Does Oscar Peterson get a bad rap?

[JSngry]

I paid attention to what I let my kids watch...until a certain age. of course.

The Sesame Street about how a saxophone got made remains a favorite!

 

[Rabshakeh]

I don't hate Peterson, but I don't like it. As someone says upthread, there are a 100 pianists I would listen to ahead of him. I've always been mystified by how come he was so well loved. 

I noticed recently that the Allmusic review for My Favorite Instrument describes it as a "prelude to his outstanding Pablo recordings". What are these outstanding Pablo recordings? If there aren't any, which at least made the biggest splash? I'd assume that given Peterson's commercial importance, he was a large part of what kept Pablo going.

[jlhoots]

Joe Fiedler: Open Sesame

[JSngry]

 

[Pim]

On 13-9-2022 at 7:58 PM, HutchFan said:

I wonder...  Will the "Great Oscar Peterson Debate" EVER die?!?!

People have been flogging this horse -- both pro and con -- for decades.

    

 

Well I hope it dies soon but probably not . Some people have to repeat a thousand times about how they hate a musician.

I cannot believe one actually could be offended by someone’s playing. There’s a lot musicians I don’t particularly like, both jazz and non-jazz but no one offends me. And if their music is a joy and pleasure to others, everything’s fine with me.

Edited September 14, 2022 by Pim

[Ken Dryden]

5 hours ago, Rabshakeh said:

I don't hate Peterson, but I don't like it. As someone says upthread, there are a 100 pianists I would listen to ahead of him. I've always been mystified by how come he was so well loved. 

I noticed recently that the Allmusic review for My Favorite Instrument describes it as a "prelude to his outstanding Pablo recordings". What are these outstanding Pablo recordings? If there aren't any, which at least made the biggest splash? I'd assume that given Peterson's commercial importance, he was a large part of what kept Pablo going.

Among some of his outstanding Pablo albums, in my opinion, are:

Two of the Few (duo with Milt Jackson)

The Oscar Peterson Jam (live concert featuring Dizzy Gillespie, Clark Terry & Eddie Lockjaw Davis)

Oscar Peterson Et Joe Pass À La Salle Pleyel (solo sets by both artists, plus several terrific duets)

Oscar Peterson & Clark Terry

Oscar Peterson & Dizzy Gillespie

In Russia (solo, duo & trio sets)

The Silent Partner (an underrated soundtrack that evidently hasn't been reissued on CD)

The Trio

Frankly, I find myself listening to a lot more of Peterson's trio with Joe and Niels than the earlier one with Herb & Ray. I feel like the trio formed in the 1970s pushed each other even harder to play at the top of their game.

There are a number of current musicians championed by a lot of writers whose music has no appeal to me at all, but I feel no need to start a thread questioning whether or not they are overrated. Buy and listen to what you enjoy and if your opinion is different than the next jazz fan, who cares?

[Rabshakeh]

11 minutes ago, Ken Dryden said:

Among some of his outstanding Pablo albums, in my opinion, are:

Two of the Few (duo with Milt Jackson)

The Oscar Peterson Jam (live concert featuring Dizzy Gillespie, Clark Terry & Eddie Lockjaw Davis)

Oscar Peterson Et Joe Pass À La Salle Pleyel (solo sets by both artists, plus several terrific duets)

Oscar Peterson & Clark Terry

Oscar Peterson & Dizzy Gillespie

In Russia (solo, duo & trio sets)

The Silent Partner (an underrated soundtrack that evidently hasn't been reissued on CD)

The Trio

Frankly, I find myself listening to a lot more of Peterson's trio with Joe and Niels than the earlier one with Herb & Ray. I feel like the trio formed in the 1970s pushed each other even harder to play at the top of their game.

Thank you

[Teasing the Korean]

In the mid-90s, when I was buying any solo piano album I could find by anyone, I picked up a cheap CD of My Favorite Instrument by Oscar.  I listened only a few times and unloaded it, but not before extracting the files.  I have not listened to it in more than 2 decades.

So this afternoon, I put the files in a playlist to revisit.  I couldn't remember why I unloaded it to begin with.

During the first three songs, he keeps reminding us every 16 or 8 or even 4 bars that he is Art Tatum - oops, I mean Oscar Peterson - and I totally understood Allen Lowe's use of the word "vulgarity."  On tracks 4 and 5, he seemed to relax a little - either that, or my ears adjusted to hearing a Tatum fill every 4 bars.  And then the overkill - or vulgarity - picked up again with tracks 6 through 9.  

I completely remembered why I never listened to it and why I unloaded it.

I don't mind hearing a solo pianist referencing Art Tatum here and there.  Hank Jones, whom I adore, does this, but it is done in a tasteful and integrated manner.  Oscar on this record comes off like he is trying to impress us all with his technical prowess.  While I can admire his dexterity on its own terms, the results do nothing for me, except make me want to listen to a different piano player. 

I should add that when Oscar on this record was not doing Art Tatum, he seemed to be doing George Shearing or Bill Evans.

Edited September 14, 2022 by Teasing the Korean

[HutchFan]

38 minutes ago, Ken Dryden said:

There are a number of current musicians championed by a lot of writers whose music has no appeal to me at all, but I feel no need to start a thread questioning whether or not they are overrated. Buy and listen to what you enjoy and if your opinion is different than the next jazz fan, who cares?

Yeah. Right on!

That's why the endless debate seems so absurd.

 

[JSngry]

Tatum's virtuosity was his top level, and if it was a gig that called for it, his only level. But Jeezy Weezy, that was not his only layer, certainly not his deepest layer, and when he went there, it's evident to me that the only reason he needed a piano was because that was what he played, if you know what I mean. uck "so much piano". No - so much music. 

 

[John L]

On 9/14/2022 at 5:12 PM, Teasing the Korean said:

 While I can admire his dexterity on its own terms, the results do nothing for me, except make me want to listen to a different piano player. 

 

That about sums it up for me too.  When I draw a blank with a major jazz artist, I have this continual idea in the back of my head that I must be missing something.  That turned out to be true for a few artists that I have learned to appreciate over the years, including Chet Baker.   So every now and then I will force myself to listen to some of Oscar Peterson's solo and trio records.  But that hasn't helped my appreciation yet, and it has been some years now.   Of course, I do hear him all the time when I listen to Lester Young, Ben Webster, Roy Eldridge, Lionel Hampton, etc.  Usually, I am not bothered by him much in those contexts, but often not too thrilled either.   When I compare the Verve recordings of Lester Young and Oscar Peterson with the Verve recordings made around the same time of Lester Young and Teddy Wilson or John Lewis, the difference is huge and not in OP's favor.    

Edited September 16, 2022 by John L

[Teasing the Korean]

8 minutes ago, John L said:

That about sums it up for me too.  When I draw a blank with a major jazz artist, I have this continual idea in the back of my head that I must be missing something.  That turned out to be true for a few artists that I have learned to appreciate over the years, including Chet Baker.   So every now and then I will force myself to listen to some of Oscar Peterson's solo and trio records.  But that hasn't helped my appreciation yet, and it has been some years now.   Of course, I do hear him all the time when I listen to Lester Young, Ben Webster, Roy Eldridge, Lionel Hampton, etc.  Usually, I am not bothered by him much in those contexts, but often not too thrilled either.   When I compare the Verve recordings of Lester Young and Oscar Peterson with the Verve recordings made around the same time of Lester Young and Teddy Wilson or John Lewis, the difference is huge and not in OP's favor.    

I should add that I lifted Oscar's coda to Billie Holiday's "East of the Sun" for my solo piano arrangement of "All the Way."

[Rabshakeh]

I wonder whether the OP's question should perhaps be put the other way around. Why was he so popular? 

For decades, Oscar Peterson was one of the world's most beloved jazz musicians. What's more, he was pure jazz. There's no argument about that (unlike the Sinatras, etc).

Why did people, and not just casual jazz fans, connect so much with his music?

Personally, I do not really enjoy his music. But there is clearly something there. I've enjoyed the Milt Jackson duo recommended upthread, and I definitely like the +1 album a lot. The Teddy Wilson comparisons probably aren't in Peterson's favour, but he's still solid, even as an accompanist.

[danasgoodstuff]

32 minutes ago, Rabshakeh said:

I wonder whether the OP's question should perhaps be put the other way around. Why was he so popular? 

For decades, Oscar Peterson was one of the world's most beloved jazz musicians. What's more, he was pure jazz. There's no argument about that (unlike the Sinatras, etc).

Why did people, and not just casual jazz fans, connect so much with his music?

Personally, I do not really enjoy his music. But there is clearly something there. I've enjoyed the Milt Jackson duo recommended upthread, and I definitely like the +1 album a lot. The Teddy Wilson comparisons probably aren't in Peterson's favour, but he's still solid, even as an accompanist.

An interesting question, but I'm not so sure 'bout the rest of what's said here.  OP had a kitsch side, as Do the Math said and my experience has always been (for decades and decades) that he is particularly beloved by newbie and part time jazz fans.  Or folks who don't understand things, no matter how much or how long they try.  And his ascent to popularity was a long time ago in a very different world.

[JSngry]

Some people like that kind of thing. 

[Chuck Nessa]

He's been a large part of untold numbers of recordings that give me pleasure, so it is hard for me to "dis" him.

[danasgoodstuff]

Just now, Chuck Nessa said:

He's been a large part of untold numbers of recordings that give me pleasure, so it is hard for me to "dis" him.

No doubt, but I've never heard a recording under his name that made me say 'I gotta get that',

[Big Beat Steve]

See, I've never heard a recording under the name of Cecil Taylor that made me say "I gotta get that".
So ...?

BTW, any lame (pseudo) arguments along the lines of "If you can't hear the difference" are and remain pointless in ANY discussion of extolling the virtues and merits of one artist over another and overriding notions of "mandatory listening" . It ALWAYS is a matter of personal tastes and "different strokes" and there is NO objectivity in this.

FWIW, I've not heard a recording under OP's name that made me say "I gotta get that" either - except for ONE single one - his "Travelin' On" LP in the "Exclusively For My Friends" series on MPS (for personal musical reasons beside the point here).
Yet I would not blast him the way others seem to thrive on doing (to prove what exactly again - the "merits" of which "more deserving" other pianists?)

And while I agree that a lot of his popularity no doubt rested among newbie and part time jazz fans, that is no mean achievement either IMO. Better at any rate as a means of getting at least a portion of those introduced to jazz via OP to go and explore jazz beyond OP. Better than certain others who came along later and went out of their way to chase, clobber and frighten away an awful lot of a potential audience, most of which ended up with only saying "jazz - that's too weird and way too much noise for me". An unfortunately  deeply engrained reaction that I am still facing to this day when I just mention in passing that I listen to a huge lot of jazz. They apparently lump my tastes in with noises from styles of jazz I don't embrace either (and have no reason to be sorry for it), whereas they have no clue what there would be in the way of ACCESSIBLE swing, cool, R&B, soul jazz, etc. (even retro swing) for them to groove to  - if only other styles of jazz hyped during certain periods in the past decades hadn't made entry into jazz so much more difficult even for those listeners with ears intially open beyond straight rock. Fine for those who prefer their jazz as a small insiders' high-brow circle and sneer at anything and any artist immediately accessible to anyone beyond that insiders' circle. But is it a way to carry on the jazz message?

 

Edited September 17, 2022 by Big Beat Steve

[Rabshakeh]

Whenever I play any jazz at family gatherings, my Dad always asks me “Is this Oscar Peterson?”.

It could be literally anything. 

I'm pretty sure it's a goad.

Edited September 17, 2022 by Rabshakeh

[Rabshakeh]

I think part of the dislike of Peterson may stem from the fact that, because of his success, he represents a certain image of jazz as music for (from a late boomer perspective) the older and more conservative generation. The kind of thing your parents would buy on a whim as their one record purchase every couple of years.

If you want an image of jazz that is more nightclub shades and cigarette smoke, or dashiki and conscious politics, then Oscar Peterson is sort of in your way.

In contrast, younger jazz fans I interact with, who are too young to have parents who listened to Peterson, often have no opinion on Peterson at all. He's fading from fame/notoriety fast. 

[Daniel A]

I don't let the "success" of some artists/performers get in the way of enjoying what they do for what it is. So I'm not judging Oscar Peterson differently than someone like Kenny Dorham on a bad day. Peterson is not my favorite pianist, but he was part of my journey into jazz and there are a couple of things I listen to from time to time. 'Motions and Emotions' for instance. 

[JSngry]

Norm Peterson, that's my guy. 

[Pim]

Well my dad is a big Peterson fan and trough that way Oscar Peterson was one of the musicians that got me into jazz. Wouldn’t say I listen to him as much as then but I still enjoy quite some records. I like the Verve/Limelight/MPS stuff most and the early Cleff and later Pablo records least. So I could say the 1960’s is my favorite Peterson period. The stuff with Ray Brown and Sam Jones are great. I think the central point in Petersons music is joy in playing. No complex theory or philosophy behind it just: having fun playing with each other. And I like that.

He has always seemed like a very nice and humble person to me. And what a life he had playing with so many jazz greats. 
 

 

Edited September 17, 2022 by Pim

[Teasing the Korean]

3 hours ago, Daniel A said:

 'Motions and Emotions' for instance. 

Yeah, that's a great one, less so for Oscar Peterson than for the album's MPS fondue party aesthetic.

Also love his mistitled Soul Espagnole, an album of mostly Brazilian tunes.

Edited September 17, 2022 by Teasing the Korean

[Peter Friedman]

1 hour ago, Pim said:

 I think the central point in Petersons music is joy in playing. No complex theory or philosophy behind it just: having fun playing with each other. And I like that.

He has always seemed like a very nice and humble person to me. And what a life he had playing with so many jazz greats. 
 

 

Well said!