Sound recording of an interview of Oscar Peterson, conducted on 10 April 1997 for the purpose of the Oscar Peterson Multimedia CD-ROM project. Peterson speaks with two unidentified interviewers about many aspects of his life and career as a jazz musician. Some topics are re-visited during the course of the interview. The recording is unedited, and includes many pauses for technical and other reasons.~The interview begins with Peterson describing the first time he heard the pianist Art Tatum, when Peterson's father brought home and played Tatum's recording of Tiger Rag. Peterson's reaction was that two pianists were playing on the recording. On learning that there was only one, Peterson stopped practising for a month and re-considered his decision to be a jazz pianist. Peterson describes later encounters in which he met Tatum, including playing with him (after some initial reluctance on the part of Peterson) at an after-hours club in Washington, DC. Peterson also tells about an occasion when he and fellow jazz pianists Errol Garner and Teddy Wilson heard Tatum perform at The Embers nightclub in New York, after which the three retired to a bar at a nearby hotel for an intense discussion of the music they had just heard, Tatum's approach to jazz piano, their own approaches to the music, and their shared feeling of respect for the piano as an instrument. Peterson discusses and rejects the widely held view that he was heavily influenced as a pianist by Tatum. Peterson sees Tatum has having emerged from a different musical environment that had little to do with his own formative influences, and offers the opinion that it is the advanced technique that he and Tatum shared that has led people mistakenly to think that Peterson has followed in Tatum's footsteps. Peterson's view is that Tatum's gift was not one of technique (which can be acquired) but of an advanced and unique approach to the development of harmonic sequences.~Another major topic is that of clubs in which Peterson and his groups have performed. Peterson recounts stories about clubs in which he has enjoyed playing (such as the Century Plaza Hotel, Los Angeles; Baker's Keyboard Lounge, Detroit; Basin Street, New York; Meridian Hotel, Paris); such clubs typically feature good acoustics and management that insists on a respectful listening environment. Peterson's view is that an extended club engagement can give a group a chance to become tighter and to work out better arrangements. Unlike the concert hall, where there is usually just one chance to perform a composition well, musicians performing over several nights in a club have more freedom to try out various approaches to an arrangement. Peterson describes clubs where the crowds were very noisy during the performance. He recalls one instance where his trio walked out of the London House (Chicago), with the result that some members of the audience took it upon themselves to police the room in order to create a quiet environment for performance. Peterson also recounts a story of arriving early for a club engagement in Cleveland, where he was to follow an engagement by Art Tatum, so that he could hear Tatum. The club's piano was in very poor condition, and with Peterson present Tatum complained to the owner, who replied that there was no problem, since the instrument had just been painted.~Other jazz musicians with whom Peterson has played, or whose work he admires, is another major theme in the interview. Peterson recounts stories about the trumpeter John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie, and the contrast between Gillespie's clowning and impish approach to life in general and his very focussed and serious approach to music. Peterson recounts a story where he, the bassist Oscar Pettiford, and the drummer Art Blakey intervened during a Gillespie solo at Birdland (New York) by taking over the places of the relatively weak musicians in Gillespie's rhythm section, and describes Gillespie's reaction to this intervention. Peterson speaks at length about his friend the jazz pianist Count Basie, his admiration for Basie's economical style, note placement, and ability to express a great deal with few notes. Peterson provides accounts of touring with Basie and of the Satch and Josh two-piano recording that they made. Peterson discusses other jazz pianists whom he holds in high esteem, including: a frequent member of Gillespie's groups, known to Peterson as Hen Gates [no doubt the bop pianist James "Hen Gates" Forman]; and Hank Jones, whom Peterson considers the most under-rated pianist in the history of jazz. Peterson describes Jones' participation in the Jazz at the Philharmonic tours of the 1950s, and the musical sensitivity that Jones displayed in his accompaniment of Ella Fitzgerald. Peterson tells of improvised solos that he heard live and which have moved him deeply, including ones by the trumpeters Thad Jones (on I Love You) and Freddie Hubbard (on Portrait of Jenny). He advises young jazz musicians to learn important recorded solos as part of their musical education. Peterson states that his philosophy for performing in new groups is to play with (rather then against) the other musicians and to complement their style, which has allowed him to perform and to record successfully with musicians of diverse styles, such as Basie, Gillespie, and Stéphane Grappelli. ~Another theme in the interview is Peterson's tours outside North America. He tells about tours of Japan, including with Jazz at the Philharmonic, his hearing the jazz pianist Toshiko Akiyoshi in Tokyo, and arranging to record her. Peterson states that one benefit he sees from touring outside North America is the exposure to other cultures and approaches to life. He has observed that audiences in other parts of the world often listen more deeply to the music and have a greater appreciation of it than do most North Americans. He feels the music is treated with greater respect in other continents, evident for example in the coffee houses in Japan that are centred around listening to jazz recordings.~The final major topic in the interview is technical matters pertaining to live performance and recording. Peterson is adamant that the placement of the musicians on the stage must facilitate members of the group hearing one another. Placement also needs to facilitate visual communication on stage, for example when Peterson needs to telegraph an unexpected harmonic shift to new group members; he does this by briefly holding a finger over a note before striking the new chord. He insists on hearing other group members directly in live performance, and not mediated through microphones and monitors (which delay hearing what others have played). He insists that amplified guitars blend well with the acoustic instruments in the ensemble. Peterson prefers to control the mix of piano, bass, and guitar during live performances, and generally pre-arranges a set of signals with the person at the sound board. In recording studios, he eschews the use of sound baffles between musicians (to the consternation of many recording engineers), and almost always refuses to wear headphones. Peterson prefers to record at the same time as vocalists whom he is accompanying, rather than have the vocalist record their track separately; this is because he plays to the vocalist, and responds to them musically. He supports the view of his long-time manager and producer, Norman Granz, that the important thing is that artists be comfortable and at ease in the recording studio. <1h 40mn>
