Oscar Emmanuel Peterson CC CQ OOnt (August 15, 1925 – December 23, 2007)[1] was a Canadian jazz pianist and composer.

Peterson worked in duos with Sam Jones, Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, Joe Pass, Irving Ashby,[2] Count Basie,[3] and Herbie Hancock.

[4] He considered the trio with Ray Brown and Herb Ellis "the most stimulating" and productive setting for public performances and studio recordings.

Shortly afterward Smith was replaced by guitarist Irving Ashby, who had been a member of the Nat King Cole Trio.

Peterson was born in Montreal, Quebec, to immigrants from the West Indies (Saint Kitts and Nevis and the British Virgin Islands):[7] his mother, Kathleen, was a domestic worker; his father, Daniel, worked as a porter for Canadian Pacific Railway and was an amateur musician who taught himself to play the organ, trumpet and piano.

As a child, Peterson studied with Hungarian-born pianist Paul de Marky, a student of István Thomán, who was himself a pupil of Franz Liszt, so his early training was predominantly based on classical piano.

[15] According to an interview with Norman Granz, he heard a radio program broadcasting from a local club while taking a cab to the Montreal airport.

[citation needed] In 1949 he introduced Peterson in New York City at a Jazz at the Philharmonic concert at Carnegie Hall.

This was more than a managerial relationship; Peterson praised Granz for standing up for him and other black jazz musicians in the segregationist south US of the 1950s and 1960s.

In the documentary video Music in the Key of Oscar, Peterson tells how Granz stood up to a gun-toting Southern policeman who wanted to stop the trio from using "whites-only" taxis.

[14] By 1956, Peterson's performances were also showcased on national radio networks by Ben Selvin within the RCA Thesaurus transcriptions library.

[17] Peterson also worked in duos with Sam Jones, Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, Joe Pass, Irving Ashby,[2] Count Basie,[3] and Herbie Hancock.

Shortly afterward Smith was replaced by guitarist Irving Ashby, who had been a member of the Nat King Cole Trio.

On April 22, 1978, Peterson performed in the interval act for the Eurovision Song Contest 1978 that was broadcast live from the Palais des congrès de Paris.

Pass said in a 1976 interview, "The only guys I've heard who come close to total mastery of their instruments are Art Tatum and Peterson".

[18] Peterson was open to experimental collaborations with jazz musicians such as saxophonist Ben Webster, trumpeter Clark Terry, and vibraphonist Milt Jackson.

His solo recordings were rare until Exclusively for My Friends (MPS), a series of albums that were his response to pianists such as Bill Evans and McCoy Tyner.

He recorded for Pablo, led by Norman Granz, after the label was founded in 1973, including the soundtrack for the 1978 thriller The Silent Partner.

During the same year, incoming prime minister Jean Chrétien, his friend and fan, offered him the position of Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario.

"[24] In 2003, Peterson recorded the DVD A Night in Vienna for Verve with Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, Ulf Wakenius, and Martin Drew.

[31] He asked his students to study the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, especially The Well-Tempered Clavier, the Goldberg Variations, and The Art of Fugue, considering these piano pieces essential for every serious pianist.

During the 1960s and 1970s Peterson made numerous trio recordings highlighting his piano performances; they reveal more of his eclectic style, absorbing influences from various genres of jazz, popular, and classical music.

According to pianist and educator Mark Eisenman, some of Peterson's best playing was as an understated accompanist to singer Ella Fitzgerald and trumpeter Roy Eldridge.