This is Why I am Glad Pianos Exist

At the very end of last year, we lost the greatest jazz pianist
of all time: The Maharajah of the Keyboard, O.P., Oscar
Peterson. I know at least one person reading this is now
disagreeing with me, because he likes The Monk better, but the
fact is that there are a lot of great jazz players out there,
from Duke Ellington to Art Tatum, but OP is my favorite, and he
just died, so -- for this post -- he's the best.

I suppose I should justify why I like OP better than Art Tatum,
since while The Monk is great, he's jazz for other jazz artists
not jazz for the audience. Oscar Peterson knows when not to
improvise. Now, improvisation is the soul of jazz, but it's
still only a tool. Art Tatum could never turn it off. If you
listen him play Dvorak you'll see what I mean. I am reminded
of Richard Bentley's comment on Alexander Pope's translation of
the Iliad: "It's a pretty poem, Mr. Pope, but you must not call
it 'Homer.'" O.P. could improv with the best, but he also
showed respect to other people's work. His rendition of the
Gershwin Songbook strikes exactly the right balance. (That's unfair, because everyone does that to Humresque, but that's because of Tatum.)

I always get the sense, however, that Oscar Peterson lacks some
street cred on the jazz scene. Partly because he's Canadian,
but also because he was willing to not improvise. Jazz players
think you have to all the damned time, and it gets pretty
annoying. On well known songs, you need things to be kind of
familiar. Music is a visceral language. It takes us back to
important times and feelings of our lives. And the better the
music and the more important the times and feeling, the harsher
it sounds the the ear when the people making the changes screw
it up. For example, when I saw "Spamalot," it just sounded
wrong, when Tim Curry and Co. delivered the lines. Apparently
Mike Nichols told them to say them differently. He was wrong.
(Yes, I just said Mike Nichols was wrong in his direction of a
Broadway play.) Or Beatles' songs. Whenever someone covers
a Beatles' song, it just sounds wrong. Oscar Peterson could play other musicians just as well as he could play straight jazz or anything else, and it never sounds wrong.

My favorite Oscar Peterson story and album: Live at Carnegie Hall. It's available on import. The story goes that O.P. couldn't get a work visa, so they couldn't bill him. On the album, you hear Norman Granz introduce him and call him up on stage from the audience. That section is played during a New York public radio interview with Oscar Peterson which is available here.