Oscar Peterson died December 23, 2007, leaving behind a legacy cemented by a host of seminal recordings and performances, not only with his vaunted trios but in collaboration with a veritable who’s who of jazz in the 20th Century – from Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong to Roy Eldridge and Dizzy Gillespie. That already impressive legacy has been further burnished in the years since his passing by the efforts of his wife Kelly Peterson, who has overseen everything from reissues and previously unreleased recordings to a Toronto-based jazz festival named in his honor. The latest recording On A Clear Day: The Oscar Peterson Trio – Live in Zurich, 1971, was released as a 2-LP clear vinyl set on Record Store Day (November 25) by Mack Avenue Records. The album features Peterson with his longtime bassist Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen and drummer Louis Hayes, who recently was named an NEA Jazz Master. In addition, the pianist was honored by Canada with the issue of a $1 coin bearing his name and image.
My recent conversation with Ms. Peterson quickly revealed that her husband’s legacy is a living entity, with a presence in the past, but also with an exciting look to the future.
Watch our conversation here:
Interview highlights:
Gary Walker: You had an integral part in selecting the tunes for this recording, right?
Kelly Peterson: No, actually this is a live concert recording. The part that I played in producing it is making it available. It’s all part of my endeavor now, with being the steward of Oscar's legacy. It's to fill in the gaps with some of the recordings that are available and finding recordings that were made of live concerts that perhaps aren’t, with other members of the group who Oscar didn't record with very much, or they're just kind of filling in the gaps with some groups that are not as readily available.
This actually is only the second recording release of Oscar’s trio with Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen and Louis Hayes. There's only one other recording available called Great Connection that they recorded in the Black Forest in Germany for MPS, one month before the concert where this recording was made because that trio was only together for a very brief time. It was the end of Louis' tenure in the group. And Niels had just come into the group for this six-week tour. So it was nice to find a recording with that trio because hearing them together is very special.
Listen to “Where Do I Go From Here” from the album On a Clear Day: The Oscar Peterson Trio - Live in Zurich, 1971 on Mack Avenue:
The opening track is “The Lamp is Low.” Just like many of his other recordings, when he didn't write, he tended to choose tunes that we've all been familiar with, standards that have been done over and over. On that recording, there were tunes by Ellington, Basie and Bennie Moten and so many others. But the way Oscar approached these tunes, he made everything that he approached his own.
He absolutely did. And, as he would tell you, every musician’s voice should be recognizable. That’s what he would tell his students.
Oscar was a huge fan of younger people perpetuating this music forward, wasn't he? Talk a little bit about his devotion to education.
He definitely was devoted to education and young jazz musicians coming up. He was an adjunct professor at York University in Toronto. He did master classes quite often when he was on tour for students to come to and for the public to come to. He also loved going to elementary schools and talking about music sharing stories and teaching kids. He would play and tell the kids, “Give me a note.” Then he would write a song for it and show them how that was done. He believed very strongly, as I do, that music education is important for absolutely everyone. Whether you're going to be a professional musician or not.
Talk about the Oscar Peterson International Jazz Festival because this is something that folks enjoyed during the spring. It's an annual event, isn’t it?
Yes, it began in 2018. During the Oscar with Love sessions, Renee Rosnes called me one day and said, “You know, I've been thinking about this. There should be a jazz festival named for Oscar.” She and I started thinking about that and talking about it. She's the artistic director of the festival. We had two seasons in Niagara on the Lake, which is a beautiful and picturesque part of Ontario. Then in 2020 we were very fortunate to be able to present our concert prior to everything's stopping because we had a date in February. It was the world premiere of Oscar's Africa, a suite he composed for Africa that he spoke about, but never performed in its entirety.
I thought he'd finished them. But John Clayton, who arranged and conducted it, told me there were some things that he needed to flesh out a little bit more. He made this gorgeous arrangement for it with an all-star rhythm section [Benny Green, Christian McBride and Lewis Nash], and a jazz orchestra. That was recorded and will eventually come out as well because I'm very excited about that. The only parts of the Africa suite that Oscar ever played and recorded are “Nigerian Marketplace,” “Peace,” which he wrote for South Africa, and “The Fallen Warrior,” which he wrote for Nelson Mandela when Mr. Mandela was in prison.
Listen to the Oscar Peterson Trio play “Night Train” here:
Coming in December is the 60th anniversary of something that he wrote that originally was on a recording in 1962 called Night Train, with the trio with Ray Brown and Ed Thigpen. At the end of that recording, he put together a piece entitled “Hymn to Freedom.” Talk about the importance of that composition.
It became so significant during these years since Oscar wrote it. The way it came about was during the recording session they needed one more song to complete the time for the record. And Norman Granz, who was Oscar's manager, dearest friend, and the producer of the recording, had asked for a blues tune. Norman was huge blues fan. So Oscar decided that in order to fulfill Norman's wish for something really going back to the roots of the blues, he should write something. He told Ray and Ed, “I'll take the first chorus and then I'll let you know when to come in and join me,” which is what he did. The tape was rolling. Oscar played the first chorus and then he nodded, and Ray and Ed joined him. That is on the Night Train album. It has such a churchy feeling to it. Oscar said he wanted it to have that churchy feel, the spiritual, the gospel, the really deep blues feeling.
When they finished Norman said to Oscar, “Okay, I know that's an original. What are you gonna call it?” And that's when Oscar said, “I'm gonna call it ‘Hymn to Freedom’” because it was 1962 and Oscar was thinking about the work that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was doing for Civil Rights. The following year, a woman named Harriette Hamilton wrote lyrics for “Hymn to Freedom.” When the lyrics were written, it was then adopted as an unofficial anthem of the Civil Rights Movement.
You can feel it when you hear this performance from the original Night Train. You can check it out, folks, and trust me, it, it immediately lends itself to the strife, the promise, the hope, the anger. It's all there within “Hymn to Freedom.”
Listen to “Hymn to Freedom” played by the Oscar Peterson Trio from the album Night Train in 1962:
It's really quite something. Because I grew up in the United States during that period of time, I knew that song. I didn't know Oscar had written it until I met him. But I knew the music. It's the kind of song that when you hear it, you feel as though you've always known it. During the 60 years since that time, the song has been performed by choirs around the world regularly. Almost daily people play it. It was performed by the Boys and Girls Choir of San Francisco on the steps of the Capital during President Obama's first inauguration in 2009. Earlier this year it was arranged by the conductor of the French National Orchestra and performed in their concert in support of Ukraine after the Russian invasion. I had no idea they were doing that. It moved me tremendously to think that that conductor knew the song and wanted to arrange it and have it performed by his orchestra with a choir for that concert.
