Mauro Nahoum (Mau Nah), José Sá Filho (Sazz), Arlindo Coutinho (Mestre Goltinho); David Benechis (Mestre Bené-X), José Domingos Raffaelli (Mestre Raf) *in memoriam*, Marcelo Carvalho (Marcelón), Marcelo Siqueira (Marcelink), Luciana Pegorer (PegLu), Mario Vieira (Manim), Luiz Carlos Antunes (Mestre Llulla) *in memoriam*, Ivan Monteiro (Mestre I-Vans), Mario Jorge Jacques (Mestre MaJor), Gustavo Cunha (Guzz), José Flavio Garcia (JoFla), Alberto Kessel (BKessel), Gilberto Brasil (BraGil), Reinaldo Figueiredo (Raynaldo), Claudia Fialho (LaClaudia), Pedro Wahmann (PWham), Nelson Reis (Nels), Pedro Cardoso (o Apóstolo), Carlos Augusto Tibau (Tibau), Flavio Raffaelli (Flavim), Luiz Fernando Senna (Senna) *in memoriam*, Cris Senna (Cris), Jorge Noronha (JN), Sérgio Tavares de Castro (Blue Serge) e Geraldo Guimarães (Gerry).

31 DE DEZEMBRO JAZZ

31 dezembro 2007

Segundo meu amigo Marc, nem todos os estudios estavam fechados no 31 de dezembro. Alguns músicos gravaram e, certamente, partiram de lá para a festa de reveillon. São eles:

31 de Dezembro de 1947
Charles Mingus (w/ Curley Hamner And His Orchestra)

- Bama Lama Lam
- Spooky Boogie

The Young Rebel (Swingtime)






31 de Dezembro de 1947

Lennie Tristano Quartet

- New Sound
- Through These Portals
- Resemblance
- Speculation
- Restoration
Lennie Tristano 1947-1951 (Classics 1290)




31 de Dezembro de 1952
Illinois Jacquet And His Orchestra

- Fat Man Boogie
- Blues In The Night
- Where Are You?
- What's The Riff?
Illinois Jacquet 1951-1952 (Classics)





31 de Dezembro de 1953
Louis Armstrong

- When It's Sleepy Time Down South
- Indiana (Back Home Again In)
- A Kiss to Build a Dream On
- Tea for Two
- My Bucket's Got a Hole In It
- Margie
- Velma's Blues
- That's My Desire
- C'est Si Bon
- Stompin' at the Savoy
- When It's Sleepy Time Down South

New Year's Eve broadcast from Japan on NBC radio



31 de Dezembro de 1953
Chet Baker

- Why Shouldn't I?
- I'm Through With Love
- You Don't Know What Love Is
- You Don't Know What Love Is (alt. take)

Chet Baker with Strings (Sony)




31 de Dezembro de 1953
Benny Carter Quartet (w/ Joe Glover And His Orchestra)

- I'll Be Around
- Beautiful Love
- Blue Star
- Flamingo

New Jazz Sounds: The Urbane Sessions (Polygram)




31 de Dezembro de 1953
Oscar Peterson Trio

- I Won't Dance

Oscar Peterson Plays Jerome Kern (Verve)






31 de Dezembro de 1954
Louis Armstrong

- When It's Sleepy Time Down South
- Indiana (Back Home Again In)
- Big Butter and Egg Man
- High Society
- Auld Lang Syne

New Year's Eve broadcast from San Francisco on CBS radio






31 de Dezembro de 1954
Ruby Braff Sextet

- You Can Depend On Me
- Auld Lang Style
- I'm Gonna Sit Right Down And Write Myself A Letter
- Rosetta
- Sometimes I'm Happy

A Ball At Bethlehem (Bethlehem)




31 de Dezembro de 1954
Harry Edison

- Arcadia
- Santa Anita
- Hooray For Hollywood
- Blindfold Test, No. 3

Best From The West: Modern Sounds From California, Vols. 1 and 2 (Blue Note)




31 de Dezembro de 1962
Luiz Bonfá

- Silencio Do Amor
- Tristeza
- Vem So
- Samba Lamento
- Samba De Duas Notas
- Ilha De Coral
- Manha De Carnaval
- Bossa Nova Cha Cha
- Adeus
- Domingo A Noite
- Quebra Mar
- Chora Tua Tristeza
- O Amor Que Acabou

Luiz Bonfa Plays And Sings Bossa Nova (Verve)


31 de Dezembro de 1963
John Coltrane Quintet

- My Favorite Things
- Alabama
- Impressions

Private recording at Philharmonic Hall, Lincoln Center, NYC





31 de Dezembro de 1963
Sonny Stitt Sextet

- Slave Maidens
- Blue Blood Ritual
- Bacon Baby
- Barefoot Ball
- Estrellita
- Island Shout

Primitivo Soul! (Prestige)


31 de Dezembro de 1973
Kenny Drew

- Blues For Nils
- Everything I Love
- Winter Flower

Everything I Love (SteepleChase)





31 de Dezembro de 1982
Miles Davis Septet

- Come Get It
- It Gets Better
- U 'N' I
- Star On Cicely
- Star People
- Hopscotch
- Jean Pierre

Felt Forum, New York, New Year's Eve (Jazz Masters)


31 de Dezembro de 1985
Art Blakey And The Jazz Messengers

- Hide and Seek
- Little Man
- New York
- I Want to Talk About You

New Year's Eve at Sweet Basil (Evidence)




31 de Dezembro de 1987
Miles Davis (with Prince)
Recorded at Paisley Park
Miles from the Park (Sabotage Records); bootleg recording

REEDIÇÃO: OS 10 DISCOS PARA A ILHA DESERTA

Passados já cinco anos(!) da nossa primeira votação, quando éramos apenas 8 ou 9 membros, é chegada a hora de uma nova eleição, muito principalmente pela adesão de tantos novos Mestres ao grupo. Assim, pediria aos membros que encaminhassem suas DEZ opções (nem NOVE, nem ONZE) para a nova apuração e para que sirva de referência aos novatos que aqui chegarem em busca de orientação.

Nesse período de tempo, o panorama jazzístico incorporou ou permitiu que amadurecessem inúmeros artistas que demonstraram seu talento e que, eventualmente, podem ter-se tornado "indispensáveis" tanto para os nossos orientadores - os Mestres (em ordem de chegada ao blog) Raf, Goltinho, Llulla, LOC, Tolipan, MaJor e Apóstolo - como para seus mais fervorosos aprendizes, Sazz e Bené-X, e todos os demais.

Gosto não se discute, principalmente lá na ilha deserta, onde ninguém tem de dar explicações sobre suas escolhas. Portanto, abram seus corações e mandem para cá o que de fato lhes daria mais prazer em ouvir, sózinhos, imaginando logicamente que as audições seriam tão freqüentes quanto os longos dias à espera do incerto resgate. Um disco mais ou menos, nessas condições, tornar-se-ia simplesmente algo desesperador de ter em mãos.

Os leitores do blog também estão convidados a mandar suas listas, que serão contabilizadas e publicadas à parte. No entanto, em caso de não haver concordância suficiente para que se feche a lista da casa, dada a variedade de gostos e possibilidades, não descartaremos incluir nesta um ou dois dos mais votados da lista externa.

Ao trabalho, mas sem pressa, pois pretendemos divulgar o resultado nos primeiros dias de 2008, aqui na coluna fixa da esquerda. Pedimos, por favor, que as listas sejam enviadas através dos comentários a este post, de modo a permitir que os votantes que assim o desejarem, justifiquem suas escolhas.

Lembramos a todos que álbuns duplos/coleções de um mesmo artista contam por cada CD incluído na lista. E que, por óbvio, poderão ser indicados CDs de bossa-nova.

Aos membros, informamos que, por sua importância, manteremos este post no topo da página até sua apuração final. As postagens mais novas estarão, eventualmente, no topo, mas serão passadas para imediatamente abaixo logo que possível, portanto.

Grande abraço.

LE PRIX DU JAZZ CLASSIQUE

A Academia Francesa de Jazz elegeu o melhor cd de 2007. O prêmio foi para "Heroes" de Roger Kellaway.

Este disco é um tributo a trios do passado, homenageando Art Tatum, Nat Cole e, particularmente, a Oscar Peterson - na decada de 50 tocando com Ray Brown e Barney Kessel & Herb Ellis na guitarra.

Kellaway toca com o guitarrista Bruce Forman e o baixista Dan Lutz. É um trio sem baterista, como tocaram os homenageados.

O prêmio será entregue em Paris, no Theatre de Châtelet. Este prêmio, da Academia Francesa de Jazz, é o mais sério e o mais antigo no cenário musical francês, foi criado em 1955. Quem elege são jornalistas, escritores, profissionais da música, fotógrafos e produtores de TV.

Roger Kellaway é um inovador, recentemente buscou uma interação do violoncelo no jazz. Como se trata de um instrumento de cordas com uma lenta resposta ao ataque, seu solo para o improviso no jazz é bastante difícil. Mas Kellaway conseguiu em seu disco Nostalgia Suite - The Roger Kellaway Quintet, um approach fenomenal para este relegado instrumento jazzistico, que Ray Brown chamava de 'baby bass'.

28 dezembro 2007

RETRATOS
08. DEXTER GORDON (B)
FILMOGRAFIA E BIBLIOGRAFIA
FILMOGRAFIA
É bastante satisfatória a filmografia de Dexter Gordon, ainda que com breves momentos de execução musical completa; as exceções, com números inteiros e que nos permitem apreciar a sonoridade, a musicalidade, o fraseado, a interação com os demais músicos e a lógica da improvisação de Dexter Gordon estão nas indicações 05, 06 e 08 seguintes.

01. Atlantic City Honeymoon (no Brasil “Lua de Mel Em Atlantic City”)
1944 (estréia americana em 15/09/1944), U.S.A., 90 minutos, direção de Ray McCarey.
Longa metragem musical estrelado por Constance Moore e Stanley Brown, com Dorothy Dandridge (remember “Carmen Jones”) como vocalista da banda de Louis Armstrong que toca e canta o clássico de Fats Waller “Ain’t Misbehavin”, acompanhada pela orquestra de “Satchmo”. Lembramos que à época (1944) Dexter Gordon integrou a orquestra de Armstrong, que tinha como um de seus “carros.chefes” exatamente “Ain’t Misbehavin” gravada em 03 ocasiões: 19/maio, 07/junho e 12/setembro/1944. No naipe de palhetas e ao lado de Dexter, atuava o tenorista Teddy McRae. Nesse filme musical atuou também a banda de Paul Whiteman

02. Pillow To Post
1945 (estréia americana em 09/06/1945), U.S.A., 95 minutos, direção de Vincent Sherman
Comédia americana estrelada por Ida Lupino e Sidney Greenstreet (lembrar do “robusto” Sidney em “Relíquia Macabra” = “O Falcão Maltês” clássico cinematográfico de John Huston com Humphrey Bogart), participação da orquestra de Louis Armstrong em cena num clube (“The Tavern”), com Dexter Gordon no tenor.

03. Unchained
1955 (estréia americana em 19/01/1955), U.S.A., 74 minutos, direção de Hall Bartlett
Longa metragem estrelado por Bárbara Hale e Elroy Hirsch com a participação de Dexter Gordon em ponta como ator, mas cujo nome não aparece nos créditos.

04. Stopforbud
1963, Dinanmarca, 12 minutos, direção de A.J.Leth / O.J.Poulsen / J.J.Thorsen
Documentário sobre Bud Powell com comentários de Dexter Gordon.

05. Dexter Gordon
1970, U.S.A., 59 minutos, direção de John Beyer
Vídeo da série “Maintenance Shop”, no Brasil série “O Melhor do Jazz”, com Dexter Gordon em quarteto (George Cables/piano, Rufus Reid/baixo e Eddie Gladden/bateria).

06. Dexter Gordon
1971, Dinamarca, 26 minutos, produção da “Flip Film Productions”
Documentário com Dexter no “The Montmartre Copenhagen” ao lado de Kenny Drew/piano, Niels Henning Orsted Pedersen/baixo e McKaya Ntshoko/bateria, executando os temas “Those Were The Days” e “Fried Bananas” (tema que foi gravado em diversas ocasiões por Dexter). Não há gravação de áudio relativa a este documentário, permanecendo somente o filme.

07. Jazz In Exile
1978, U.S.A., 32 minutos, direção de Chuck France
Documentário sobre músicos americanos no exterior, exilados ou de passagem, com entrevistas e atuações de diversos dos mesmos entre os quais Dexter Gordon, Phil Woods, McCoy Tyner, Freddie Hubbard, Gary Burton e outros. Destaque no documentário para o solo de Phil Woods em “Last Night When We Were Young”. Take desse documentário e para ilustrar Phil Woods foi aproveitado, também, na série “Naipes do Jazz” / “Reed Royalty”, 1992, U.S.A., 58 minutos, direção de Burrill Crohn, no Brasil sob o título “Mestres da Palheta”, apresentação de Branford Marsalis, mas que não inclui Dexter Gordon.

08. Round Midnight (no Brasil “Por Volta da Meia Noite”)
1986, U.S.A., 133 minutos, direção de Bertrand Tavernier
Longa metragem ambientado na Paris de 1959 e absolutamente perfeito, homenageando por um lado a Bud Powell enquanto exilado na França e, por outra parte, a Lester Young enquanto tenorista símbolo. Uma grata revelação de Dexter Gordon em sua atuação como ator de longo metragem (já havia atuado em “Unchained” indicado anteriormente mas em papel discreto) e indicado ao Oscar, mas amealhado por Herbie Hancock com a trilha sonora. Ao lado de “Bird” de Clint Eastwood um dos poucos filmes essencialmente sobre o Jazz e seus músicos. O roteiro do filme foi urdido a partir do excelente e luxuoso livro (P&B) sobre Bud Powell, “La Danse Des Infidéles” de Francis Paudras, admirador e hospedeiro de Bud Powell enquanto no exílio (410 páginas, 1986, Editora L’Instant, Paris, França, prefácio de Bill Evans, com diversas opiniões em colagem nas 02 páginas finais, incluindo: “Bud est um authentique génie” de Duke Ellington). Esse filme sempre traz à lembrança um querido amigo do Jazz, Maxwell Johnstone, que juntamente com Mestre LULA, Coutinho, Domingos Carvalho, eu e outros aficcionados pelo Jazz, mediante convite do Serviço de Divulgação e Relações Culturais dos U.S.A. e da Warner Brothers assistimos à exibição do filme, imediatamente após a legendagem, no auditório do Consulado Americano (Av. Presidente Wilson, Rio de Janeiro, dia 20/agosto/1987); após o filme, que a todos nos emocionou, foi servido coquetel do qual guardo fotografias para lembrar do Maxwell, que nos deixou muitas saudades e a alegria de tê-lo conhecido.

09. Cem Anos de Jazz
1987, França, 186 minutos, direção de Claude Fleouter
Documentário em 04 partes com depoimento de Dexter Gordon na 3ª parte, “Revolução do Bebop”, comentando a transição das “Big Bands” pós.guerra para os pequenos conjuntos (“combos”) e o “Bebop”. Participam também em entrevistas Leonard Feather, Miles Davis, Nat Hentoff e outros.

10. JAZZ
2000, U.S.A., 724 minutos, direção de Ken Burns
Extenso documentário do historiador Ken Burns. Em episódio no DVD nº 4 temos Dexter Gordon saindo do camarim e dirigindo-se ao palco de clube em Copenhaguem (1971) para sua apresentação. O fundo musical revela a sonoridade de Dexter, simultaneamente lírica, cool (Lester Young) e robusta (Coleman Hawkins).

11. JAZZ ICONS - DEXTER GORDON LIVE IN ’63 & ‘64
2007, Alemanha, 69 minutos
Na Suiça em 1963 com os temas “Second Balcony Jump” e “You’ve Changed”, ao lado de Kenny Drew, “Bibi” Rovére e Art Taylor; na Holanda e na Bélgica em 1964 com os temas “A Night In Tunísia”, “What’s New”, “Blues Walk”, “Lady Bird” e “Body And Soul”, com a sessão rítmica composta por George Gruntz, Guy Pederson e Daniel Humair. Vale a pena apreciar Dexter Gordon, então com 40/41 anos, em seu “exílio” europeu solando com autoridade e lógica, sempre com sua característica de “caminhar lentamente atrás do tempo” mas com um swing dominante. Absolutamente perfeita sua atuação como baladista no clássico "What's New". Excelente encarte de 24 páginas com notas de Michel Cuscuna e de Maxine Gordon (viúva de Dexter), fotos de Francis Wolff e formações que atuaram.

BIBLIOGRAFIA
Extensas são as referências bibliográficas a Dexter Gordon, como conseqüência lógica de seu “pioneirismo” no bebop, enquanto tenorista. As indicações seguintes são as que se nos afiguram como mais precisas e corretas.

01. THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF JAZZ
Leonard Feather - U.S.A. - Edições original, das décadas 60, 70 e “Yearbooks”
Todos com generosos verbetes dedicados a Dexter Gordon.

02. GRAN ENCICLOPEDIA DEL JAZZ
Editora SARPE - 1ª edição – Espanha - 1980
Extenso verbete dedicado a Dexter Gordon, correto e com seqüência histórica precisa.

03. ENCICLOPEDIA ILUSTRADA DEL JAZZ
Brian Case / Stan Britt - 1ª Edição - Inglaterra - 1982 (edição espanhola)
Bom e conciso verbete, com indicação de discografia. Foto de Dexter com a seguinte legenda: “Dexter Gordon, el más grande sonido al saxo tenor”.

04. WEST COAST JAZZ
Alain Tercinet - 1ª edição – França - 1986
Permite-nos acompanhar diversas passagens de Dexter Gordon pela “costa”, seja em virtude de sua participação em gravações, seja em função de temporadas e apresentações.

05. OBRAS PRIMAS DO JAZZ
Luiz Orlando Carneiro - 1ª edição - Brasil - 1986
Nas páginas de 135 até 140 Luiz Orlando tece um panorama simultâneo de Stan Getz e Dexter Gordon e, ao final e referindo-se ao retorno deste aos U.S.A. em 1976 com apresentação no “Village Vanguard”, define “Fenja”, “Gingerbread Boy” e “Round Midnight” como “....obras-primas do extilo Dexter por excelência, faixas que refletem, como poucas, seu som suculento, seu fraseado cantante, seu humor mordente, seu lirismo sem frivolidade.”

06. DICCIONARIO DEL JAZZ
Philippe Carles, André Clergeat e Jean-Louis Comolli - 1ª edição - França - 1988
Verbete em 02 colunas e bem consistente sobre Dexter Gordon, com final indicando algumas gravações de 1945 a 1982.

07. THE PENGUIN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF POPULAR MUSIC
Donald Clarke - 1ª edição – Inglaterra - 1989
Compacto mas excelente verbete dedicado a Dexter Gordon, com seqüência histórica correta e boas indicações discográficas.

08. BEBOP
Jacques B. Hess - 1ª edição - França - 1989
Livro da coleção “Jazz Hot / L’Instant”, abre a seção dedicada aos tenoristas com foto de Dexter Gordon e cita “...le plus purement Bop de tous les bons ténors qu’on peut rattacher à ce mouvement fut incontestablement – est toujors – Dexter Gordon. De 1944 à 1949, son palmares est impressionnant.....”

09. LÊS SONS DU JAZZ
John Fordham - 1ª edição (versão para o francês do original inglês de 1989) – França - 1990
O capítulo “Saxophones À Foison” é iniciado com foto de página inteira de Dexter Gordon, história resumida do saxofone desde Adolphe Sax e percorre sinteticamente os executantes símbolo do instrumento detendo-se, claro, em Dexter Gordon dentro da seqüência cronológica e de estilos.

10. OS GRANDES CRIADORES DO JAZZ
Gérald Arnaud & Jacques Chesnel - 1ª edição - Portugal - 1991
Assim descreve Dexter Gordon: “...é também ele, física e musicalmente, um gigante do tenor e um discípulo tanto de Hawins como de Young......desenvolveu estilo melódico directo, límpido e galvanizante e o seu timbre cáustico, carregado de harmônicos, é cuidadosamente estudado por Coltrane e por Rollins. Improvisa sabiamente sobre temas por vezes próximos do rhythm’n’blues e explora-os com uma noção muito segura do crescendo....”

11. THE STORY OF JAZZ - BOP AND BEYOND
Frank Bergerot e Arnaud Merlin - 1ª edição - U.S.A. - 1991
Capa e referências a Dexter Gordon em todo o livro. Boa seqüência sobre o título (“Bop And Beyound”).

12. JAZZ
John Fordham - 1ª edição - U.S.A. e Inglaterra - 1993
Entre as diversas citações e referências a Dexter Gordon destaca-se a que o nomina como “…and Califórnia also boasted Dexter Gordon, one of the hottesd, bluesiest players in jazz… Dexter ainda é incluído na cronologia “1970-1990”, assim como no capítulo “Jazz Today” e nos “Stars And Styles”.

13. OS GRANDES DO JAZZ
Ediciones DelPrado - 1ª Edição - Brasil (versão do original espanhol) - 1996
Coleção contendo fascículo de 12 páginas dedicadas a Dexter Gordon, com CD acoplado (“Dexter Gordon – Body And Soul”, 06 faixas gravadas em Copenhaguem em 20/07/1967, acompanhado por Kenny Drew/paino, Niels.Henning/baixo e Albert Heath/bateria). Mínimas imprecisões biográficas e excelente trabalho como um todo. À mesma época foi editado e distribuído no Brasil a coleção traduzida do espanhol “The Jazz Masters – 100 Anos de Swing”, também com CD dedicado a Dexter Gordon (06 faixas - Dexter Gordon / tenor e soprano, Lionel Hampton / vibrafone, Hank Jones / piano, Bucky Pizzarelli / guitarra, George Duvivier / baixo, Oliver Jackson / bateria e Candido / conga, New York, 11/11/1977). Agregado ao fascículo que trata de Dexter Gordon um CD com 06 faixas (total de 67’49”, “Doxy”, “For All We Know”, “But Not For Me”, “There Will Never Be Another You”, “Body And Soul” e “ “Sonnymoon For Two”, com Kenny Drew, Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen e Albert Heath, todas gravadas em 20/07/1967 no “Montmartre Jazzhus” de Copenhague), boa qualidade de som e excelentes registros tomados ao vivo. Também e aproximadamente na mesma época foi lançada no Brasil a coleção “The Jazz Masters - 100 Anos de Swing” trazendo um CD de Dexter Gordon com 06 faixas (total de 37’34”, “Cute”, “The Say That Falling In Love Is Wonderful”, “Lullabye Of Birdland”, “I Should Care”, “Seven Come Eleven” e “Blues For Gates”, com Lionel Hampton, Hank Jones, Bucky Pizzarelli, George Duvivier, Oliver Jackson e Candido, todas gravadas em 11/11/1977 em New York).

14. A CENTURY OF JAZZ - A HUNDRED YEARS OF THE GREATEST MUSIC EVER MADE
Roy Carr - 1ª Edição – Inglaterra - 1997
Inclui referências a Dexter Gordon no capítulo “1944-1950, The Be Bop Revolution”, com foto de página inteira de Dexter e recomendação discográfica: “The Complete Dial Recordings – Spotlite”. É obra de luxo e de fôlego sempre recomendável e capítulo com resumo sobre os “V.Discs”.

15. EL JAZZ - DE NUEVA ORLEANS A LOS AÑOS OCHENTA
Joachim E. Berendet - 4ª edição / 2ª reimpressão – Espanha - 2002
Mais que as referências a Dexter Gordon ao longo da obra, Berendt o define nas páginas 432-433 como “...también Sony Stitt y, ante todo, Dexter Gordon son músicos que pertenecen a esta dirección, que em vários aspectos está emparentada com el grupo Lester + bop – digamos, James Moody – antes mencionado. Dexter Gordon era el tenorista a secas del bop, com toda la enervante vitalidade de este estilo jazzístico”.

Segue em (C), (D) e (E) - DISCOGRAFIA RESUMIDA

O MELHOR DE TODOS... NÃO O SEGUNDO MELHOR

27 dezembro 2007



Aos 14 anos sua irmã mais velha Daisy foi com Oscar Peterson a um concurso amador na CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) no qual ele foi vencedor. Isto abriu as portas para atuações semanais no show da estação de rádio de Montreal chamado de — Fifteen Minutes' Piano Rambling. Mais tarde passou para um show nacional chamado — The Happy Gang. Finalmente quando a álgebra não podia mais tolhir sua veia musical, Peterson desejou abandonar a escola. Seu pai disse-lhe então que não poderia largar os estudos para ser pianista de jazz, a não ser que fosse para se tornar o melhor de todos, não um segundo melhor. Assim sua carreira de músico iniciou.

HISTÓRIAS DO JAZZ – nº 51

OSCAR PETERSON


Não me canso de falar nos sebos da Rua São José, fontes de abastecimento de muitas discotecas niteroienses. Alí adquirimos o que hoje são consideradas raridades. A série da Dial de Charlie Parker, alguns volumes do Jazz at the Philarmonic e os meus primeiros discos de Oscar Peterson, tudo no chamado formato de dez polegadas. Não sabíamos a origem dos discos mas com certeza nem todos eram usados, até porque, alguns tinham vários exemplares iguais.

Era obrigatória a visita diária para que nenhuma oportunidade fosse perdida. Os saúvas criaram até um bordão: “percorrer a via sacra em direção à Praça XV rumo à última carroça.” Ou seja, descer a Rua São José entrando em todos os sebos (entre Rodrigo Silva e Carmo) e seguir até a velha Cantareira para pegar a barca das sete.

Numa dessas investidas me deparei com um Lp intitulado “Oscar Peterson at Carnegie”, da Clef Records e lendo a contracapa do mesmo, escrita por Norman Granz, fiquei sabendo do início de Peterson, desde quando fora convocado no Canadá, até sua estréia no Jazz at the Philarmonic. Esse exemplar contem a primeira apresentação ao vivo do pianista em gravação ao vivo no Carnegie Hall. Apenas três faixas são suficientes para mostrar quem era o jovem canadense. “Fine and Dandy”, “I Only Have Eyes for You” e “Carnegie Blues”, que ocupa todo um lado do disco, onde, contando apenas com o apoio de Ray Brown, Peterson deslancha numa improvisação fascinante, cheia de swing e com uma pitada de humor, quando insere no discurso melódico um cliché da Polonaise, de Chopin. Fiquei convencido que alí estava um gigante do teclado.

Dias depois, “passando em revista as tropas” no sebo do Ferreira, encontro dois álbuns de Peterson intitulado “Collates”. Alí, interpretando sete “standards” e um original (Debut), ele tem como acompanhantes Major Holley e Ray Brown alternando-se nas faixas e Herb Ellis surgindo com sua guitarra em “Lover”. O volume 2 segue em linhas gerais o primeiro com sete “standards” e um original (Nameless), aparecendo em duas faixas a guitarra de Barney Kessel e a bateria de Alvin Stoller. Ótimos discos onde se repara que Peterson ainda mostrava alguma influência de Nat King Cole.

Finalmente,em outra ocasião, encontrei mais um 10 polegadas do pianista intitulado “Oscar Peterson Quartet”. Alí estava uma seção rítmica que acompanharia inúmeros solistas em gravações para os selos de Norman Granz, Clef, Norgran, Mercury e mais tarde Verve, formada por Barney Kessel, Ray Brown e Alvin Stoller. Apenas duas faixas ocupando os lados inteiros do disco. (Astaire Blues e Stompin’ at the Savoy). Na contracapa, Norman Granz esclarece: “Esse é o tipo de Jazz que eu amo”.

Esses foram os primeiros discos de Peterson que adquiri, uma espécie de apresentação mostrando todo seu virtuosismo e técnica de improvisação. Claro, muitos outros chegaram depois, já em formato de 12 polegadas.



PETERSON EM PESSOA


Em 27 de Janeiro de 1978, Oscar Peterson estreava no Rio de Janeiro, Teatro João Caetano, para uma série de quatro apresentações.

O saudoso Ézio Sérvulo, encarregado dos setores de Jazz e clássicos da Polygram, pessoa que definiria bem o brocardo “The right man in the right place”, que diga-se de passagem, dinamizou aquela gravadora, já amigo nosso, nos deu uma frisa para assistir o primeiro espetáculo. Local privilegiado, com ótima visibilidade do palco. Ansiedade enorme de toda a platéia aguardando o início do espetáculo, foi quando Ézio, meio sem jeito, me chamou e perguntou se eu me incomodaria em levar as garrafas de água mineral para o camarim. Claro que não respondi. Abrí a porta e entrei dando de cara com Peterson, seu filho, maior que ele e Joe Pass. Entreguei as garrafas e imediatamente solicitei os autógrafos, que foram dados com satisfação. Agradeci e ao estender a mão para Peterson, tive a sensação que segurava um cacho de bananas. Dedos enormes quase cobriram o meu antebraço.

Começa o espetáculo com Peterson abrindo com um inebriante “Body and Soul”. Usava smoking, camisa de punhos rendados e a todo momento enxugava o rosto com um lenço. Suava em bicas. Terminado seu set, entrou Joe Pass vestido da mesma maneira e logo o suor pingava de seu rosto.

Termina a primeira parte e logo ficamos sabendo que o ar refrigerado do teatro pifara. Realmente a temperatura subira consideravelmente. Toca o sinal anunciando o fim do intervalo. Foi quando Peterson adentrou ao palco com outra vestimenta, uma camisa estampada, com folhas verdes, tipo havaiana e recebeu uma verdadeira ovação. Aí ele mostrou tudo que sabia, principalmente num “blues” em uptempo quando dialogou com Joe Pass. Bons tempos.

Primeiros Obituários de Oscar Peterson (fontes: NYT e BBCNews)

25 dezembro 2007

(NYT, http://www.newyorktimes.com/) Oscar Peterson, Jazz Pianist, Is Dead at 82

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: December 24, 2007
Filed at 9:55 p.m. ET

TORONTO (AP) -- Oscar Peterson, whose early talent, speedy fingers and musical genius made him one of the world's best known and influential jazz pianists, has died. He was 82.
Peterson died at his home in the Toronto suburb of Mississauga on Sunday, said Oliver Jones, a family friend and jazz musician. He said Peterson's wife and daughter were with him during his final moments. The cause of death was kidney failure, said Mississauga's mayor, Hazel McCallion.
''He's been going downhill in the last few months,'' McCallion said, calling Peterson a ''very close friend.''
During an illustrious career spanning seven decades, Peterson played with some of the biggest names in jazz, including Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. He is also remembered for the trio he led with Ray Brown on bass and Herb Ellis on guitar in the 1950s.
Peterson's impressive collection of awards include all of Canada's highest honors, such as the Order of Canada, as well as seven Grammys and a Grammy for lifetime achievement in 1997.
''I've always thought of him as Canada's national treasure. All of Canada mourns for him and his family,'' said Jones.
''A jazz player is an instant composer,'' Peterson once said in a CBC interview. ''You have to think about it, it's an intellectual form.''
Peterson's stature was reflected in the admiration of his peers. Duke Ellington referred to him as the ''Maharajah of the keyboard,'' while Count Basie once said ''Oscar Peterson plays the best ivory box I've ever heard.''
Peterson's keyboard virtuosity, propulsive sense of swing, and melodic inventiveness influenced generations of jazz pianists who followed him.
Herbie Hancock, another legendary jazz pianist, said Peterson's impact was profound.
''Oscar Peterson redefined swing for modern jazz pianists for the latter half of the 20th century up until today,'' Hancock said in an e-mail message. ''I consider him the major influence that formed my roots in jazz piano playing. He mastered the balance between technique, hard blues grooving, and tenderness. ... No one will ever be able to take his place.''
Jazz pianist and educator Billy Taylor said Peterson ''set the pace for just about everybody that followed him. He really was just a special player.''
The 20-year-old jazz pianist, Eldar Djangirov, said he wouldn't have become a jazz musician if he hadn't heard Peterson's records as a boy growing up in the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan.
''He was the first I ever heard and my main artistic influence,'' said Djangirov, who included the fast-tempo Peterson tune ''Place St. Henri'' on his Grammy-nominated album ''re-Imagination.''
Peterson's death also brought tributes from notable figures outside the jazz world.
In a statement, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said he was adored by the French. ''One of the bright lights of jazz has gone out.''
Former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien, a fan and friend of the pianist for decades, reminisced about inviting Peterson to a 2001 Ottawa event honoring South African leader Nelson Mandela.
Chretien recalled that Mandela glowed upon meeting the piano great.
''It was very emotional,'' said Chretien. ''They were both moved to meet each other. These were two men with humble beginnings who rose to very illustrious levels.''
Born on Aug. 15, 1925, in a poor neighborhood of Montreal, Peterson got his passion for music from his father. Daniel Peterson, a railway porter and self-taught pianist, bestowed his love of music to his five children, offering them a means to escape from poverty.
At 5 years old, Oscar Peterson learned to play trumpet and piano, but after a bout with tuberculosis, he chose to concentrate on the keyboards. During his high school years, he studied with an accomplished Hungarian-born classical pianist, Paul de Marky, who helped develop his technique and ''speedy fingers.''
He became a teen sensation in his native Canada, playing in dance bands and recording in the late 1930s and 1940s.
He quickly made a name for himself as a jazz virtuoso, often earning comparisons to jazz piano great Art Tatum, his childhood idol, for his speed and technical skill. He was also influenced by Nat ''King'' Cole, whose piano trio recordings he considered ''a complete musical thesaurus for any aspiring Jazz pianist.''
Jazz pianist Marian McPartland, who called Peterson ''the finest technician that I have seen,'' recalled first meeting Peterson when she and her husband, jazz cornetist Jimmy McPartland, opened for him at the Colonial Tavern in Toronto in the 1940s.
''From that point on, we became such goods friends, and he was always wonderful to me and I have always felt very close to him,'' she said.
Jazz impresario and record producer Quincy Jones said it was a blessing to have worked with Peterson.
''He was one of the last of the giants, but his music and contributions will be eternal,'' Jones said.
In 1951, the pianist formed the Oscar Peterson Trio with a guitarist and bassist. When Ellis left the group in 1958, he replaced the guitarist with a series of drummers.
Peterson never stopped calling Canada home despite his growing international reputation, and probably his best known major composition is the ''Canadiana Suite'' with jazz themes inspired by the cities and regions of his native country.
But at times he felt slighted in Canada, where he was occasionally mistaken for a football player, at 6 foot 3 inches and weighing more than 250 pounds.
In 2005 he became the first living person other than a reigning monarch to be honored with a commemorative stamp in Canada, where streets, squares, concert halls and schools have been named after him.
Peterson suffered a stroke in 1993 that weakened his left hand, but not his passion or drive for music. After a two-year recuperation, he gradually resumed performances, and made a series of recordings for the U.S. Telarc label.
He kept playing and touring, despite worsening arthritis and difficulties walking, saying in a 2001 interview that ''the love I have of the instrument and my group and the medium itself works as a sort of a rejuvenating factor for me.''
''Until the end, Oscar Peterson could tour the world and fill concert halls everywhere,'' said Andre Menard, artistic director and co-founder of the Montreal International Jazz Festival where Peterson often performed.
''This is something that never diminished. His drawing power, his mystique as a musician, was so big that he remained at the top of his game until the end.''
Peterson is survived by his wife, Kelly, and daughter, Celine.
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AP writers Charles J. Gans and Lily Hindy in New York contributed to this story.
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On the Net:
Oscar Peterson home page: http://www.oscarpeterson.com/
Canadian Broadcasting Corp. interview: www.cbc.ca/news/background/peterson--oscar


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(NYT) Oscar Peterson, Jazz’s Piano Virtuoso, Is Dead at 82

By RICHARD SEVERO
Published: December 25, 2007

Oscar Peterson, whose dazzling piano playing made him one of the most popular jazz artists in history, died on Sunday night at his home in Mississauga, Ontario, outside Toronto. He was 82.
The cause was kidney failure, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported. Mr. Peterson had performed publicly for a time even after a stroke he suffered in 1993 compromised movement in his left hand.
Mr. Peterson was one of the greatest virtuosos in jazz, with a piano technique that was always meticulous and ornate and sometimes overwhelming. But rather than expand the boundaries of jazz, he used his gifts in the service of moderation and reliability, gratifying his devoted audiences whether he was playing in a trio or solo or accompanying some of the most famous names of jazz. His technical accomplishments were always evident, almost transparently so. Even at his peak, there was very little tension in his playing.
One of the most prolific major stars in jazz history, he amassed an enormous discography. From the 1950s until his death, he released sometimes four or five albums a year, toured Europe and Japan frequently and became a big draw at jazz festivals.
Norman Granz, his influential manager and producer, helped Mr. Peterson realize that success, setting loose a flow of records on his own Verve and Pablo labels and establishing Mr. Peterson as a favorite in his touring Jazz at the Philharmonic concerts in the 1940s and ’50s.
Mr. Peterson won eight Grammy awards, as well as almost every possible honor in the jazz world. He played alongside giants like Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Charlie Parker, Roy Eldridge, Nat King Cole, Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie and Ella Fitzgerald.
Duke Ellington referred to him as “maharajah of the keyboard.” Basie said, “Oscar Peterson plays the best ivory box I’ve ever heard.” The pianist and conductor André Previn called Mr. Peterson “the best” among jazz pianists.
In a review of a performance in 1987, Stephen Holden, writing in The New York Times, said, “Mr. Peterson’s rock-solid sense of swing, grounded in Count Basie, is balanced by a delicacy of tone and fleetness of touch that make his extended runs seem to almost disappear into the sky.” He added, “His amazing speed was matched by an equally amazing sense of thematic invention.”
But many critics found Mr. Peterson more derivative than original, especially early in his career. Some even suggested that his fantastic technique lacked coherence and was almost too much for some listeners to compute.
Billy Taylor, a fellow pianist and a jazz historian, said he thought that while Mr. Peterson was a “remarkable musician,” his “phenomenal facility sometimes gets in the way of people’s listening.”
Whitney Balliett, the jazz critic of The New Yorker, wrote in 1966 that Mr. Peterson’s playing “continues to be a pudding made of the leavings of Art Tatum, Nat Cole and Teddy Wilson.”
The critical ambivalence was typified in 1973 in a review of a Peterson performance by John S. Wilson of The Times. Mr. Wilson wrote: “For the last 20 years, Oscar Peterson has been one of the most dazzling exponents of the flying fingers school of piano playing. His performances have tended to be beautifully executed displays of technique but woefully weak on emotional projection.”
The complaints evoked those heard in the 1940s about the great concert violinist Jascha Heifetz, who was occasionally accused of being so technically brilliant that one could not find his or the composer’s heart and soul in the music he played.
The jazz critic Gene Lees defended Mr. Peterson as “a summational artist.”
“So was Mozart. So was Bach,” Mr. Lees wrote in his biography of Mr. Peterson, “The Will to Swing” (1990). “Bach and Mozart were both dealing with known vocabularies and an accepted body of aesthetic principles.” He noted that just as Bach used material that he first heard in Vivaldi, “Oscar uses a curious spinning figure that he got from Dizzy Gillespie.”
Oscar Emmanuel Peterson was born in the poor St. Antoine district of Montreal on Aug. 15, 1925, one of five children of Daniel Peterson, a West Indian immigrant, and the former Olivia John, whom Daniel had met in Montreal. Daniel Peterson, who worked as a sleeping-car porter on the Canadian Pacific Railway, had taught himself how to play the organ before he landed in Halifax, N.S., in 1917. Mr. Peterson’s mother, who also had roots in the Caribbean, encouraged Oscar to study music.


As a boy, Oscar began to learn the trumpet as well as the piano. At 7, he contracted tuberculosis and was hospitalized for 13 months. Fearing the strain the trumpet might put on his son’s lungs, Daniel Peterson persuaded him to concentrate on piano. He studied first with Lou Hooper, then with Paul (Alexander) de Marky, a Hungarian who had also given lessons to Oscar’s older sister, Daisy.
By his own account, Oscar believed he had become quite accomplished by age 14. Then he heard a recording by Art Tatum.
“I gave up the piano for two solid months,” Mr. Peterson later recalled, and had “crying fits at night” because he thought nobody else could ever be as good as Tatum.
The same year, however, he won an amateur competition sponsored by the CBC, prompting him to drop out of Montreal High School so he could spend all his time playing the piano.
By 1942, Oscar Peterson was known in Canada as the “Brown Bomber of Boogie-Woogie,” an allusion to the nickname of the boxer Joe Louis and also to Mr. Peterson’s physical stature — 6-foot-3 and 250 pounds.
Mr. Peterson became the only black member of the Johnny Holmes Orchestra, which toured Canada and the United States. In parts of the United States, he discovered that he, like other blacks, would not be served in the same hotels and restaurants as the white musicians. Many times they would bring food out to him as he sat in the band’s bus, he recalled.
For a time, Mr. Peterson was so identified with popular dance boogie-woogie that he was denied wider recognition as a serious jazz musician. In 1947, Mr. Granz, the jazz impresario, was on his way to Montreal’s airport in a taxi when he heard a live broadcast of Mr. Peterson playing at a local lounge. He ordered the driver to turn the taxi around and take him to the lounge. There he persuaded Mr. Peterson to move away from boogie-woogie.
Mr. Peterson eventually became a mainstay of the Jazz at the Philharmonic series, which Mr. Granz created in the 1940s. In 1949 Mr. Peterson made his debut at Carnegie Hall, becoming a sensation. A year later he won the Down Beat magazine readers’ poll for best jazz pianist for the first time. He would go on to win it more than a dozen times, the last in 1972.
Over the years his albums sold well, and he recorded with Billie Holiday, Fred Astaire, Benny Carter, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Roy Eldridge, Lester Young, Stan Getz, Buddy DeFranco and many others. He also occasionally sang.
Among his more notable long-playing recordings were the so-called Song Books of Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Duke Ellington, Jerome Kern, Richard Rodgers, Harry Warren, Harold Arlen and Jimmy McHugh.
His format of choice was the trio. Perhaps his most famous threesome, which lasted from 1953 to 1958, was with the guitarist Herb Ellis and the bassist Ray Brown.
Though best known as an interpreter of other people’s work, Mr. Peterson cultivated a second identity as a composer. In 1964 he recorded “The Canadiana Suite,” an extended work written for his home country; he later wrote “African Suite” and “A Royal Wedding Suite,” for the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer.
Mr. Granz’s Verve and Pablo labels released most of Mr. Peterson’s work, but he also recorded for the MPS and Telarc labels, among others.
Mr. Peterson was frequently invited to perform for heads of state, including Queen Elizabeth II and President Richard M. Nixon. In 2005 he became the first living person other than a reigning monarch to obtain a commemorative stamp in Canada, where streets, squares, concert halls and schools are named after him.
Mr. Peterson’s autobiography, “A Jazz Odyssey: The Life of Oscar Peterson,” was published in 2002 by Continuum.
According to the CBC, Mr. Peterson was married four times. He had a daughter, Celine, with his fourth wife, Kelly. He also had six children from his first and third marriages: Lyn, Sharon, Gay, Oscar Jr., Norman and Joel.
Mr. Peterson continued playing after his stroke in 1993 because, as he told The Chicago Tribune, “I think I have a closeness with the instrument that I’ve treasured over the years.” Before long he was back on tour and recording, among other albums, “Side by Side” with Itzhak Perlman, having learned to do more playing with his right hand. As he told Down Beat in 1997: “When I sit down to the piano, I don’t want any scuffling. I want it to be a love affair.”


Ben Ratliff contributed reporting

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(BBCNews: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3622921.stm) Obituary: Oscar Peterson

As a child, Oscar Peterson - who has died at the age of 82 - began learning to play the trumpet, but a bout of tuberculosis caused him to switch to the piano.
This proved to be a blessing, since he was to become one of the most popular virtuoso jazz pianists.
He made more than 200 albums and won eight Grammy awards, including a lifetime achievement honour in 1997.
His hallmark was the capacity to play at lightning speed, while maintaining the ability to swing. What's more, he could play in a variety of jazz styles.

Big break

Peterson was born in Montreal, Canada, in August 1925, and was the son of a West Indian railway porter.
His father, a strict disciplinarian with a love of music, had him classically-trained, both at the Montreal Conservatory and by private tutors.

Oscar Peterson was known for playing jazz in many different stylesHe switched to jazz after listening to Benny Goodman on the radio and, at the age of 14, he won first prize in a talent competition for amateur acts.
This led to spots on Canadian radio and to work with dance orchestras around Quebec and Ontario.
His first record, at 19, was the single I Got Rhythm, arranged in a boogie-woogie style.
Peterson then joined one of Canada's most popular bands, the Johnny Holmes Orchestra.
He resisted offers from the United States, most notably from Count Basie, until he was picked up by the impresario Norman Granz, who was in a taxi when he happened to hear Peterson playing live on the radio.
Granz stage-managed Peterson's New York debut, calling him up from the audience at Carnegie Hall. The speed and vitality of his subsequent performance won him a standing ovation.
Influenced by the virtuosity of jazz pianist Art Tatum, and the silky vocals of Nat "King" Cole, Peterson explored a wide spectrum of American songwriters with his trios and quartets over the next 40 years.

Criticism

He also played solo and as an accompanist to many of the great names of the day, including Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Stan Getz, Billie Holliday, Ella Fitzgerald and Charlie Parker.
The critic Leonard Feather once wrote of him: "Peterson's capacious hands can extract the gentlest whimper, the profoundest roar or the deepest indigo wails from his keyboard."
Peterson had his critics too, however.
Some avant-garde jazz artists in the 1960s found him improvisationally shallow. But a tour of Europe in the 1970s convinced him that he was right to ignore the suggestions that he was "in a rut".

Arthritis and a stroke affected Oscar Peterson's later yearsJazz critic Benny Green wrote in 1971 that "in addition to incisiveness and clarity of mind, Peterson has developed a most subtle command of dynamics".
"The ebb and flow of his attack can suggest orchestral influences quite distinctly," Green continued.
In 1982, Peterson began performing with Herbie Hancock, as a piano duo.
On stage, he was relaxed and friendly, although he insisted on silence during his concerts, once walking off for half an hour when he felt the audience was not listening.
He was increasingly troubled by arthritis and in 1993 he had a stroke which restricted the movement in his left hand.
Some critics felt, nevertheless, that this made his music more emotionally compelling.
And he continued to leave a lasting impression right up until his death.
Only last month, the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame announced it was to present the star with its Founder's Award in 2008, to celebrate "a brilliant jazz pianist and composer" who showed "musical dexterity and energetic performances".
Peterson, who died at his home in Toronto, was married four times and had five children, all by his first wife.





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The Independent (UK) (http://news.independent.co.uk/people/obituaries/article3284870.ece ): Oscar Peterson: Virtuoso pianist who dominated jazz piano in the second half of the 20th century
Oscar Emmanuel Peterson, pianist: born Montreal, Quebec 15 August 1925; married first Lillie Fraser (deceased; two sons, three daughters; marriage dissolved), second 1958 Sandra King (marriage dissolved 1976), third 1977 Charlotte Huber (one daughter; marriage dissolved), fourth Kelly Green (one daughter); died Mississauga, Ontario 24 December 2007
Published: 26 December 2007
Following Oscar Peterson on stage at a concert in 1967, Duke Ellington remarked: "When I was a small boy my music teacher was Mrs Clinkscales. The first thing she ever said to me was, 'Edward, always remember, whatever you do, don't sit down at the piano after Oscar Peterson'."
In 1953, Nat King Cole said to Peterson, "I'll make a deal with you, Oscar. You don't sing and I won't play the piano." Peterson had just recorded his first album of vocals, accompanying himself on the piano. His voice sounded remarkably like Cole's and his piano style had also evolved so that it sounded close to Cole's work with Cole's own trio. The two jazz musicians agreed, and Oscar Peterson gave up singing, while Nat King Cole recorded piano-less vocals backed by huge orchestras.
Earlier, in 1945, a 16-year-old John Williams, later to be Stan Getz's pianist, was on tour in Canada with the Mal Hallett band and was playing in Montreal. "All the talk in the crowd was of a brilliant local pianist," said Williams, "and as we played, suddenly, between numbers, the packed audience in the dance hall parted like the Red Sea and this huge guy came up towards the bandstand. With some insight, I vacated that piano bench quick and he sat down. He played, and we were stunned. I had never heard anyone play like that."
Peterson could overwhelm any style of jazz piano and he could swing harder than any other player. In fact, the best way to define the elusive quality of "swing" might be to use a Peterson performance as an illustration. He had a deep knowledge of jazz history and could play two-fisted stride, or complex and intricate bebop. His timing and imagination also made him one of the great ballad players. He had everything, with only an occasional penchant for rococo decoration to detract from his achievements.
Such a talent attracted every award going and among his seven Grammies was one in 1997 for Lifetime Achievement. "Oscar Peterson is head and shoulders above any pianist alive today," said another doyen of the instrument, Hank Jones, in the early 1990s. "Oscar is the apex. He is the crowning ruler of all the pianists in the jazz world. No question about it." The pianist Marian McPartland described him as "the finest technician that I have seen."
Outside of his friend Art Tatum, Peterson had the most prodigious piano technique in jazz. He made it sound so easy to play the complex note-perfect and lightning runs with which he turbo-charged the piano keyboard that a lot of people took him for granted. The less aware regarded him as facile and his formidable bustling runs as showing off. In fact, he was riding an inspiration that seldom flagged to explore some of the more complex harmonic depths of the instrument.
Beginning in 1950 when he won the Down Beat magazine poll as the year's leading pianist, Peterson topped every one of the major magazine polls, some of them many times over. But it was by no means all roses. Miles Davis was one of his critics. "Nearly everything he plays," said Davis, "he plays with the same degree of force. He leaves no holes for the rhythm section." Distinguished writers such as the musicologist Max Harrison and the New Yorker columnist Whitney Balliett thought Peterson's playing to be glib and superfical.
The most important and effective years of Peterson's career from 1949 until 1986 were spent working for the impresario Norman Granz. Granz carefully nurtured the Canadian's career. He was an imaginative record producer and had a stable of stars that had Peterson and Ella Fitzgerald at its root. Peterson was the pianist on more than 200 of the many hundreds of jazz albums that Granz supervised and recorded, and at the height of his career he was making half a dozen albums a year under his own name.
Despite a genius that allowed him to express a thought through his fingers as soon as it arrived in his brain, Peterson could play, and loved to play, straightforward down-home jazz. He was one of the best-ever blues pianists in jazz and also, despite the huge urgency of his solo skills, one of its cosmopolitan accompanists. Just as well, for he worked with most of the giants of jazz from Louis Armstrong to Charlie Parker, from Coleman Hawkins to Ella Fitzgerald, from Lester Young to Stan Getz. So universally was he acclaimed that all he had to do to receive a standing ovation from an audience was to walk on stage.
Oscar Peterson's father was a former boatswain on a sailing boat who came from the West Indies to work as a railway porter in Montreal. His mother, from the Virgin Islands, had arrived in the city as cook and housekeeper for an English family. It was there that they met and married, and where Oscar was born in 1925.
His father taught music to all his five children, and Oscar began to learn piano and trumpet when he was five. Two years later, severe tuberculosis ended his trumpeting and he concentrated on the piano. His elder sister Daisy helped with his tuition and three years later Oscar began taking lessons in classical piano. In an interesting link, he studied with Paul de Marky, a Hungarian pianist who had been a student in Budapest of Istvá* Tomá*, whose teacher was Franz Liszt.
Peterson recalled: "I guess I was about 10 or 11 when my Dad thought I was getting too pleased with myself. So he brought home a friend with some Art Tatum records." One of the records was Tatum's "Tiger Rag". Tatum's improvising was so complex and multi-layered that Peterson thought there was more than one pianist involved. "And when I found there wasn't, I was so discouraged that I didn't play for a month. When I heard him live? Same thing. Only worse. No one plays like Art Tatum."
Peterson was a high-school classmate of the trumpeter Maynard Ferguson, and the two of them played together in a band led by Ferguson's brother Percy. Then, when he was 14, Peterson won a local talent contest, and was given his own weekly 15-minute show on a Montreal radio station. With some reluctance his father allowed him to drop out of high school to concentrate on music. By 1947 he was working in the top Canadian band led by Johnny Holmes. Peterson formed his own trio in 1948 and recorded for several Canadian record companies.
Travelling to Montreal airport in a taxi in 1949, Norman Granz heard a live broadcast by Peterson from the Alberta Lounge on the car radio. He told the driver to turn around and head for the Alberta. Between sets he persuaded Peterson to come to New York and appear in a Jazz at the Philharmonic (JATP) concert he was about to present at Carnegie Hall on 18 September. The bill was to include Charlie Parker, Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins, Buddy Rich, Ray Brown and Ella Fitzgerald.
Granz found it impossible to get the pianist a US work permit in such a short time so decided that Peterson would appear as an apparently unpaid guest. At a prearranged point in the programme Granz announced that Peterson just happened to be in the audience and called him up on stage from his seat. Seldom have there been such momentous and public turning points in jazz.
In an explosion of talent, Peterson played three numbers accompanied by Ray Brown on bass. They unveiled to the world an amazing jazz player, fully fledged, who was to dominate jazz piano for the rest of the century. The recordings are encapsulated, along with three more of Peterson's performances at Carnegie Hall during the early Fifties, on an album on the Giant Steps label. Originally appearing on Granz's Clef label, the music is now out of copyright – it seems unbelievable that such fresh sounding and advanced playing is more than five decades old, and can be issued by anybody on CD without cost.
After the concert recording, Granz first took Peterson into the studio for his Clef label in 1950. He enrolled the pianist into his JATP unit and it toured for two seasons with Peterson appearing with accompaniment solely from the bassist Ray Brown. But, on Granz's advice, Peterson added a guitarist for the third season. The pianist had other Granz stablemates in his trio, and formed musical and personal associations with people like Brown and the guitarists Barney Kessel and Herb Ells that were to last for most of their lives.
In one of the concerts recorded on 13 September 1952, Peterson plays a version of "Tenderly" which is not just a classic performance but also a potted summary of his abilities. It begins with a lush solo rubato statement of the theme, so designed to make a contrast with the break into tempo when the guitarist Kessel and bassist Brown come in to give support. The music then moves to a sparse, almost Count Basie-like swing which builds to a juggernaut of rhythm climax before subsiding again to the rubato theme. This is a superb demonstration of how to swing that has rarely been matched on record.
It was also in 1952 that Granz had the imaginative and highly successful idea of recording an album with Fred Astaire singing and Peterson accompanying him.
Each JATP tour usually began in the autumn and finished at Christmas. Granz spent the summers in the recording studios. His output and income was phenomenal, and he was soon to become the most powerful figure in the jazz field. He fought hard for the rights of his musicians and Peterson's career flowered under his protection. "When I came to the United States, I came at a very bad time if you're talking about career launching," said Peterson.
I came in when there had been a swarm of pianists headed for their peaks. Erroll Garner, Bud Powell, George Shearing. And it was pretty rough fighting my way through those names. And no matter what you played, you were compared with or against them – the comparison bit is a human trait. There's always been that thing with pianists, of the gun-fighters coming to town, you know. You open up and you see six or eight pianists giving you the scan to find out what the weaknesses are or the improvements, as the case may be. There's a certain kind of personal challenge, keeping your edge going.
But on a lighter side Peterson was an impressive prankster, often in partnership with Ray Brown. On one occasion, as the trombonist Bill Harris was about to play a ballad solo on "But Beautiful" at a 1953 JATP concert, Brown had put a handful of small steel balls into the piano. These produced an impressive cacophony when Peterson tried to play and he had to reach over with one hand to try and pick the balls out of the instrument while accompanying Harris (badly) with the other. Harris, a giant of the trombone but a nervous player, was paradoxically a master joker. As he stepped back from the microphone he turned to Peterson and said, "One day. One day."
That day came on tour at the Rome opera house the following year. Peterson was due to sing a number with the trio. Harris had collected a tray full of glasses and empty bottles and put it on top of a ladder behind the back curtain of the stage. When Peterson began to sing "Tenderly", Harris waited for the title word, pushed the ladder over and ran. The subsequent crash was satisfyingly cataclysmic. The stage sloped and so the bottles and glasses rolled down towards the footlights. Granz was so enraged that no one dared to identify the culprit.
Granz drew all the giants of jazz that he personally enjoyed into the bounds of his empire. He sought out and recorded Art Tatum. Tatum, blind since early childhood, was a piano genius and until the day he died an astoundingly prodigious beer drinker. He and the more fastidious Peterson became close friends although Peterson remained perpetually intimidated by the older man's piano playing.
For many years Peterson confessed to being scared of playing in Tatum's presence. The ultimate Tatum follower, he also became the pianist who reached closest to Tatum's attainments. But Peterson was more direct. The rhythmic power of his playing and the use of block chords with the trio let him build up the impact of a big band.
He suffered a double blow when, in November 1956, learning that Tatum was dying, he flew to Los Angeles to be with him. Tatum died before he got there and when he did arrive Oscar was given a message telling him that his own father had also died that day.
He spoke often about Tatum, most eloquently on a British television special he recorded with Count Basie in 1975. It was part of a brief series that Peterson made for the BBC, which showed him to be an articulate presenter and raconteur.
Peterson's playing was less abstruse than Tatum's. Tatum tended to take away the listener's breath, but impressed rather than involved his audiences. He had originality and harmonic brilliance but rhythmically he didn't swing as Peterson could, and he was too involved with himself to be able to accompany other soloists. Peterson, even in his most complex work, was primarily accessible to his audiences, and he was able to accompany anyone well, be it Louis Armstrong or Dizzy Gillespie.
He also had gifts as a composer and in 1965 his "Canadiana Suite" was nominated by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences as one of the best jazz compositions of the year.
Between 1968 and 1971 Peterson made an extraordinary series of solo studio recordings for the German MPS label, later to be sued over the material by Norman Granz. Encouraged by the remarkable sound quality of the recording techniques, the pianist put down some of his most impressive work. In this period he found an affinity with another Granz player, the guitarist Joe Pass, and the two recorded and appeared in concerts together. In 1972 Peterson began to give solo recitals.
In the mid Seventies a new trio came into being with the Danish bassist Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen and the English drummer Martin Drew.
Peterson returned to television in 1980 with the American series Oscar Peterson and Friends, to which he brought a wide range of musicians including Mary Lou Williams and Dizzy Gillespie. At the beginning of the decade Granz had recorded a number of duo albums pairing Peterson's piano and various trumpeters such as Clark Terry and Freddie Hubbard.
In 1984 Peterson joined the faculty of York University in Toronto, one of several Canadian universities that gave him an honorary doctorate. In 1991 he as made chancellor of the university.
Poor health and marital problems were the only blot on his success. Months before he suffered a serious stroke in 1993 he had had a hip replacement, and he continued to be afflicted by the arthritis he'd had since childhood. After the stroke he thought he would never play again. It took many months of therapy before he was able return to the concert platform. He resumed his recording career in January 1995. "I've learned something about patience," he said.
From that time his use of his left hand was severely limited and his recordings now tended to involve trumpet and saxophone players who could take some of the solo burden. In May 1995, with use of the left hand restored, he returned to Carnegie Hall once more. He toured Britain again, playing in London at the Barbican in 1996 and at the Albert Hall in 2005. Despite worsening arthritis that made it difficult for him to walk, he kept touring.
In 1984 Peterson was made a Companion of the Order of Canada, the country's highest civilian honour, and in 2005 he became the first living Canadian to be depicted on a postage stamp.

Steve Voce

MORREU O GRANDE OSCAR PETERSON

24 dezembro 2007


Acabo de ouvir no rádio e confirmei na Internet a morte do pianista, ocorrida hoje, 24 de dezembro. Peterson, uma das figuras mais importantes na história do Jazz, foi vitimado por insuficiência renal aos 82 anos de idade. Infelizmente é mais um ídolo que se vai, desfalcando a velha guarda do Jazz, aquela que não aceita "modismos nem tendencias".

RIP

llulla

OS MELHORES ??? SHOWS DE 2007

23 dezembro 2007

Publicado no principal jornal do Rio uma eleição dos Melhores Shows de 2007. Na área jazzística foi contemplado o show no Canecão do Toots Thielemans.

É sabido que os críticos que escrevem nos jornais raramente assitem concertos de jazz e publicam suas críticas. Quando o fazem , com excessão do LOC e JDR, são meras resenhas. Ora bolas, o grande Toots Thielemans foi acompanhado do Oscar Castro Neves, que levou algumas chamadas no palco, e acho que, no texto do jornal, quando se falou em "diálogos", foi uma chamada de atenção do próprio Toots para o OCN.

Talvez este concerto jazzistico tenha sido o único, de muitos que aconteceram, visto pelos críticos que publicam suas matérias em jornais.

Uma vez que esses críticos não tenham tempo de assistir ao jazz, pelo menos podem ler este modesto blog, que tem a colaboração de muita gente que conhece e entende de jazz, inclusive dos maiores mestres do assunto no Brasil.

PRIVILÉGIO E SATISFAÇÃO

22 dezembro 2007

Em primeiro lugar quero agradecer o convite feito pelo nosso Pres. Mau Nah. É com certeza um privilegio e uma enorme satisfação poder participar com meus pitacos desse blog sobre um dos grandes amores de minha vida: o jazz. Prometo ficar atento à pontuação, Pres. Mas qualquer derrapagem aceito o "puxão de orelhas" tranquilamente, vivendo e aprendendo.

Agradeço tambem aos demais confrades pela recepção. Um abraço todo especial ao meu querido amigo Arlindo Coutinho, com votos de uma pronta e completa recuperação de sua esposa Marcela.
Estou pensando em algumas ideias sobre meu primeiro post:
-uma resumida historia da bateria no jazz;
-um "apanhado" sobre estilos e tecnicas da bateria no jazz, prometo uma visão mais musical e não me prender demais a parte tecnica;
- meus bateristas de jazz preferidos, com comentarios sobre cada um e como, na pratica, essas influencias me ajudaram. Conto com a opinião de voces para escolher um desses 3 assuntos.

Escolhi meu "nome de guerra" fazendo uma homenagem a Marcio Montarroyos, mestre e amigo, que durante anos só me chamava de Tenencio.

Espero não decepcioná-los.

Abraços,

NOVO MEMBRO, GRANDE PROFISSIONAL

21 dezembro 2007

Foi nesta tarde-noite no Lamas, onde reunidos para trocar as habituais gentilezas e desejarmos entre nós Boníssimas Festas, que lançamos a candidatura do baterista André Tandeta para membro escrivinhador do CJUB, haja vista as suas assiduidade, proximidade e capacidade de análise musical, pela ótica (viés já está muito usado pelo ministro Manteiga) de um excelente músico.

A votação foi consagradora e o potencial confrade também nos aceitou incontinenti.

Assim, doravante, poderão os leitores encontrar suas opiniões não mais sob a forma de comentários, mas também de posts, os quais ele prometeu pontuar graficamente - quem lê seus comments sabe do que eu falo aqui - de maneira menos caótica.

Estou apenas esperando que ele se aliste no Blogger para que possamos batizá-lo (com o fogo de um uísque caubói) adequadamente. Se ele não sugerir seu próprio cognome, vai ser batizado pelo frei MauNah mesmo, a cabeça sobre a pia de lavar copos do Lamas em data a ser divulgada pela grande imprensa.

Bem vindo Tandeta, o CJUB o saúda!

ATRAÇÃO CIRCENSE

Está de volta ao Brasil, com todo o seu exibicionismo circense, Stanley Jordan.

Ele veio batucar nos trastes da guitarra um repertório de músicas brasileiras - vai tocar até Wave, que ninguém aguenta mais, sorry, esta música extrapolou a audição - sem nenhum ineditismo, afinal dizem ter feito mais de 70 apresentações no Brasil.

Ainda mais, é reputado como músico de jazz pela imprensa brasileira.

Quem vai?

MUSEU DE CERA # 34 – WINGY MANONE

20 dezembro 2007

Joseph Mattews “Wingy” Manone nasceu em New Orleans a 13 de fevereiro de 1900. Aos 10 anos sofreu um acidente de automóvel no qual perdeu seu braço direito e foi apelidado de “alado”. Aos 17 anos iniciou carreira ao trompete em várias bandas que atuavam nos barcos do Mississipi, principalmente na Original Crescent City Jazzers. Em 1924 atua no Arcadians Serenaders de St. Louis iniciando sua participação em gravações e depois se transfere para Chicago trabalhando em night clubs chegando a liderar a Joe Manone's Harmony Kings em 1927, também fazendo gravações.
Em 1929 segue para New York e passa a atuar com os Benny Goodman's Boys, mas logo retorna a Chicago e lidera o Cellar Boys banda do clube My Cellar. Em 1930 sua canção Tar Paper Stomp com algum sucesso foi a inspiração (ou plágio? talvez não, apenas um twelve bar blues riff) para o famoso tema central de In The Mood de Joseph C. Garland e Andy Razaf, arranjada por Eddie Durham sendo consagrada por Glenn Miller em 1939.
Em 1934 retorna a NY e na rua 52 se apresenta no Hickory House com o clarinetista Joe Marsala, depois no Famous Door, Maria’s e noutros, época em que grava seu maior sucesso comercial The Isle of Capri se tornando então muito popular. Em 1940 em Los Angeles trabalha no filme Rhythm on the River com Bing Crosby e passa a atuar regularmente no Bing's Radio Shows na Califórnia onde viveu até 1954. Mudou-se para Las Vegas onde se apresentava liderando vários grupos até sua morte (9/julho/1982 ) e em excursões aos festivais de Nice, de Paris e na Alemanha. Em 1948 é publicada sua autobiografia como Trumpet on the Wing.


Ao contrário da maioria dos trompetistas brancos de New York e Chicago, dos grandes centros, Manone não se inspirou em Bix Beiderbecke, mantendo fidelidade à escola de New Orleans, um tanto chegado a Louis Armstrong. Além de instrumentista, cantava bem e também compunha dentre as quais: Annie Laurie, Awful Waffle Man, Can't Get You Off My Mind, Deep Jungle, Early Morning Blues, Swing Out Swingin at the Hickory House, Trumpet on the Wing e tantas outras. Wingy Manone foi um dos ícones do dixieland.


NOTA: o site esnips o qual hospeda nossas gravações está bloqueando aquelas com ou supostamente com “copyrights” de forma que não fornece mais o código "embed" para podermos colocar no blog a fim de acessar e ouvir as gravações que selecionamos para o Museu de Cera. Vamos aguardar outra solução, no entanto podemos como ilustração do trabalho de nosso focalizado assistir a um gostoso clip-vídeo de 1943

When The Saints Go Marching In

Wingy Manone (tp e vocal), King Jackson (tb) Archie Rosati (cl) Stan Wrightsman (pi) Jim Lynch (bx) e Dick Cornell (bat)



HISTÓRIAS DO JAZZ N° 50

18 dezembro 2007

Erroll Garner ? – Muito prazer !
Essa história remonta aos anos cinqüenta e o texto que se segue faz parte do livro, ainda inédito, “Erroll Garner 88 teclas mágicas” que escrevemos com a inestimável colaboração de Pedro Cardoso . Eis o texto :
“Minha admiração pela arte de Erroll Garner ocorreu no início da década de cinqüenta , quando o rádio ainda cumpria seu primordial papel de difusor cultural. Época também em que a música de cada país mantinha suas naturais características, sem influências externas que pudessem alterar sua identidade .
Ouvia-se de tudo , do samba brasileiro, tango argentino,boleros mexicanos, valsas vienenses e francesas, canções napolitanas, às mais eruditas formas musicais como as sinfonias, concertos , óperas etc. Tudo, absolutamente tudo , ostentando um item importantíssimo : Qualidade.
Os pianistas da época eram os ingleses Charlie Kunz e a dupla Ivor Moreton & Dave Kaye
com seus “Fox-Trots Medley” de sucesso. O alemão Peter Kreuder com os “pout pourris” de operetas em ritmo de fox e, mais tarde , já radicado no Brasil , gravando boleros e chorinhos. O argentino Heriberto Muraro que manteve um programa de auditório criando músicas com apenas quatro notas escolhidas pela platéia; o misterioso Armando Dominguez, que gravou apenas um disco de grande sucesso e desapareceu (Quem não se lembra de “Momento de amor?”). O também desconhecido Pepe Carrera , que fez dois 78 rotações para a Continental , com quatro “fox-trots” de sua autoria, muito tocados nas rádios: “Uma sombra e dois cigarros”, “Pedras brancas”, “Luade mel na lua” e “Nossas pequenas coisas”.
No lado brasileiro preponderou a magnífica Carolina Cardoso de Menezes a quem a música popular muito deve. Sua história tem início quando integrou o grupo de acompanhamento da gravação do clássico “Na Pavuna”, com o famoso “Bando dos Tangarás” (Braguinha, Almirante, Noel Rosa, Henrique Brito e Alvinho) e prosseguiu com gravações preciosas de sambas e choros do nosso populário, incluindo um álbum dedicado a Ernesto Nazareth que, segundo o maestro Radamés Gnatalli, teve em Carolina a sua melhor intérprete. Sua atuação no rádio foi das mais brilhantes, liderando programa próprio em que era acompanhada por Garoto (g), Vidal (b) e Trinca (dm). Alí ouvíamos suas belas composições, desde “Preludiando” (seu prefixo), a “Tudo cabe num beijo”, “Nosso mal”, “Sempre assim”, “Esquina da vida” , “Baionando” e muitas outras.
Tivemos também o “piano de gafieira” do folclórico Gadé, cujo álbum gravado com o baterista Walfrido Silva foi bastante executado nas rádios. Começavam a surgir os famosos ” conjuntos de boite “ liderados por Robledo, Scarambone, Djalma Ferreira, Chuca Chuca, Waldir Calmon e a dupla Fats Elpidio e Leal Brito (Britinho). Dick Farney, já reconhecido como cantor começava a aparecer como pianista.
Quanto aos americanos , ouvia-se muito Buddy Cole, Cy Walter ,Eddie Duchin, Frankie Carle, Johnny Guarnieri, Stan Freeman, Joe Bushkin ,que tocou no Copacabana Pálace integrando o trio de Bud Freeman, Barclay Allen, Carmen Cavallaro, Hazel Scott e alguns outros.
Certa tarde, fui atraído para perto do rádio por uma música executada por um pianista de forma totalmente diferente do que habitualmente se ouvia. Colei os ouvidos no aparelho, aguardando o anúncio do locutor e fui premiado: -Ouvimos “Penthouse Serenade” com o pianista Erroll Garner.
Nessa época o comércio fonográfico era incipiente, principalmente no que se referia a LP’s , então escassos. Após infrutíferas buscas , fui orientado por amigos a procurar as “Lojas Murray”, onde Jonas Silva, que mais tarde fundaria o selo Imagem, importava discos sob encomenda. Por sorte lá estava o dez polegadas da Savoy com o “Penthouse Serenade”, ainda hoje um dos meus discos preferidos.
Daí para a frente, procurei adquirir tudo o que Erroll Garner gravou,principalmente os LP’s lançados no Brasil , alvo maior do trabalho que apresentamos.
Coletei o máximo possível de informações, organizando arquivo próprio com entrevistas, reportagens, “releases”, noticiário referente a estadia de Erroll Garner no Rio de Janeiro,quando se apresentou no Teatro Municipal em magnífica récita ocorrida em 10 de julho de 1970.”
Quando escuto o “Penthouse Serenade” de Garner me imagino apertando sua mão e dizendo : “Erroll Garner” ? – Muito prazer !