Sorry to ask, but what were these? I find this long vanished music really interesting.

Re- the Third Stream records mentioned, I just checked:

- George Gruntz, Jazz Goes Baroque (Philips 850876 PY)

- George Grutz, Jazz Goes Baroque 2 - The Music of Italy (Philips 843827 PY)

And I also now found she "only" had Play Bach No. 1 (Jacques Loussier) but also

- The Swingle Singers Going Baroque (Philips B 77225 L)

I.e. the primary "go-to" records of the early 60s in that substyle ...

Like TTK explained, classical music from the Baroque era done in a jazz-toned vein. But of course a million miles away from jazzed-up classics like the John Kirby Sextet or Hazel Scott had done in earlier periods. Which is why these Baroque Jazz Third Stream recordings made a fairly big splash (at least here in Europe) with those who usually listened only to classical music.

 

 

Edited September 19, 2022 by Big Beat Steve

[Rabshakeh]

Thank you.

[Teasing the Korean]

5 hours ago, Gheorghe said:

I heard a lot of block chords mostly on later Bud Powell recordings of medium tempo tunes like "Star Eyes" "There will Never be another You", "Like Someone in Love" etc, and another kind of block chords of course by Red Garland. Red Garland is really worth to study, he has a very very special kind of voicings, it´s his own, and I memorized all Garland solos on those Miles albums....

Shearing didn't invent block chords, but the quintet sound featured block chords on piano, with the vibes doubling the top line and the guitar doubling the bottom line, i.e., playing the line an octave lower.  It is a classic sound that was often imitated.  I knew the sound before I knew the name George Shearing.

[JSngry]

Block chords come from Milt Buckner,

[Daniel A]

Not that it means anything at all, but Peterson, Buckner, Shearing, Garland and Gruntz all recorded for MPS at roughly the same time.

[Gheorghe]

16 hours ago, JSngry said:

Block chords come from Milt Buckner,

Yes, I remember I read that somewhere, but I heard Milt Buckner only on organ on a Black Lion Thing with Illinois Jaquet (The King) with the incredible good british drummer Tony Crombie. A record I really like. On piano think I only saw him on a short footage with Hamp, he was very very small, wasn´t he ? 

Actually, when I feel like it, I insert short sections of so called Block chords in a solo, but never exagerate it. I don´t remember which guy it was on record, but I heard one relativly unknown pianist, who quite overdid it and played his whole solos only block chords. 

But I´m not sure what is block chords. I can do two different things, the one is the kind that sounds more like the voicings of a reed section in a band, and the other is the kind of chords Garland would do. I had thought that the Garland style is chords, but not the traditional block chords until I heard Miles telling Garland to play block chords in the intro of a ballad. 

[Teasing the Korean]

On 9/19/2022 at 3:30 AM, Big Beat Steve said:

Which is why these Baroque Jazz Third Stream recordings made a fairly big splash (at least here in Europe) with those who usually listened only to classical music.

And these records gave listeners in the US a vision of an idealized Europe that both embraced the contemporary while acknowledging its monumental past achievements.  

[Rabshakeh]

A junior at work (29) is currently going through a heavy Oscar Peterson stage, concentrating on the piano trios, almost exclusively (weird: I am definitely of the 'better with horns' school myself). As the office jazz guy, I'm therefore having to have a lot of conversations about Oscar Peterson. I feel quite out of my depth.

[John Tapscott]

48 minutes ago, Rabshakeh said:

A junior at work (29) is currently going through a heavy Oscar Peterson stage, concentrating on the piano trios, almost exclusively (weird: I am definitely of the 'better with horns' school myself). As the office jazz guy, I'm therefore having to have a lot of conversations about Oscar Peterson. I feel quite out of my depth.

I'm sure you're doing fine. Sometimes it's good to just listen to someone with somewhat different tastes than your own.  Maybe you'll learn something new and grow to appreciate OP trio records more. I have been listening to jazz (almost exclusively) for over 50 years. I'm sure I have purchased at least 10,000 recordings (and listened to them all, many several times). And I'm still learning and hearing new things, even in old favorites. There's no end to it.  And I'm sure there won't be, as long as my mind and hearing are still good.  

Edited March 2 by John Tapscott

[JSngry]

Everybody likes something. 

[Rabshakeh]

21 minutes ago, John Tapscott said:

I'm sure you're doing fine. Sometimes it's good to just listen to someone with somewhat different tastes than your own.  Maybe you'll learn something new and grow to appreciate OP trio records more. I have been listening to jazz (almost exclusively) for over 50 years. I'm sure I have purchased at least 10,000 recordings (and listened to them all, many several times). And I'm still learning and hearing new things, even in old favorites. There's no end to it.  And I'm sure there won't be, as long as my mind and hearing are still good.  

I agree with all this. 

Really, I'm just weirded out to be finding myself in any extended Oscar Peterson chat, particularly with a 29 year.

And some of those trio records are great. Others aren't, obviously. I find Peterson extremely inconsistent as a leader in trio settings. But there's some gold in there among the... other stuff.

23 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Everybody likes something. 

This person has very advanced music taste. That's partly why a heavy obsession with OP is so left field. 

[rostasi]

37 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Everybody likes something. 

 

[JSngry]

Advanced tastes in jazz, or in other musics?

One does not automatically translate to the other, either way.

For that matter... "advanced"... Esthetics or technique? Liking things and understanding them aren't necessarily the same thing.

On that line, I kinda wish I could experience OP without the context of having lived through and with a fair amount of him in real time, with all the other real-time musical options constantly unfold in all around. Maybe then I might better understand the attraction.

Or maybe not. I'll never know. 

Never mind, might be time to brush up on your Tatum and your Red Garland. 😀

12 minutes ago, rostasi said:

 

There ya' go! 

[Rabshakeh]

4 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Advanced tastes in jazz, or in other musics?

One does not automatically translate to the other, either way.

For that matter... "advanced"... Esthetics or technique? Liking things and understanding them aren't necessarily the same thing. 

Most musics. She does know her jazz. Not in the way that people on this board do, but she has a good knowledge. Most conversations about jazz that I'd had with her before now have been more obvious 29 year old friendly topics like Pharaoh Sanders, Coltrane or late 70s Sun Ra.

8 minutes ago, JSngry said:

On that line, I kinda wish I could experience OP without the context of having lived through and with a fair amount of him in real time, with all the other real-time musical options constantly unfold in all around. Maybe then I might better understand the attraction.

Or maybe not. I'll never know. 

My aunt and dad won't tolerate Oscar Peterson, presumably because they remind them of their older family members' music tastes and political opinions...

9 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Never mind, might be time to brush up on your Tatum and your Red Garland. 

There ya' go! 

No joke, but this is exactly what has happened. I have been saving face by going "Hmm. Yes. Also, what about Art Tatum?".

Also Erroll Garner, who I wrongly associate with Peterson because of occasional flash, but who I do really like and was important to me as a younger jazz listener.

[JSngry]

Errol Garner was for real! 

24 minutes ago, Rabshakeh said:

Most musics. She does know her jazz. Not in the way that people on this board do, but she has a good knowledge. Most conversations about jazz that I'd had with her before now have been more obvious 29 year old friendly topics like Pharaoh Sanders, Coltrane or late 70s Sun Ra.

Yeah, well, that's not having advanced taste in jazz, that's having a taste of and for informed consumer convenience.

Credit due for carpe dieming, but a lot happened before (and during) that. A lot.

 

[Ken Dryden]

Dave Brubeck told me once that he loved hearing Erroll Garner. Much like Oscar Peterson, he gets a bad rap.

One guy I just couldn't get into was Jacques Loussier playing jazz treatments of Bach, his recordings felt mechanical to me and I have ong since disposed of his Telarc Jazz CDs.

[JSngry]

Errol Garner was one of those people who could sound perfectly innocent while being pretty damn subversive. 

Magician indeed! 

[AllenLowe]

Oi, my head is spinning I just read this whole thing again. FIrst, let me say that I love Errol Garner; unlike OP he really swings, and it's a much different matter. There is some pacing, some genuine improvising, and those intros are mini masterpieces.

Next, I would like to apologize to Jim for whatever little feud we  had back in 2011. I remember a bit of it, but it is all water under the bridge (unless OP is playing that bridge, in which case it will fly by in a whirl of pointless phrases).

I want to mention Bud Powell - as great technically as OP, no, better - but a real improviser. His lines have an amazing thud and whirl to them, with space and air and true originality. He is the real thing, and i would say that his touch is percussive in an older fashion, along the lines of the way black players have of phrasing with emotional continuity rather than with just scales and patterns. OP just snaps it on and proceeds like a machine, with a supposed clarity that is, to me, contrary to the spirit of jazz tonality. Bud had a humanity to his touch and sound that OP could never reach. Bud's lines breathe; OP's lines charge through like a freight train in which the brakes have given out.

I do find OP offensive, as I have said. It's a visceral reaction at what I hear as artificial. As Dick Katz said once, there's a difference between technique and facility. What OP had was facility, and it does not compare to Tatum, whose harmonic mastery was genius and constantly in motion (Lewis Porter has written beautifully on how and why people misunderstand Tatum).

As for Justin, he has continued to stalk me from time to time, telling me whenever I dislike something that I am simply jealous. That's a great line of argument. As for his complaint about why it is ok for me to severely criticize OP while I take offense at Justin's criticisms, well...if he has musical arguments with me or my music I welcome him. But what he said was deeply and offensively personal. 

As for the rest, well, I'm still alive (I didn't expect to last this long when things started to go south for me in 2019) and I try to remain calm, but when you are a musician for as long as I have been and have gone through what I have you tend to feel a little bit raw about certain kinds of insinuations.  But I am sorry if my response to those insinuations crosses certain lines from time to time. I have just been through too much to react passively and without response (and many thanks to Dan Gould for what he said in the early days of this conflict).

 

 

 

 

Edited March 3 by AllenLowe

[Dan Gould]

1 hour ago, AllenLowe said:

(and many thanks to Dan Gould for what he said in the early days of this conflict).

 

 

 

 

I had to go back and refresh my memory. That was an easy post/reaction. Justin was absolutely trollish in the comment that sparked so much unpleasantness.

 

So let's stir some new shit related to OP:

I love Gene Harris.

I am agnostic about OP (like several, more agreeable to the sideman/"support" dates).

You (meaning everybody with an opinion on OP)?

And why, since they both claim inspiration from boogie woogie pianists and both have blues sensibility that is mostly front and center. And while Gene never reached OP levels of fame, he had a deep connection to audiences and in the latter half of his career toured the world many times, with Ray Brown, leading his own quartet, and fronting the Phillip Morris Big Band.

[sgcim]

I guess I fall into the "better with horns" camp. Last Sunday as we drove in to Brooklyn for what's left of the family's annual dinner out together, we listened to Sid Gribbets' Sunday special on Stitt on KCR. I kept thinking, "Who the heck is that pianist playing with him? He shaw nuff be sounding good. I was amazed to find out that OP was the pianist on almost all of the quartet cuts Sid played. I said to myself, "Well I'll be darned!"

We had a very nice, peaceful dinner together, until I made the mistake of asking my sister (an R&B fanatic for 60 years, and ex-Jimmy Garrison student) what she thought of hip-hop. Just for asking that question, I was met with a torrent of four-letter words that I can't mention here. and we rushed out of the restaurant, and made our separate ways home.

 

[Gheorghe]

"better with horns" camp......sounds interesting. 

then I also might have been fallen into that camp, as early as I have been listening to jazz. My first records were Miles Quintet and Mingus Quintet and the first pianists I liked were Garland in the Davis band and Byard in the Mingus band. Even the first Bud I ever heard was with Bird and Fats so it´s natural that I miss something if there is no horns. 

Chances to hear OP with horns exist mostly from the Pablo Years, I have that Eddie Lockjaw disc with OP, well I also have Jaws with Tommy Flanagan and it´s natural that I like it more with Flanagan. 
Erol Garner I heard also first with a horn, no one less than Bird when I first heard "Cool Blues", and I have one Erol Garner album "Up in Errolls Room" which has a pick up horn section. 

Also most Bud Powell I have is with horns : Blue Note with Fats and Rollins, and one with Curtis Fuller, and one with Dexter Gordon, one with Blakeys Messengers, one with Hawk, with Griff I think, with Don Byas that´s what I think I have.....

[Rabshakeh]

The "With Horns" comment was purely about OP. I certainly don't feel like that about all pianists, and many pianists I definitely prefer without horns (Bobby Timmons is an obvious example). 

I think that adds up to "I prefer Oscar Peterson as an accompanist or at most a co-lead, rather than a solo lead". 

Someone upthread describes his comping as "functional", which is probably not wrong from a jazz perspective. Clearly, he is not one of those pianists who elevates the tune as a whole. There are no unusual chords to pique the soloist's ideas or moments where his touch brings everything together. I don't think of him as one my favourite accompanists in the way I think of the likes of John Hicks. 

But the "functional" aspect possibly misses the main point. He's accompanist on so many classic Granz-affiliate records, many of which work so well because they foreground precisely those aspects of the music that Peterson excelled at: raw excitement and / or strong emotionality, rather than rhythmic / harmonic daring etc.

In that way, he is maybe similar to that other darling of non-jazz fans, Buddy Rich, in that his virtues (viewed as an ensemble musician) are focused on precisely those areas that pop fans look for and post-war jazz fans generally don't.

7 hours ago, Dan Gould said:

So let's stir some new shit related to OP:

I love Gene Harris.

I am agnostic about OP (like several, more agreeable to the sideman/"support" dates).

You (meaning everybody with an opinion on OP)?

And why, since they both claim inspiration from boogie woogie pianists and both have blues sensibility that is mostly front and center. And while Gene never reached OP levels of fame, he had a deep connection to audiences and in the latter half of his career toured the world many times, with Ray Brown, leading his own quartet, and fronting the Phillip Morris Big Band.

I'm with you. Love Gene Harris. Oscar Peterson agnostic.

Did Oscar Peterson really have a "blues sensibility", though? That's probably where I would personally have faulted him most.

Obviously "blues sensibility" is a pretty nebulous term, but if anyone had it, Gene Harris had it. Every choice of note and every touch is informed by deep nervous system level understanding of blues.

Whereas I listen to an OP record like the 1961 Verve album The Trio and I hear a skilled pianist playing blues.  All the tells that I hear in 1950s European musicians who have "learned" how to play the blues from records seem to be present in Peterson's playing on that album.

I should add that The Trio (1961) is my personal least favourite OP record. I have a better opinion of others if his records.

[rdavenport]

I happened upon OP's autobiography in a charity shop this week. I picked it up and skimmed a few pages, and it didn't really grab me - inoffensive, slightly banal. I left it on the shelf.

It's interesting what Big Beat Steve says upthread about the jazz tastes of classical music fans. I recently bought quite a big record collection, 60% classical and 40% jazz. The jazz portion was entirely typical of these collections (I've bought dozens over the years).

There were over 20 OP albums, about 16 George Shearings, about 12 Dave Brubecks, about 10 Andre Previns, 15 Nat King Coles, 15 Frank Sinatras, 10 each of Duke Ellington, Basie and MJQ. You almost always find a token Bird or Miles album in these collections. This one was slightly unusual in that it had 2 Monk albums (a solo bootleg-looking thing and the Tokyo concerts) a single Bill Evans, and the real kicker - four Groove Holmes LPs.

[Brad]

35 minutes ago, rdavenport said:

I happened upon OP's autobiography in a charity shop this week. I picked it up and skimmed a few pages, and it didn't really grab me - inoffensive, slightly banal. I left it on the shelf.

It's interesting what Big Beat Steve says upthread about the jazz tastes of classical music fans. I recently bought quite a big record collection, 60% classical and 40% jazz. The jazz portion was entirely typical of these collections (I've bought dozens over the years).

There were over 20 OP albums, about 16 George Shearings, about 12 Dave Brubecks, about 10 Andre Previns, 15 Nat King Coles, 15 Frank Sinatras, 10 each of Duke Ellington, Basie and MJQ. You almost always find a token Bird or Miles album in these collections. This one was slightly unusual in that it had 2 Monk albums (a solo bootleg-looking thing and the Tokyo concerts) a single Bill Evans, and the real kicker - four Groove Holmes LPs.

The Holmes albums may be unsurprising.  Some of his later efforts seem to get away from his soul jazz beginnings.