In the Key of Oscar Peterson
National Archives
Oscar Peterson. Image courtesy Jango.com
Oscar Peterson was born in 1925 into a family like so many contemporary black families in Montreal. In 1918 his father, Daniel Peterson, an immigrant from the British West Indies, rode the trains as a sleeping car porter for the Canadian Pacific Railway. Olivia, his mother, worked as a domestic.
As a sailor in his youth, Daniel Peterson came across a small organ and learned to play it. Later he began to see music as the ticket out of poverty. As a father, he became so intent on it that he set instructions for his children's music practice while he was away. Slack work would be rewarded with punishment.
Ultimately illness led Oscar Peterson to the instrument that propelled him to meteoric musical heights. Surviving a bout of tuberculosis at the age of five, he abandoned the trumpet and took up the piano. His first teacher was his sister Daisy.
As much as it is about music, this story and this exhibition is about love and about race.
The exhibition opens with what looks like a grand piano. Actually, it's a Yamaha Disklavier Grantouch that produces "life-like digital tones" according to the descriptive label. Activated by a motion sensor, it "plays" music recorded by Oscar Peterson. It can even be hooked up to a PC to download music from the Net.
Given that today Peterson's musical explorations extend into electronically produced music, this is quite the compliment and forms a tantalizing counterpoint to the rest of the exhibition. The machine juxtaposed with handwritten manuscripts for instance, raises questions about our relationship with music and the way technology is changing it.
"Oscar! Thanks so much for the gift! You were very sweet to think of me...." writes Dudley Moore, in a personal note he sent to Peterson in February 1990. Grammy Nomination Certificates, Peterson's Order of Canada, private recordings, telegrams, Playboy awards, an interview with Hanna Gardner, a collaboration with animator Norman MacLaren...each section is a forest-like thicket of detail and information. Contextualized by panels explaining some of the historical context, the presentation, although a little overwhelming at points by its sheer density, allows viewers to read, watch or listen to what most interests them.
Using letters, disks, posters, manuscripts, photographs, newspaper cuttings, TV and radio interviews, music recordings, web sites, a CD-ROM and film, this exhibition single-handedly catapults the standard for music-related exhibitions to a whole new level.
Curator Dr. S. Timothy Maloney, director of the music division at the National Library, acknowledges that without Yamaha's sponsorship, the richly layered multi-media components would have been absent, and the exhibition may not have gone ahead at all. The carefully designed cabinets housing the materials in various media, for instance, were all custom built for this exhibition.
But ultimately it's the exhibits themselves and often their highly personal nature that steal the show, all of them given to the National Library by Peterson. A recording of Peterson's Hymn to Freedom, adopted as the anthem of the civil-rights movement, for example. Combined with press clippings of Peterson and other black performers joining Dr. Martin Luther King in the March on Washington, viewers cannot help but be impressed by Peterson's profound commitment to human rights as well as his art. Among Canadian performers and composers, his is truly a great spirit.
"I wrote to him, inviting him to start making deposits," says Dr. Maloney, of a letter he wrote to Peterson in 1991. "When I began (working at the National Library) in 1988, there were very few things in the music archives outside the world of classical music and musicians."
"Oscar was instantly interested. He just picked up the phone and called me! He'd kept things in house and in storage lockers - he just needed to be pushed."
Divided into three like jazz sets, Dr. Maloney wisely resisted the temptation to compartmentalize Peterson's life.
"Like a good jazz solo, it jumps all over the place," Dr. Maloney says of the exhibition. Avoiding a strictly chronological order, still it does follow Peterson's musical and public political development from his childhood to the present.
"Built like a piano himself, genial, mahogany-stained...." Thus begins an article about Peterson in the Canadian Pacific Staff Bulletin in September 1945. Peterson endured all kinds of racially patronizing comments, including being introduced on CBC radio as "our coloured boy from Montreal."
Peterson went on to perform with jazz greats like Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday and Duke Ellington. To date he has seven Grammys, two Junos and has been Down Beat's Jazz Pianist for 24 years.
"I can think back to when I was a kid, I never dreamed my country would honour me," Peterson is quoted in the exhibition. He turned 75 this year.
"There is very little that we don't have except for some of the actual awards," says Dr. Maloney, then adds smiling, "But Oscar's still depositing."
Published in The Ottawa Xpress, 2001
As a sailor in his youth, Daniel Peterson came across a small organ and learned to play it. Later he began to see music as the ticket out of poverty. As a father, he became so intent on it that he set instructions for his children's music practice while he was away. Slack work would be rewarded with punishment.
Ultimately illness led Oscar Peterson to the instrument that propelled him to meteoric musical heights. Surviving a bout of tuberculosis at the age of five, he abandoned the trumpet and took up the piano. His first teacher was his sister Daisy.
As much as it is about music, this story and this exhibition is about love and about race.
The exhibition opens with what looks like a grand piano. Actually, it's a Yamaha Disklavier Grantouch that produces "life-like digital tones" according to the descriptive label. Activated by a motion sensor, it "plays" music recorded by Oscar Peterson. It can even be hooked up to a PC to download music from the Net.
Given that today Peterson's musical explorations extend into electronically produced music, this is quite the compliment and forms a tantalizing counterpoint to the rest of the exhibition. The machine juxtaposed with handwritten manuscripts for instance, raises questions about our relationship with music and the way technology is changing it.
"Oscar! Thanks so much for the gift! You were very sweet to think of me...." writes Dudley Moore, in a personal note he sent to Peterson in February 1990. Grammy Nomination Certificates, Peterson's Order of Canada, private recordings, telegrams, Playboy awards, an interview with Hanna Gardner, a collaboration with animator Norman MacLaren...each section is a forest-like thicket of detail and information. Contextualized by panels explaining some of the historical context, the presentation, although a little overwhelming at points by its sheer density, allows viewers to read, watch or listen to what most interests them.
Using letters, disks, posters, manuscripts, photographs, newspaper cuttings, TV and radio interviews, music recordings, web sites, a CD-ROM and film, this exhibition single-handedly catapults the standard for music-related exhibitions to a whole new level.
Curator Dr. S. Timothy Maloney, director of the music division at the National Library, acknowledges that without Yamaha's sponsorship, the richly layered multi-media components would have been absent, and the exhibition may not have gone ahead at all. The carefully designed cabinets housing the materials in various media, for instance, were all custom built for this exhibition.
But ultimately it's the exhibits themselves and often their highly personal nature that steal the show, all of them given to the National Library by Peterson. A recording of Peterson's Hymn to Freedom, adopted as the anthem of the civil-rights movement, for example. Combined with press clippings of Peterson and other black performers joining Dr. Martin Luther King in the March on Washington, viewers cannot help but be impressed by Peterson's profound commitment to human rights as well as his art. Among Canadian performers and composers, his is truly a great spirit.
"I wrote to him, inviting him to start making deposits," says Dr. Maloney, of a letter he wrote to Peterson in 1991. "When I began (working at the National Library) in 1988, there were very few things in the music archives outside the world of classical music and musicians."
"Oscar was instantly interested. He just picked up the phone and called me! He'd kept things in house and in storage lockers - he just needed to be pushed."
Divided into three like jazz sets, Dr. Maloney wisely resisted the temptation to compartmentalize Peterson's life.
"Like a good jazz solo, it jumps all over the place," Dr. Maloney says of the exhibition. Avoiding a strictly chronological order, still it does follow Peterson's musical and public political development from his childhood to the present.
"Built like a piano himself, genial, mahogany-stained...." Thus begins an article about Peterson in the Canadian Pacific Staff Bulletin in September 1945. Peterson endured all kinds of racially patronizing comments, including being introduced on CBC radio as "our coloured boy from Montreal."
Peterson went on to perform with jazz greats like Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday and Duke Ellington. To date he has seven Grammys, two Junos and has been Down Beat's Jazz Pianist for 24 years.
"I can think back to when I was a kid, I never dreamed my country would honour me," Peterson is quoted in the exhibition. He turned 75 this year.
"There is very little that we don't have except for some of the actual awards," says Dr. Maloney, then adds smiling, "But Oscar's still depositing."
Published in The Ottawa Xpress, 2001
