Thirty-odd years ago, pianist Oscar Peterson lost the best ensemble he ever had.
Though Peterson remained one of the most popular-and exciting-pianists in jazz, he never quite recaptured the chemistry he shared with Ray Brown on bass and Herb Ellis on guitar. From 1953-58, when the rigors of the road forced Ellis to leave, they were arguably the most accomplished trio in the business. So you can imagine how Peterson is feeling these days, now that the gang is back on the road.
”I`ve never said it aloud before, but that was the best trio I`ve ever known,” says Peterson, who proves it on ”The Legendary Oscar Peterson Trio: Live at the Blue Note,” a fiercely swinging performance recorded live seven months ago (in New York) by Telarc Jazz.
”So that`s why we decided to get together again,” adds Peterson. ”We figured there aren`t that many jazz trios out there anymore (most players travel in quartets, quintets or the occasional big band), and we were curious to see whether we could make that same excitement and electricity happen again.”
To understand the high-octane playing that Peterson, Ellis and Brown routinely generated in the old days, it`s important to remember that each was still in the make-or-break phase of his career. In the early `50s, Peterson, Ellis and Brown were revered by musicians but just beginning to reach the wider public.
Perhaps more important, each player was consistently trying to challenge the other two (without sacrificing unity of ensemble playing). The result, as in the recording the trio made for Verve at the Stratford Festival in 1956, represented chamber jazz at once viscerally exciting and intellectually sophisticated.
”I was pushing it hard, bodily and musically,” recalls Peterson in Gene Lees` recent biography ”Oscar Peterson: The Will to Swing” (Prima, $19.95). ”I don`t think people realized how hard we were playing. I remember one night in Baltimore, it sticks out in my memory, when we had the challenge going. Ray and Herb came in and said, `We`re going to get you tonight.`
”So I said, `No, no, you had it last week, you were hot as a pistol last week.` . . .
”So we opened Monday, and I went for broke, and I really had me a night. and by this time they (Brown and Ellis) started looking at me kind of strange.”
Or, as Brown recalls in the Lees book, ”To play with and for Oscar Peterson is very demanding. It doesn`t take very much to upset Oscar on a stage. . . . (But) Herb and I spent too much time honing up for him to have anything to (complain) about. We were keeping that group damn near waterproof. . . .
”We were opening one night for (Count) Basie. Oscar said, `They got more guys, but that`s all. They`re not taking nothin` from this band.` That`s the way he thought. To hell with Count Basie`s Orchestra. You understand, they were our closest friends in the world, but on the bandstand, Oscar takes no prisoners.”
When the competitive spirit runs that deep, nothing-not even the passage of time-can diminish it.
”Frankly, the guys couldn`t wait to get at me again-we still seem to be at it,” says Peterson today with a big laugh.
”In fact, when we finished the first leg of our recent tour in Japan, I said to Ray, `I may be an old man of 65, but you guys still couldn`t get me.` ”And he said, `Maybe not, but you sure must have felt us breathing down your neck.` So the fighting spirit is still there-in fact, I really think that`s what keeps this group going.”
In a way, it`s amazing that the trio lasted as long as it did, considering the heat that these three players perpetually put on each other. Neverthless, by 1958 Ellis had grown weary of the road (his bouts with alcoholism intensified his desire to leave), whereupon Brown and Peterson signed on drummer Ed Thigpen. By `65, Thigpen and Brown had left, also drained by the road life.
Peterson, though, never quit. Like his pianism, he moves fast and light, apparently never letting up.
Perhaps that`s why, even early in his career, he developed one of the most incendiary piano techniques in jazz, classical, blues or you name it. Through the history of jazz piano, only Art Tatum had equal (or possibly greater) fluidity on the instrument.
The irony is that for as long as Peterson has been playing, some listeners have felt he was more technique than substance.
”I understand where those critics are coming from, and it doesn`t even bother me,” says Peterson, who was admired by, among others, classical virtuoso Vladimir Horowitz.
”I guess the only part of it that I do rebel against is when they categorically write off a giant like Art Tatum, saying: `Well, he was a man with a great pair of hands, but that was about it.`
”Anyone who says that, doesn`t understand Art Tatum, because he was so much deeper than that.”
So, too, is Peterson, a classically-trained pianist who can fire off Lisztian scales and arpeggios at one moment, tender blues harmonies the next. That Peterson has been able to play so fleetly despite a nearly lifelong affliction with arthritis-which affects mostly his hands and knees-almost defies believability.
”The best I can say is that I have the arthritis under control,” says Peterson. ”To be truthful, it`s just a matter of dealing with the pain. When there`s a change of seasons, sometimes it can be a little rough on me. But other than that, it doesn`t seem to impede my playing.
”But it`s true that when you get to be my age, your body has a way of letting you know you`ve been around for a while.”
Still, Peterson, who was born in Montreal on Aug. 15, 1925, remains perpetually in motion, presently touring Japan and Europe with two of his closest friends in tow.
No matter where the trio goes, however, the group remains identified with one city more than any other.
”If I had to name a home for this trio, it would have to be Chicago,”
says Peterson, whose group was nearly in residence at the long-shuttered London House.
”Chicago is piano city, more so, in a lot of ways, than New York. With people like Larry Novak, Ramsey (Lewis) and Audrey Morris, you`ve got the best people in the business right there.
”In fact, when we played Chicago in the `50s, I could almost tell you before any set who was going to be sitting where in the front row.
”The most important one of all, to me, was Audrey Morris,” adds Peterson, referring to the excellent singer-pianist who still performs occasionally in Chicago clubs.
”She was a big influence on me. Tunewise, she`s a walking musical encyclopedia, the Sylvia Sims of Chicago.
”I used to spend many evenings with her and her husband, Stu (Genovese), playing old records and rehashing tunes.
”She`d say to me: `You know, Opie, I think you`ve got the bridge to that tune wrong,` and, sure enough, she`d be right. I`d never get to catch her wrong.”
But Peterson`s close Chicago ties raise one inevitable question: Why hasn`t the trio been booked for a local run?
”A few people have been talking to us, but, to be frank, I don`t know if there`s a venue that`s able to handle the group,” says Peterson, apparently alluding to the fact that glamorous, high-ticket showrooms such as the London House no longer exist here.
Should some shrewd local impresario realize that booking the old Peterson Trio likely would be a standing-room-only event, listeners would hear the ensemble at a new level of refinement.
As the recent recording attests, Peterson and friends have learned to say more with fewer notes. Though the recording has its share of fireworks, it`s also notable for eloquent blues and ballad playing from Peterson, whose tone remains one of the most beautiful in jazz.
”Our playing definitely is more crystalline than it used to be,” says Peterson.
”By now, each of us has defined what his talents are, and I think that comes through on both the solos and the ensemble work.
”We`re all approaching music a lot differently than before. We`re looser, we`re having more fun, we`re not out to prove a thing.”
