eJazzNews Archive

Oscar Peterson Dies at 82

Originally published on eJazzNews · · Obituaries

On December 24, 2007, eJazzNews carried a Canadian Press report, citing CBC, that the pianist Oscar Peterson had died at his home in Mississauga, Ontario, of kidney failure at the age of 82. He died on the night of Sunday, December 23, 2007. In the years since, Canada has put him on a circulating one-dollar coin, Montreal has announced a downtown square in his name, and his centenary was marked in 2025.

What the 2007 report said

The wire story summed up a career it described as running from the jazz clubs of Montreal to Carnegie Hall and beyond. It listed eight Grammy Awards including a lifetime achievement award in 1997, the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award for lifetime achievement, his appointment as a Companion of the Order of Canada, and a 50-cent Canada Post stamp issued in his honour in 2005. It said he had recorded almost 200 albums and played with Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Charlie Parker, Roy Eldridge, Duke Ellington, Nat King Cole, Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie and Ella Fitzgerald.

Two points need care. The report placed his Montreal club years in the 1950s, but he was leading his own trio at the Alberta Lounge by 1947 and made his Carnegie Hall debut at a Jazz at the Philharmonic concert on September 18, 1949. The Grammy total of eight counts the 1997 lifetime achievement award; grammy.com lists seven competitive wins, the first for The Trio with Joe Pass and Niels Pedersen. Album counts vary by source: The Canadian Encyclopedia gives more than 130 under his own name.

Who Oscar Peterson was

Oscar Emmanuel Peterson was born in Montreal on August 15, 1925, the son of a railway porter. As a teenager he won a radio talent contest, and CBC reports that he was then given a weekly spot on the Montreal station CKAC. He played in Johnny Holmes’s dance band from 1943 to 1947 before leading his own trio. According to the often-told story, the promoter Norman Granz heard a live broadcast from the club and brought him to Carnegie Hall in 1949 and managed him for most of his career.

His trio of the 1950s, with bassist Ray Brown and guitarist Herb Ellis, set the template for his work; after Ellis left, drummer Ed Thigpen took the third chair, and from 1965 the rhythm section was bassist Sam Jones and drummer Louis Hayes. In the 1970s he formed another trio with guitarist Joe Pass and bassist Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen. He wrote “Hymn to Freedom” (1962) and the Canadiana Suite. A stroke in 1993 weakened his left hand and kept him off the stage for about two years, after which he returned to performing. The Japanese pianist Hiromi has said her childhood teacher introduced her to jazz through Peterson and Erroll Garner records, as recounted in a 2004 eJazzNews profile. He is among the players in our overview of jazz pianists.

What happened next

In June 2010 Queen Elizabeth II unveiled a life-size sculpture of Peterson outside the National Arts Centre in Ottawa. On August 31, 2021, Montreal announced that a new public square on McGill College Avenue, next to the Eaton Centre, would carry his name; his widow, Kelly Peterson, attended. In 2022 the Royal Canadian Mint put him on a circulating commemorative one-dollar coin, which The Canadian Encyclopedia describes as the first to feature a Black Canadian. His estate marked the centenary of his birth in 2025 with an “OP 100” program of concerts and releases.

Where to start listening

  • Night Train (Verve, 1963): the trio with Ray Brown and Ed Thigpen, including “Hymn to Freedom.”
  • Canadiana Suite (Oscar Peterson Trio, 1965): his portrait of Canada in eight movements, nominated for a Grammy as a jazz composition.

Sources

This page is based on an article from the original eJazzNews archive (2001 to 2018), with background and sources added in 2026. The original text is not republished here. You can read the original as it appeared on eJazzNews via the Internet Archive.
Browse the eJazzNews archive