Oscar Peterson - Jazz Pianist Extraordinary

"Oscar Peterson - Jazz Pianist Extraordinary"," His living environment was one imbibed with jazz music since lived in a locality where most of the people were African Americans. After being affected with tuberculosis a couple of years later, he dropped the trumpet and turned all his efforts towards the piano. He taught Oscar and his four brothers all that he garnered while playing the piano when he was in the merchant marine. Since starting to play the piano, Oscar made sure he got his basics right he would faithfully practice his scales and classical etudes daily - a habit which gave him a good grounding in the basics which in his later years contributed to a large part of his mastery over the piano. He started to catch onto traditional jazz recordings which prompted him to learn many ragtimes and boogie-woogie tunes of his time. By the time he was nine years old, his playing was as mature as any other professional. When he was 14 years old, he took part in a nation-wide competition organized by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in which he emerged the winner. His first permanent gig was playing for a once a week show on the radio. The inspiration for his style of playing came from most of the jazz musicians whom any pianist at the time idolized - Nat King Cole, Teddy Wilson, James P Johnson and Art Tatum. His first hearing of an Art Tatum piece was when his father played Tiger Rag for him. He admitted later that he was intimidated by Art Tatum's technique and that it made him decide to be humble at his own ability to play. He rarely ever played the piano when Tatum was around. His work had a lot of inspiration and note for note picked up sections from some of Sergei Rachmaninoff's music. His influences extend toward classical music which he has attributed to his sister Daisy Sweeney. Peterson found a good friend and collaborator in Norman Granz. He was traveling in a taxi at the time. Granz got him a gig at Carnegie Hall as a part of his Jazz at the Philharmonic series. Granz was behind Peterson in the fight against segregation. Peterson was plagued with health problems throughout his life. He was too heavy for his size which affected his mobility. . THIS COULD CHANGE YOUR LIFE AND GIVE YOU PEACE OF MIND