Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Collection
Publication
Tundra Books (2012), Edition: First Edition, 192 pages
Description
Called the "Maharaja of the keyboard" by Duke Ellington, Oscar Peterson released over 200 recordings, won seven Grammy Awards, received the Order of Canada and is considered to have been one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time. This new biography from award-winning author Jack Batten, promises to tell Oscar Peterson's story in acomplete, compelling and sympathetic way. This is first biography of Oscar Peterson for young people. This book is the story of a black kid from a Montreal ghetto who reached accliam in the great music halls of the world.
Media reviews
Quill & Quire
Biographers tread a narrow path between fiction and documentary. Those writing with a young audience in mind have the added challenge of figuring out what is appropriate to tell children about adult lives.
This used to be an easier task. Biographies for children were primarily written about
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people we wanted them to emulate: heroes, role models, those who triumphed over adversity. But writing about real people is a trickier business now: we’re less sure what constitutes an exemplary life. Our general taste is geared more to revealing hypocrisy than inspiring virtue. Our standards are also more rigorous, discouraging invented dialogue or hypothetical musings of the “she must have felt” variety.
Jack Batten walks confidently through these various minefields in his biography of Canadian jazz pianist Oscar Peterson. Born in Montreal to poor, immigrant parents, Peterson went on to debut at Carnegie Hall at age 24. When he was eight, he spent a year in hospital with tuberculosis. Like other members of his family he developed arthritis. At 67, he suffered a stroke, losing much of the power in his left hand, yet he continued to perform and record for years. He seemed to weather the endemic racism he encountered without becoming embittered. In a jazz world fuelled by drugs he remained a straight arrow. Batten quotes him as writing: “I knew for certain I didn’t belong at that party.”
Batten knows his subject well: there are photos of him interviewing Peterson in the mid-1960s, and he is the former jazz reviewer for The Globe and Mail. A conscientious researcher, he fashions a convincing aspirational narrative from his material. His jaunty, journalistic writing makes the reader feel like one of the gang. One politician is described as “an affable, low-key operator,” and a particular guitarist’s style is marked by “long shimmering lines of improvisation.” Batten puts the facts of Peterson’s life in context, opening up many avenues of further exploration for the curious.
Writing about music has been likened to dancing about architecture, yet Batten’s text becomes energized when he describes Peterson’s music. Of the pianist’s performance of Duke Ellington’s “Love You Madly,” Batten writes: “At about the two-thirds mark in the song, after several quietly passionate passages at medium tempo, Oscar went into a series of extra-large, two-handed chord rolls, the kind that threw listeners, metaphorically, against the back of their seats.”
Batten makes us really want to hear the music for ourselves (I went straight to iTunes and was indeed blown back against my desk chair). He also provides a tidy capsule history of jazz for the uninitiated, making sense of its varying influences. A detailed analysis of a 1956 concert recording, The Oscar Peterson Trio at the Stratford Shakespearean Festival, is a kind of jazz primer.
Batten gives us a moving and convincing portrait of Peterson, but his text is not well served by its package. A dramatic cover portrait and some innovative type design and layout invite us in, but the quality of the photographs is uneven – many are grainy, overexposed, or ill-placed. This is particularly disappointing given that, as Batten tells us, Peterson was a keen amateur photographer.
Still, substantial biographies of Canadians for young readers are in short supply, and this volume will be a welcome choice for students who have been given the “biography assignment.” Its other obvious curriculum-related use is for the study of black Canadian history, joining titles such as Viola Desmond Won’t Be Budged by Jody Nyasha Warner and Season of Rage by John Cooper in putting a human face on this strand of our story.
This book’s real potential is for the kid who may not know a Thigpen from a Thelonious, but who wonders about the shape of a life. What must it be like to discover, at age 12, the art form that will shape the rest of your existence? How does it feel to grow up with such a stern and demanding father? What happens when you outshine your teachers? What is it like to be famous? What gives somebody the drive, ambition, and focus to say, “On our worst night we’ve got to sound better than most people sound on their best night”?
Beyond answering these questions, this well-crafted bio might just inspire some young pianist to slog away at scales and exercises in the hope that, with luck and determination, the hard work might lead to greatness. Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member TimBazzett
Jack Batten's fine tribute to OSCAR PETERSON, a musician he so obviously admires, will also make a great primer on jazz music for the young reader who might be just beginning to form his or her own particular musical tastes and preferences. There are many lightly documented references to the
Peterson's early life as a poor black kid from the St. Henri ghetto of Montreal is documented too, but with a difference. His father, a railroad porter, always alloted funds from his meager earnings to provide music lessons for all his children. Oscar was the 'natural,' the one with perfect pitch who stood out from his siblings. His father also approved Oscar's dropping out of school at fifteen to pursue his musical career, since Oscar was already making good money as a musician by then in local dance bands. Many years later this gifted high-school dropout was to have countless honorary degrees bestowed on him for his musical contributions to Canada and the world of music.
While I realize that OSCAR PETERSON: THE MAN AND HIS JAZZ, is intended for a YA audience, I still found the book's near hagiographic treatment of its subject just a bit too condescending and overly simplistic. Because a man who has multiple wives (4 marriages) and several children is obviously no saint. And Peterson's occasional tantrums and self-centeredness in his dealings with promoters and other musicians - even with his closest collaborators like Ray Brown and Herb Ellis - were also, I thought, glossed over a little too easily. And the gritter details of life in jazz clubs never come up at all, other than to mention that many very talented jazz musicians' lives were cut short by drug and alcohol use, something Oscar was apparently 'never' involved in, choosing instead more wholesome off-the-job hobbies like photography. (All those wives might also imply an appreciative eye for the ladies too.)
From an adult standpoint, Batten's book is really only mildly interesting, but it is an easy read, and could certainly act as a good starting point for young people who are just discovering this wonderful kind of music. I would certainly recommend it for a high school library, or - perhaps better - display it in a prominent place in the band room.
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origins of jazz in the American south, particularly in the New Orleans area, as well as to its early pioneers, people like Louis Armstrong, Charlie Christian, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Charlie 'Bird' Parker, Art Tatum and countless others. Batten takes the time in his narrative of Oscar's life and development as a musician, to digress just enough to give useful thumbnail biographies of many of these earlier musicians and contemporaries who influenced Peterson. He also gives well-deserved attention to Oscar's early mentor and nearly life-long manager, the jazz impressario, Norman Granz.Peterson's early life as a poor black kid from the St. Henri ghetto of Montreal is documented too, but with a difference. His father, a railroad porter, always alloted funds from his meager earnings to provide music lessons for all his children. Oscar was the 'natural,' the one with perfect pitch who stood out from his siblings. His father also approved Oscar's dropping out of school at fifteen to pursue his musical career, since Oscar was already making good money as a musician by then in local dance bands. Many years later this gifted high-school dropout was to have countless honorary degrees bestowed on him for his musical contributions to Canada and the world of music.
While I realize that OSCAR PETERSON: THE MAN AND HIS JAZZ, is intended for a YA audience, I still found the book's near hagiographic treatment of its subject just a bit too condescending and overly simplistic. Because a man who has multiple wives (4 marriages) and several children is obviously no saint. And Peterson's occasional tantrums and self-centeredness in his dealings with promoters and other musicians - even with his closest collaborators like Ray Brown and Herb Ellis - were also, I thought, glossed over a little too easily. And the gritter details of life in jazz clubs never come up at all, other than to mention that many very talented jazz musicians' lives were cut short by drug and alcohol use, something Oscar was apparently 'never' involved in, choosing instead more wholesome off-the-job hobbies like photography. (All those wives might also imply an appreciative eye for the ladies too.)
From an adult standpoint, Batten's book is really only mildly interesting, but it is an easy read, and could certainly act as a good starting point for young people who are just discovering this wonderful kind of music. I would certainly recommend it for a high school library, or - perhaps better - display it in a prominent place in the band room.
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LibraryThing member KWROLSEN
This book was an interesting biography about Oscar Peterson, a phenomenal musician. I enjoyed reading about the odds that he overcame in his life and his transformation into a star. I liked how the chapters seemed to be broken up into sections which allowed me to pause at an appropriate spot when
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needed. I really loved the real life photographs throughout the text. I appreciate the topic of this book and learned a lot about Oscar Peterson's life. Show Less
LibraryThing member Jeanomario
This biography of a jazz giant, told in third person, is a simple, straight-forward read. Geared for novice musicians and the YA crowd, the coverage of Peterson's life is interesting and non-academic in its telling. Quick and breezy, this biography is a good introduction to a piano legend.
LibraryThing member cwlongshot
Oscar Peterson is my favorite jazz pianist from the twentieth century, so I enjoyed reading this biography (full disclosure: I was given a copy by the publisher). The book covers Oscar's formative years with a family who helped each other learn to play both classical and jazz under their father's
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guidance. This situation seems similar to the Jackson family, though, in this case, Oscar was the only one to become a professional musician. The book does a good job of covering the early successes and some of the middle and later years. The only weakness is the inconsistent coverage of Oscar's performances - some are covered in great detail while others are mentioned in a few sentences or not at all. While it's not a definitive biography, it's more than rich enough for a good overview of the great performer's life. The author's prose is clear and is at a level suitable for younger readers. Show Less
LibraryThing member eheinlen
I liked the concept of the book and I love learning about people's lives, especially how they have overcome adversity, but I didn't like the author's writing style. I found his sentences to be choppy and they often broke grammatical rules, such as "Do not start a sentence with 'and' or 'but."
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Things like that bug me. I did like the inclusion of the pictures, bibliography and index. I think all of those things will benefit someone who would like to know more about Oscar's life outside of reading this book. Show Less
LibraryThing member LauraEnos
I wasn't sure how interesting the life of Oscar Peterson was going to be when I first started reading this biographical story, but I found myself very engaged from start to finish. If you have an appreciation for music, play the piano, or enjoy listening to or playing jazz, you will most likely
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enjoy learning about the life and career of Canadian jazz pianist, Oscar Peterson. The most refreshing part of this book was that unlike other icons who are very talented but whose private lives reveal they are of poor character, Oscar Peterson was a wholesome, decent person. The third person voice is very lively and does a nice job storytelling about this jazz legend. Show Less
Language
Original language
English
ISBN
1770492690 / 9781770492691