Home · Arts & Entertainment · Music · Oscar Peterson: A Jazz Giant
Topic spans: 1944 - 2003
Oscar Peterson: A Jazz Giant
Oscar Peterson was a giant in every sense of the word. Standing well over six feet tall, he'd even been mistaken for a football player. But there's no mistaking his brilliance on the keyboard. His dazzling technique combined with his swinging style made the Montreal native, as one critic remarked, the best damn jazz pianist in the whole world. Oscar Peterson died on December 23, 2007. He was 82.
7 television clips
9 radio clips
Growing up in Montreal's Saint-Henri
Broadcast Date: Feb. 16, 1983
Oscar Emmanuel Peterson was born on Aug. 15, 1925 in Montreal, Que. He grew up next to a church in Saint-Henri — a bustling district with a small but tight-knit black community. (As remembered by Peterson in this CBC Television clip.)His father, Daniel Peterson, made sure the house was immersed in music. He was a self-taught musician who worked as a railway porter all his life.
When Oscar Peterson was still young, his father scraped together enough money to buy a piano, even if it meant the family didn't have enough to eat for a few days.
Daniel Peterson was strict but he instilled a sense of discipline and drive in his five children. He saw music as a way out of working on the rails, one of the few opportunities open to black Canadians at the time.
Two important teachers in Oscar Peterson's early musical training were his sister Daisy and the Hungarian-born classical pianist Paul de Marky.
He later credited them for making him believe he had something to offer to the musical world.
Growing up in Montreal's Saint-Henri
• Daniel Peterson was born in the British Virgin Islands. He came to Canada as a seaman. Oscar Peterson's mother Kathleen Olivia John was born in St. Kitts, Leeward Islands and came to Canada as a domestic.• Oscar Peterson started off playing the trumpet and piano when he was five. He focused on classical piano two years later after a bout with tuberculosis left him with weakened lungs.
• One of Peterson's compositions is called Place St. Henri. The piece is named after his childhood home and is part of his Canadiana Suite.
• Daisy Peterson also taught piano to jazz luminaries such as Oliver Jones and Joe Sealy.
Growing up in Montreal's Saint-Henri
Medium: Television
Program: Portraits
Broadcast Date: Feb. 16, 1983
Guest(s): Paul de Marky, Oscar Peterson, Daisy Peterson
Narrator: William Whitehead
Duration: 7:47
Last updated:
July 17, 2009
Activez le Javascript sur votre navigateur...
16 clips in this topic . page
Radio
3:48
April 25, 1962
In 1962, Gould's controversial performance with Leonard Bernstein at Carnegie Hall in New York causes sensation.
Television
7:24
Jazz flutist Moe Koffman revisits some of the highlights of his long career in Canada and the U.S.
Growing up in Montreal's Saint-Henri.
The CBC Digital Archives Website.
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Last updated: July 17, 2009.
[Page consulted on Feb. 13, 2012.]