Oscar Peterson, the master of the jazz piano, has recorded more than 200 albums over a career that spans six decades. Music is the consuming passion in Peterson’s life; music is at the heart of this warm tribute by well-known writer and broadcaster Alex Barris.
From his youth in Montreal, to his introduction to a wildly enthusiastic audience at Carnegie Hall in 1949, to his work with Jazz at the Philharmonic and the international stardom that followed, Oscar Peterson: A Musical Biography traces the many roads that Peterson took as composer and sometime singer, soloist and accompanist, leader and arranger.
Alex Barris, who has known Peterson for over five decades, was granted extensive interview time and access to his subject. Barris has also included interviews from music critics, fans and many of Peterson’s contemporaries: Ray Brown, Dizzy Gillespie and Count Basie, to name a few. A candid stroll through modern music history, Oscar Peterson: A Musical Biography is also a note-perfect celebration of Canada’s greatest gift to the world of jazz.