Want to start a controversy that's good for business? Make a list.
We have an epidemic of list-making in the media lately because everyone knows it's a way to catch people's interest and get people to react.
What started out as an annual best song derby on the oldies stations has become a curse through endless emulation.
Turn on MuchMusic and it's the top 100 Most Shocking Moments in Rock. (How about Keith Richards still alive?).
Turn on the Super Bowl and it's the 10 greatest games of all time.
A series of TV programs by the American Film Institute have chosen the top 100 movies, top 100 male acting performances, top 100 movie songs, etc. etc.
So, it was inevitable that somebody would get around to publishing a book called The Fifty Greatest Jazz Piano Players of All Time (Hal Leonard, 2005).
American pianist, jazz writer and music professor Gene Rizzo put together the list and, as you can imagine, it's causing great ructions.
Of course, Mississaugans only want to know one thing. Where's Oscar?
Well, you can relax, because OP, the man who needs no surname, is number one.
A review in Coda, Canada's jazz magazine bible, raved about the pictures and the production of the sumptuous volume but griped about the "perplexing" rankings of many players.
Here's the top 10 for your information: 1. Oscar, 2. Bill Evans, 3.Bud Powell 4. Art Tatum 5. Monty Alexander, 6. Benny Green, 7. Andre Previn, 8. Tommy Flanagan, 9. George Shearing 10. Red Garland.
I listened on the Internet to Rizzo being interviewed about the list and he was at great pains to explain that it wasn't his list at all, but represented the results of a survey sent to music professors, musicians and journalists which produced hundreds of votes.
He also stressed that the criteria for judging were originality, influence and command of the instrument. Hard to argue with the winner based on those.
Maybe lyricism and swing and interpretation should have been included in the mix, but how do you measure those? In fact, how do you measure any of this stuff between players of such surpassing skill and beauty?
Rizzo himself was surprised that Tatum didn't win. From talking to him and from his autobiography, it's pretty clear that's likely who Oscar himself would have voted for. In fact, when his father brought home a Tatum recording of Tiger Rag, Peterson was convinced there were two people playing. He was in tears at the music, in part from pure admiration at its beauty and, in part, at frustration, because he thought he could never be that good. Turns out he may have been wrong.
Everyone has favourite players and styles and comparing them IS odious. Thelonious Sphere Monk (15), Teddy Wilson (23), Nat King Cole (24) and Keith Jarrett (50) are obviously too low. You see that's the problem. You get drawn into squabbling about the details of the list whose legitimacy you don't accept in the first place.
Whether he's first or 15th, the point is that Mississauga is home to one of the true giants of the only North American-born art form.
Those people who were lucky enough to attend the Peterson tribute concert at the Living Arts Centre here Sept. 10, 2003 can ponder this, along with their fond memories of that magical night: according to Gene Rizzo, that concert featured three of the top six piano players (Peterson, Alexander, Green) who ever lived.