Oscar Petersen
| Oscar Peterson | |
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Oscar Emmanuel Peterson |
| Born |
August 15, 1925 Montreal, Quebec, Canada |
| Died | December 23, 2007 (aged 82) Mississauga, Ontario, Canada |
| Genres | Jazz, bebop, hard bop, third stream, blues |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, composer |
| Instruments | Piano, clavichord, electric piano, synthesizer, organ, vocals |
| Years active | 1945–2007 |
| Labels | RCA Victor, Mercury, MPS, Pablo, Telarc, Verve |
| Associated acts | Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Ray Brown, Clark Terry, Roy Eldridge, Herb Ellis, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Norman Granz, Benny Green, Coleman Hawkins, Barney Kessel, Milt Jackson, Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, Joe Pass, Ben Webster, Ulf Wakenius |
| Website | www |
Oscar Emmanuel Peterson, CC, CQ, OOnt (August 15, 1925 – December 23, 2007) was a Canadian jazz pianist and composer. He was called the "Maharaja of the keyboard" by Duke Ellington, but simply "O.P." by his friends. He released over 200 recordings, won eight Grammy Awards, and received numerous other awards and honours. He is considered one of the greatest jazz pianists, and played thousands of concerts worldwide in a career lasting more than 60 years.
Peterson was born to immigrants from the West Indies; his father worked as a porter for Canadian Pacific Railway. Peterson grew up in the neighbourhood of Little Burgundy in Montreal, Quebec. It was in this predominantly black neighbourhood that he found himself surrounded by the jazz culture that flourished in the early 20th century. At the age of five, Peterson began honing his skills with the trumpet and piano. However, a bout of tuberculosis when he was seven prevented him from playing the trumpet again, and so he directed all his attention to the piano. His father, Daniel Peterson, an amateur trumpeter and pianist, was one of his first music teachers, and his sister Daisy taught young Oscar classical piano. Young Oscar was persistent at practicing scales and classical études daily, and thanks to such arduous practice he developed his virtuosity.
As a child, Peterson also studied with Hungarian-born pianist Paul de Marky, a student of István Thomán, who was himself a pupil of Franz Liszt, so his training was predominantly based on classical piano. Meanwhile, he was captivated by traditional jazz and learned several ragtime pieces and especially the boogie-woogie. At that time Peterson was called "the Brown Bomber of the Boogie-Woogie".
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