Born 25th August, 1925 in Montreal, Canada, Oscar Emmanuel Peterson grew up in Little Burgundy, a predominantly black neighbourhood in greater Quebec. He took up piano and trumpet at age five, quickly becoming adept on both instruments. At seven he was diagnosed with tuberculosis which prevented him from playing the trumpet, he thus concentrated on the piano during this time, practising four to six hours a day. Studying under the Hungarian-born player Paul de Marky - himself a student of virtuoso Istvan Thoman - the young Oscar began learning classical piano but later switched to jazz styles, most notably 'boogie-woogie'. By 1961, with the piano-bass-drums line up now firmly established, the OPT performed a week's residency at The London House, a renowned jazz spot in Chicago. These performances were among the finest the new line-up ever gave, and were released on Verve as four separate albums; The Trio, Something Warm, The Sound Of The Trio and Put On A Happy Face, in '61 and early '62. The following year, Peterson's most commercially successful record Night Train (Verve, 1963), was released, another Trio masterpiece that due to its shorter track times, received considerable radio play.
Here are Oscar Peterson's first recordings, made in Canada before his U.S. breakthrough under the wing of Norman Granz. These Montreal recordings first came out as singles on the Canadian branch of the Victor label. As such, they don't come up for reissue air very often, which is a real shame, because there's some truly extraordinary performances here, including "I Got Rhythm," "In a Little Spanish Town," "Blue Moon," "Sweet Lorraine," and "The Sheik of Araby." Peterson is nothing short of jaw-droppingly excellent on these sides, his playing every bit as deft on the ballads as it is on the uptempo numbers. Plain and simply, these performances belong in every jazz lover's collection.
We Get Requests Again is a "best of" compilation of Oscar Peterson. It features a selection of Peterson's songs compiled and remastered by the renowned engineer Taizo Yano. This compilation was released exclusively in Japan.
Official 2016 remastered collection of Verve albums in replica card sleeves! Includes "Plays Count Basie", "A Jazz Portrait Of Frank Sinatra", "Jazz Soul Of Oscar Peterson", "Plays Porgy & Bess" & "West Side Story".
This CD evidently originates from a fan's home taping of a European radio broadcast of a concert by the Oscar Peterson Trio in Vienna on November 9, 1968. An announcer is briefly heard over the introduction but, other than that, the only flaws occur as the recording level is occasionally overmodulated, resulting in some distortion (but not so much that it is unlistenable). In spite of the sound problems, the pianist is in top form, joined by bassist Sam Jones and drummer Bobby Durham, for a set that relies mainly on some of Peterson's favorite standards ("The Lamp Is Low" and "Someday My Prince Will Come") as well as Neal Hefti's "Little Darlin'," Bill Evans' "Waltz for Debby," and the leader's "Never Say Yes" and "Noreen's Nocturne"…