Legendary jazz musician and pianist Oscar Peterson started performing as a teenager with the Johnny Holmes Orchestra in Montreal. After a few years, he formed his own trio, and quickly gained fame and popularity throughout Canada. His appearances at the Alberta Lounge in Montreal were broadcast live on the radio. In 1949, impresario Norman Granz heard one of those broadcasts and enticed Mr. Peterson to make a surprise guest appearance with Granz’s all-star Jazz at the Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall later that year. Leaving the audience awestruck, Oscar joined JATP in 1950 as a full-time touring member. He formed a piano-bass duo with Ray Brown as well, and also began recording for Granz. He soon added Barney Kessel as the first of the guitarists with whom he would create trios, returning to the group format he loved.
Peterson’s “Hymn To Freedom”, with lyrics penned by Harriette Hamilton, became one of the crusade songs of the Civil Rights Movement led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the United States. It is still performed frequently by choirs worldwide. He also composed a salute to his beloved Canada, “The Canadiana Suite”, in the early 1960s. He has composed music for motion pictures, including the Canadian film Big North, made for Ontario Place in Toronto, and the feature film The Silent Partner, for which he won the Genie Award for best original film score in 1978. His compositions and recordings have also been included in the soundtracks of other feature films, and he composed a suite for the Olympic Arts Festival of the Calgary Winter Olympics in 1988, and music for the opening ceremony of the Skydome in Toronto.
Oscar Peterson has an extensive discography of his trio and quartet recordings, as well as his recordings with many of the other jazz greats. His varied albums include recordings with Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Roy Eldridge, Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins and Joe Pass. His worldwide performances and his recordings, particularly those with his trios and quartets, brought him recognition from numerous places all around the world.
Peterson received many awards and honors, including the UNESCO International Music Prize, eight Grammy Awards (including a Lifetime Achievement Grammy), the 1993 Glenn Gould Prize, and many more.
