Heading home to New York from Montreal in 1949, record producer Norman Granz settled into the back seat of a cab en route to the Montreal airport. The radio was on and picked up a pianist playing live at the Alberta Lounge, at the corner of De la Gauchetière and Peel streets, where the Chateau Champlain Hotel is located today.
Stunned by what he heard, Granz asked the driver to take him to the club, not the airport. There, he heard Oscar Peterson. Months later, on September 18, 1949, Granz teamed Peterson with bassist Ray Brown and introduced them to an audience at New York's Carnegie Hall. The reviews were spectacular.
In March 1950, the duo recorded their first session together for Granz's Clef label. The material marked the start of one of the great pairings of the 1950s. The songs recorded that night were Peterson's Debut, They Didn't Believe Me, Lover Come Back to Me, Where or When, Three O'clock in the Morning, All the Things You Are, Oscar's Blues and Tenderly. Some of the material would be released on Clef's Collates and Collates No. 2, but the albums received little attention since Peterson very quickly shifted to his more traditional trio and quartet formats.
Peterson at this point was using a great deal of block chords in the style of George Shearing, and his runs with his right hand were reminiscent of the mighty Art Tatum. In between was a pianist with soul and ambition, eager to establish his own taste and style.
The duo recordings by Peterson and Brown in 1950 and '51 are remarkable for their sheer beauty and bold modernism. There's no stride in Peterson's playing or pure bebop. It's something else entirely, an elegant and lush form being propelled by a swing-bop fusion and a passion for melody and harmony. Most fascinating is how Peterson made songbook standards his own. He was an original from the outset.
As for Brown, he was a perfect partner. His playing was pronounced and solid, taking on the task of the bass and drums as he kept time and conversed instrumentally with Peterson's playing. For pure Peterson, in all his glory exposed before his signature centipede-like runs, the duo recordings are worth revisiting. Thank goodness for radios in Canadian taxi cabs.
Oscar Peterson died in 2007 at age 82; Ray Brown died in 2002 at age 75.
JazzWax tracks: You'll find Debut: The Clef/Mercury Duo Recordings 1949-1951 here.
If you want to splurge for the Mosaic box and booklet, now out of print, go here.
JazzWax tracks: Here's Where or When...
Here's Lover...
And here's Tenderly...
