Oscar Peterson Interview by Serge Forte 

Marciac, August 1997

Serge Forté: What do you think of Jazz today?

Oscar Peterson: I think that today, jazz is, as an art form, in a very dangerous position. There is so much money behind music and it has become so commercial that jazz as well as classical music are under threat.

SF: And what about jazz pianists?

OP: In my opinion quite a few pianists are talented. Yet I suppose you mean pianists that are actual?

SF: Yes, I am thinking of Keith Jarrett, what is your opinion of him?

OP: Well, you see, I don’t think that Keith Jarrett can help jazz very much since he is so different. He was neither a jazz pianist nor a classical one. If you want to talk about jazz pianists, you have to take them as they are. Keith gives a classical concert and soon after he gives a jazz one and you never really know where he’s really at. I think he is very talented in his own way though.

SF: What is your opinion of jazz drummers? Could you play with Jack Dejohnette for example?

OP: He is not the kind of drummer I would choose to play with. I think he would suit much better jazz men like Chick Corea for example. I put a lot of pressure in the way I play and I expect the same kind of pressure from drummers such as Bobby Durham and Martin Drew. It helps me play better. I don’t have anything against Jack Dejohnette but from time to time, drummers get disconnected, the rhythm floats and this is no good for me. I used to like Max Roach and Art Blakey because they were definitive and this is probably the reason why I like Martin Drew and Ed Thigpen, you always know what they are up to.

SF: I have often heard the story of your first meeting with Norman Granz, but I would really like to know your version of the story.

OP: My version of the story? Well, everything is true! He came to Montreal to promote his coming jazz concerts. I was performing in a night club that day and he heard me live on the radio as he was in a taxi driving back to the airport. He thought it was a record and when the cab driver said to him it wasn’t, Norman told him to take him straight to the club where I was playing and we went to have dinner together. That is how we met!

SF: How did you react?

OP: It was an amazing surprise! I was not expecting to see Norman Granz sitting in that concert hall and yet he was!

SF: Do you think really that young jazz pianists need to learn to play classical music?

OP: I think it depends on how talented they are. On one hand, for a musician who has such a natural gift like Errol Garner, it isn’t necessary. On the other hand, the rigidity of learning classical music teaches you how to respect an instrument and enables you to use it at a much deeper level than if you had just learned to play the piano by yourself. In classical piano, there are so many levels of tone that you can’t understand it if you start playing without knowing what you are doing. If you study classical music, like I and many other people did, your teacher tells you where to use the tone and it’s a very difficult thing to do. The only way to be able to do that is to play classical music. Have you had a classical training?

SF: Yes, I had.

OP: Then you know what I am talking about, don’t you?

SF: Yes, I played classical music many years before hearing you in 1978. But I think that people who learn classical music should also be taught how to improvise.

OP: Yes, it’s a shame but you cant really learn classical music that way because it has been written to be played exactly.

SF: Perhaps you can teach the harmony and how it is constructed?

OP: My teacher, Paul Lemarquis used to make me work on a classical piece and then he would ask me how I heard it. I used to answer “well, not exactly that way” but I couldn’t change anything since I hadn’t written it. If it had been one of my compositions, I could have taken the liberty to change something but as it was somebody else’s, I had to respect it. That is the first thing you need to know in jazz music: you have got to respect what has been set for you to play. And if you don’t do that, you are not improvising, you are just wandering.

SF: Have you played classical music in public?

OP: With an audience? Yes, when I was young, 15 or 16 maybe. At the time, classical music was the most important for me and jazz was way behind. That was before I left Canada.

SF: How did you construct your style in 1940, without all the means that we have today to listen to music?

OP: Mostly because I had this huge desire. I wanted to be able to play jazz so I had to break away from classical music tradition and I told myself “I want to do this” and I had to believe it. It wasn’t easy because in those days, there were no jazz teachers, as you know.

SF: How did you managed to tackle somebody else’s style like Art Tatum’s to whom you are often compared, taking only the traditional style.

OP: As I told you, I learned respect from my classical training and I also learned to respect musicians like Art Tatum. Most of the people who listen to him say “Oh my god! He can play so fast, so many notes! That doesn’t mean anything to me, that is not what I was interested in, it was his harmonic conception, because he could hear in an harmonic way that no other musician could.

SF: As well as the fact that you have the same style as Tatum, it is obvious that you master bebop. Did you learn at the time they were recorded, Charlie Parker’s solos?

OP: Oh yes, all of them!! No, no (laughing)!! But, if you put on one of his records, I can still sing his solos! I can also sing Dizzy’s solos as well as Lester Young’s, Roy Elridge’s, Coleman Hawkins’, Ben Webster’s and Johnny Hodges’. I can still do it today because at the time, the only way to learn these solos was to listen to them over and over. We had no sheet music for them and no tape recorders! That’s why I keep on playing Lester Young’s “Sometimes I’m happy”, not as a tribute but for it’s musical value, because this music means something in here (touching his chest).

SF: Do you think that the fact that you played the trumpet helped you transcribe these solos?

OP: Yes, definitely because when you listen to a sax or a trumpet, you hear it differently from when it’s a pianist. The tempo is different because the note comes from the wind and not from the strength.

SF: I know that it’s difficult for a pianist to transcribe a trumpet or a sax solo.

OP: It is very difficult especially because you don’t have the same attack.

SF: What do you think of Bud Powell who, as you know, was known for having a playing style close to the saxophone. Have you ever met him?

OP: Yes, I used to know Bud Powell. I think he was a fabulous pianist. But, he wasn’t the best one. I preferred Hank Jones. Bud was what I would call a “ruff talent”. What I mean is that he would play exactly what he would have in mind. I don’t think he used to train very much. His playing was direct with no preparation.

SF: And yet, his life was so terrible!

OP: He became the victim of his own environment.

SF: Talking about Powell, have you met Lennie Tristano?

OP: No, I never met him, but I like some of the things he did.

SF: It was very new for the time!

OP: Yes, it was very new indeed. I liked his researches which were very adventurous . I don’t think I could have spent my life doing this, but I think he chose a very interesting point of view. When he played with his band and was totally improvising for example, that was the beginning of free jazz.

SF: When I met Frank Tenot, he told me about a discussion you had together about the “3M”: Mingus, Monk and Miles...

OP: Well, some people have really brought something to jazz and I think that Miles and Monk are part of these people. But for me, Monk was not really a pianist, he was more of a composer, and a good one. Concerning Miles and the trumpeters, I prefer to think about Dizzy, Clifford Brown who were serious stuff, you know what I mean?

SF: Yes, I know what you mean...

OP: Yes, I am sure you do, because you are a pianist, so you know what I am talking about! It’s very fashionable to talk about Miles nowadays. Television and radios give a lot of importance to how he used to dress, his look and his life style. But if you talk to me about talent, then I think about Dizzy and Clifford of course, but also about Roy Elridge and there is a big difference...

SF: On Norman Granz’s initiative, you took part in a historical recording session with twenty of the most talented musicians such as Charlie Parker, Ben Webster, Barney Kessel, Ray Brown, Johnny Hodges. It was in April 1952. Do you remember it?

OP: As if it was yesterday!

SF: I have a book here which is full of pictures of these sessions and I would really like you to sign it. You know that book, don’t you?

OP: No, I have never seen it before!!!

SF: Well, the story of these pictures is very special because nobody had thought to ask a photographer to come to immortalize the event. But completely by chance a photographer happened to be there and she took many pictures without disturbing the musicians.

Yet, she was not very interested in jazz so she forgot about the recording session and didn’t say anything about it to anybody. Again by chance, the author of the book found one of the pictures, met the photographer and discovered with great amazement how good the quality of all the photographs was. I really thought you knew that book.

Then, as Oscar was flicking over the pages of the book, he did a flashback to his youth and saw all his old friends, most of them gone. There was a moment of true emotion when, showing a picture of Ben Webster to his daughter, he said to her “ you remember Uncle Ben, don’t you. We went to put some flowers on his grave...” He kept saying “what a wonderful book, it’s extraordinary! These photographs are fantastic! You want to know the story of jazz, well there it is!” One simple glance at each other with Pascale was enough to see the evident: It was Oscar’s seventy-second birthday two days later. Guess what we gave him...

This interview was made on August 12th, 1997, at the Hotel de France, in Auch, during the Marciac Festival. I would like to thank Mr Oscar Peterson for the warmth of his welcome, his laughter and also his kindness towards my poor English!

 

Serge Forté.

Oscar Peterson et Serge Forté, Marciac 97

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