A Jazz Odyssey: The Life of Oscar Peterson
A Jazz Odyssey: The Life of Oscar PetersonBy Oscar Peterson
Continuum, $30
Oscar Peterson’s reputation as a technically brilliant mainstream prodigy has led to hundreds of records and performances with most major jazz artists of the last 50 years — and the Montreal-born pianist is still touring the world at 76. Sadly, Peterson’s writing is far less sharp than his playing: About backstage practical jokes, he drones, “I should stress at once that they were all subject to one rule that was never broken: neither the original joke nor the reprisal was allowed to cause either party any form of hurt or harm.” A Jazz Odyssey presents insightful portraits of friends like Ella Fitzgerald, but Peterson barely mentions his four wives and six children, and his frankly tedious accounts of life on the road are strictly G-rated.
Mitch Myers
