Following Oscar Peterson on stage at a concert in 1967, Duke Ellington (facetiously) remarked: “When I was a small boy, my music teacher was Mrs. Clinkscales. The first thing she ever said to me was, ‘Edward, always remember, whatever you do, don’t sit down at the piano after Oscar Peterson.'”
–Duke Ellington
With all of the love I’m giving to Nicky Hopkins, I am acutely aware that other piano giants roamed the earth. Take, for example, Oscar Peterson. His performance here of “Boogie Blues Etude” (aka “Boogie Blues Study,” I’m not sure the title matters) is a tornadic deconstruction and reconstruction of the boogie woogie form. It’s like he’s down at the cellular level of this music transforming it into something impossibly new. He doesn’t just play the piano, he takes its lunch money. I guess there’s a reason they called him The Brown Bomber of Boogie-Woogie. I love how occasionally, Barney Kessel and Niels-Henning Ørsted Pederson — no slouches on their respective instruments — look at each other as if to say, “Are you fucking kidding me??? Is this guy even human?”
Oscar Peterson Trio – Ronnie Scott’s Club, London, 1974
https://youtu.be/pcgzzUa4eZw?t=18m55s