Nancy Walker and the other excellent pianists (Don Thompson, Mark Eisenman, Bernie Senensky, Dave Restivo and Robbie Botos) who will be honouring Oscar Peterson in a special Oct. 30 tribute concert have a dilemma.
How do you choose one or two songs from the musical canon of a man whose first recording, This is Oscar Peterson, appeared in 1945 and whose discography runs to several pages, even in very small type?
“For me, it’s easier than for other people,” says Walker, “because I’m not so Oscar Peterson-like in my own playing. I picked something that I know I could have a chance of sounding OK on,” said the Port Credit resident, who is being too modest by half.
Her choice is a song from the very first OP album she ever bought, Tristeza (Sadness) on Piano, which appeared on the Verve label in 1970.
“It’s not necessarily characteristic of his writing,” says Walker who, like Peterson, is a native of Montreal who has found a home in Mississauga. “It’s a bossa nova and there was a strong Brazilian influence in the writing of the time.”
Bill King, a pretty fair pianist himself when he’s not producing albums, playing with his own band, putting out the Jazz Report magazine, organizing the Beaches Jazz Festivals, and running the National Jazz Awards, is organizing the concert that Jazz.FM91 is hosting at the Harbourfront Centre Theatre. (See www.jazz.fm for concert details.)
The possibility of writing an Oscar tribute tune (there are already a dozen or so) occurred to Walker but the downside was too steep.
“You would want to make sure that the person is really well-reflected in your tune,” she said. Especially if there was a possibility of the legend himself sitting in the front row.
There is absolutely no reason that Walker, whose playing and composing just keeps getting stronger with every CD (the last one, When She Dreams on Justin Time Records with Kirk MacDonald on saxes is nothing sport of spectacular) should feel insecure in her work.
But then again, the good doctor himself had to stop the first time he was playing at a bar in Washington, D.C. and bassist Ray Brown pointed out that his hero, Art Tatum, was in the house.
“I was totally frightened of this man and his tremendous talent,” Peterson later told an interviewer. “It’s like a lion. You’re scared to death, but it’s such a beautiful animal, you want to come up close and hear it roar.”
So how does Walker feel about facing the roar of Mississauga’s lion in winter?
“It’s a double-edged sword,” she says. “On the one hand it’s pretty nervous-making. On the other hand, it would be an incredible honour,” said Walker who places Peterson at the pinnacle of all jazz pianists.
“I would ultimately hope that he would be there.”