Born in a working-class area of Montreal, Oscar Peterson catapulted to the top of the jazz world in the late 1940s, remaining there until his death in 2007 at the age of 82. The legendary Count Basie offered the pianist a job when he was practically still a teenager. He founded one of the greatest jazz quartets in the genre\u2019s history, worked with many of the world\u2019s greatest jazz artists \u2014 Lester Young, Roy Eldridge, Sonny Stitt, and Stan Getz \u2014 and toured with Ella Fitzgerald.<\/p>\n
Barry Avrich\u2019s celebration of the musician,\u00a0Oscar Peterson: Black + White<\/em>, charts Peterson\u2019s rise to prominence and his legendary proficiency. As Ramsey Lewis points out, he \u201cfrightened the hell out of people, pianistically.\u201d Interviewing lifelong friends, relatives, and some of his legion of fans \u2014 from Quincy Jones to Billy Joel, who was dumbfounded and starstruck when Peterson showed up at one of his concerts \u2014 Avrich paints a portrait of a man who was revered around the world, but whose constant touring profoundly impacted his personal life.<\/p>\n Avrich also stresses Peterson\u2019s interest in social justice. Many jazz musicians faced constant racism (especially when travelling with big bands led by white musicians), and Peterson took direct action, applying his musical gifts to the fight for equal rights. One of his most celebrated compositions, \u201cHymn to Freedom,\u201d was performed at Barack Obama\u2019s inauguration.<\/p>\n Packed with musical moments from and interviews with Peterson as well as those he inspired and mentored, including Herbie Hancock, Branford Marsalis, Measha Brueggergosman, Joe Sealy, Robi Botos, and Oscar winner Jon Batiste,\u00a0Oscar Peterson: Black + White<\/em>\u00a0is a warm and affectionate tribute to Canada\u2019s greatest jazz man.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Born in a working-class area of Montreal, Oscar Peterson catapulted to the top of the jazz world in the late 1940s, remaining there until his death in 2007 at the age of 82. The legendary Count Basie offered the pianist a job when he was practically still a teenager. He founded one of the greatest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":72181,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"tags":[],"tribe_events_cat":[5513,6440,5501,36982],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tribe_events\/72180"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tribe_events"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/tribe_events"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72180"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tribe_events\/72180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72182,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tribe_events\/72180\/revisions\/72182"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72180"},{"taxonomy":"tribe_events_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tribe_events_cat?post=72180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}