Lena Horne is gone. I can’t believe she was 92—how long it’s been since I first heard the live recording of her performance, with Lennie Hayton (Lena’s husband) leading the band, at the Waldorf Astoria in New York.
I’m sure I was under 20 at the time and knew nothing of her history. I just loved that passionate, sexy voice and the songs she had chosen to sing and the live sound in the room and the band and those arrangements. I can still sing a couple of verses from “I Love to be Loved.”
I’m pretty sure I was born too late — mostly because I never got to see Art Tatum play live. The story might not be absolutely true, but my piano teacher told me that when he saw “God” at the old Georgia Auditorium in Vancouver sometime in the mid-1950s, Tatum — who was blind — was led out to the piano, where he sat down, looked up to his right and never moved a muscle except for his hands as he played tune after mesmerizing tune.
Art Tatum died in 1956 at the age of 47. There has never been a jazz piano player since with the same combination of spectacular technique, exquisite tone, masterful touch and control, and improvisational genius.
Fortunately there are many high-quality recordings of Tatum’s music available. There also lots of wonderful Tatum stories.
I didn’t get to see Art Tatum but I did get to see some of the other jazz greats who are now gone: Oscar Peterson, Ella Fitzgerald, Joe Pass, Errol Garner, Earl “Fatha” Hines, Joe Williams. I loved the mainstream people; I wasn’t a fan of Coltrane or Bill Evans (I like Evans now though) or the bebop guys.
My first experience with live jazz came when I was 18 or 19 and my teacher took me to hear Errol Garner at the old Isy’s Supper Club on Georgia Street in Vancouver. I had already heard all these great musicians on records, but the club atmosphere and the “liveness” of the music, and seeing and hearing Garner in the flesh, with his big smile and that slicked-down hair and the signature grunting/groaning, and Errol’s idiosyncratic style, with the rhythmic left hand and the wildly inventive improvisations — it was all more than I could take in.
I loved Garner — and I still do — but I was completely blown away when I first heard Oscar Peterson. I never got over it. That driving, virtuosic, relentless swing, with the chord sequences and the riffs that were uniquely Oscar’s gave me the shivers all over.
Peterson had this trick — and I’m no musician, so I don’t even know if it was a trick — of improvising in some swinging, fairly up-tempo tune, and just when you think the thing couldn’t get any more exciting, suddenly taking it up a notch to a new level of swing. The first time I heard that was when I really listened to “Noreen’s Nocturne” on the 1956 album The Oscar Peterson Trio at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. Just the other day I was watching a DVD of a 1985 Peterson concert in Berlin; he did the same thing on “Who Can I Turn To?”
Oscar’s style evolved over his career, but the swing was always there, no matter the venue, no matter the sidemen, no matter the tune. The swing was rendered more interesting and more exciting by a phenomenal technique and a thorough knowledge of the history of jazz, as well as a bottomless well of improvisational creativity.
And he even looked good. Always an elegant dresser, Peterson would always appear in a tuxedo or what we used to call a “Peterson jacket,” a gorgeously patterned silk tuxedo jacket in muted blue or red. The sidemen, usually a bassist and a drummer, were also immaculately turned out.
A very large man, Oscar had an attractive face and the most beautiful smile that would break out when the swinging got to just the level he wanted it to be. He would sweat profusely and mop his face with a large handkerchief, but never in the theatrical way that was characteristic of Louis Armstrong; Oscar let nothing get in the way of the music.
I saw him live several times throughout his career — at Isy’s, at Simon Fraser University, at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, and in the lean years before jazz made a comeback, at a hotel in North Vancouver that is now condominiums.
The last time I saw him was at Jazz Alley in Seattle in 2003. He had had a stroke and was pushed onto the stage in a wheelchair. The great Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen was still playing bass for him — beautifully and devotedly — and Peterson’s other sidemen were top notch. Peterson’s love of playing jazz and his ubiquitous swing were still there but the incredible chops were sadly missing; the sidemen had to do a lot of the solo work.
Oscar died just four years later, on December 23, 2007. The beloved Niels-Henning had died two years before at the age of 59.
I have seen many of the “newer” jazz people — Wynton Marsalis, Keith Jarrett, Chucho Valdes, Bill Charlap, Diana Krall—and I have been thrilled by their playing. But I guess it’s always a generational thing: even though I didn’t really start paying attention to jazz until I was in my late teens, Oscar and Ella Fitzgerald and Count Basie and Duke Ellington and Joe Pass — and Lena Horne — were from “my era.” I can still see them and listen to them just about any time I want to, but I still miss them all.
And Oscar, I miss you the most.
Photo Credits
“Lena Horne” Public Domain
Joe Pass” Tom Marcello @ Flickr.com. Creative Commons. Some Rights Reserved.
“Oscar Peterson, Eastman Theatre Rochester, New York
1977″ Tom Marcello @ Flickr.com. Creative Commons. Some Rights Reserved.
“Oscar Peterson, Eastman Theatre Rochester, New York
1977″ Tom Marcello @ Flickr.com. Creative Commons. Some Rights Reserved.
This article appeared on my blog “Confessions of a Liturgy Queen” on May 18, 2010.
Recent Ross Lonergan Articles:
- The Film-School Student Who Never Graduates: A Profile of Ang Lee, Part Four
- The Film-School Student Who Never Graduates: A Profile of Ang Lee, Part Three
- The Film-School Student Who Never Graduates: A Profile of Ang Lee, Part Two
- The Film-School Student Who Never Graduates: A Profile of Ang Lee, Part One
- Bullying, Fear, And The Full Moon (Part Four)
Paul Johnson says
What a wonderful piece of journalism you have written, my father was a pianist, and I knew where the influences had come from when he played, Art Tatum and Oscar Peterson, with Oscar living longer than Art he just got better and better at his craft, and surpassed even Art Tatum, my father and I were lucky enough to see Oscar play in the late 70s at Harrogate North Yorkshire, and watching this great man play filled me up inside, god produced a good one in Oscar, a man who loved what he did smiled, was a kind gentle man, and Oscar as I listen and watch you play after your passing, I miss you and my father so much, if god gave me two wishes it would be to bring Oscar and my father back
Ross Lonergan says
Thank you, Paul, for your kind comment. How lucky you were to have your own private pianist! Do you have recordings of your father’s playing? Thank goodness there are lots of recordings and even video of Oscar’s work. I sometimes spend several hours on YouTube watching OP concerts and clips. If you are on Facebook, Oscar’s daughter Celine often posts rare clips. The other day, after the death of Andre Previn, she posted a video of Oscar and Andre playing two-piano blues.
Ross
Paul Johnson says
Thankyou for your kind reply Ross, I do have recordings of my father playing, but sadly not enough, recorded are jitterbug, sweet Lorraine, and satin doll my favourites. I too regularly watch Oscar on YouTube I prefer to watch than listen just love to see Oscar enjoy what he does and watch those hands of his on the piano, my father passed away in 1999 but I always feel he is close to me when I have Oscar playing, don’t know whether this is the right word to use in these modern times but I did and still do love Oscar
Art died in 1956 the year I was born, so I have never watched him play, but have heard him play many times, my fathers LP collection consisted of Art Tatum and Oscar Peterson, my father was one of those who could listen then transfer it to a piano, as a youngster I was in awe of my fathers talent, sadly denied to me because my mother would not have a piano in the house, and so my father played any piano he came across usually my Auntie Norma’s, in his latter years he bought a electronic piano, which we recorded him playing.
Ross I will go on to Facebook and see if I come across Celines downloads, and thank you again for replying, and please let us keep in touch
Maggie Kerr-Southin says
Ah yes, you have stirred so many beautiful music memories for me. I loved Isy’s, and the Cave and the Body Shop. My favourite jazz memory is seeing Ella Fitzgerald three nights running at the old showroom of the former International Plaza Hotel.
She was so fabulous, singing scat and climbing the scales with such ease. She was almost blind by then, but she spied me in the front row (again) and said in a teasing scold: “Young lady, don’t you have anything better to do with your life?”
I’ll cherish that forever.
Thanks for stirring the jazz pot for me.
Ross says
Maggie:
Thanks for your lovely comment. When I was writing the article, I couldn’t remember the name (thus “a hotel in North Vancouver that is now condominiums”) but wasn’t the International Plaza Hotel located near Capilano and Marine in North Vancouver and didn’t it operate in the 1980s? And did you ever go to Vye’s Steak House somewhere in or near Chinatown, where musicians went with their bottles of rye and ate steak and fries cooked in chicken fat and Vye made those gorgeous home-made biscuits? I had better stop or I’m going to cry!
RICHARD WALTERS says
I LOVED ISYS ALSO WITH GREAT JAZZ ACTS LIKE AL HIBBLER,DUKE ELLINGTON,JONAH JONES,WOODY HERMAN,DIZZY GILLESPIE,RAMSY LEWIS.MAYNARD FERGUSON,BUDDY RICH,SARAH VAUGHN,LIONAL HAMPTON AND ERROLL GARNER AND MANY MORE OF THR JAZZ GREATS
I WILL ALWAYS HAVE THESE GREAT JAZZ PEOPLE IN MY HEART,AS I WAS PART OWNER OF ISY’S WITH MY DAD ISY WALTERS.
THOSE WERE GREAT DAYS
Ross Lonergan says
If you were part owner of Isy’s with your Dad, then I, and thousands of other people, need to thank you and Isy for bringing us great artists, great music, and great memories. I will never forget the thrill of seeing and hearing Erroll Garner in your club.
Richard walters says
I was the owner of Isy’s with my dad
I will be putting up my story on the 2 r clubs that I WAS INVOLVED IN AND ALL THE PICTURES THAT WE HAD ON THE WALL AT iSY’S AS I HAVE HAD THEM FOR THE LAST 40 YEARS.
I will have them up in the next 6 Months
Richard walters
Ross Lonergan says
Dear Richard:
I look forward to seeing those pictures once they are up. Please let us know when and where we can see them. Also can’t wait to read your story.
Please keep us informed.
Ross
richard walters says
my pictures of all the acts and story of the cave and Isys will be up july 2015 as caveisys.net
Ross Lonergan says
Can’t wait to see them!
Michael Lebowitz says
i once spent several days with Linton Garner ,eroll’s older brother.he lived in Vancouver BC for years.I took several piano lessons from him which never t aught me how to play the piano. My fault not his… i kept on asking him about the others that you mention above, about th hill district in Pittsburgh Pa. where he and Errol grew up. The stories rolled for hours as did his impression of Oscar and Art BNill Evans and john Dave Brubeck and all them other “cats” as he would put i with a sly smile- -maybe ignorance, mine, was bliss after all- keep writing Ross you too are a treasure all your own.