Oscar Peterson recommendations?

You mean this large man's collection of work?...My favorite is the 4 CD collection on MPS(reissued by Verve I think) called "Exclusively for My Friends", recorded in the 60's in Germany, particularly the "The Way I Really Play" CD from that set(which has also been reissued separately in SACD, along with the other CDs from those sessions) Superb playing and fabulous recorded sound. You can pick up the 4 CD set for a song on lots of websites. OP recorded a lot (too much actually, much of it in rather poor sound) and his recordings can be pretty variable, but these sessions are uniformly superb in my opinion.

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I would like to know which CD's you would recommend of this man's large collection of work

'Night Train' and 'We Get Requests' are both highly recommended by your truly.

Nigel

See this recent thread:

http://forums.naim-audio.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/3801938...2976407?r=2782976407


For me, my favourite disc is his collaboration with Ben Webster.

regards, Tam

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For me, my favourite disc is his collaboration with Ben Webster

Yes, that is very good too. I have ordered the Exclusively... set and hope it will be good. I've been listening to OP playing the Gershwin songbooks tonight - yet another excellent album.

Nigel

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I have ordered the Exclusively... set and hope it will be good.

You won't be dissapointed....They are a "different" Oscar. Very intimate sounding with superbly developed improvisational sequences.

regards
geoff

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Originally posted by hungryhalibut:
I've been listening to OP playing the Gershwin songbooks tonight - yet another excellent album.

Agreed. Another favourite of mine - I adore his It ain't necessarily so.

regards, Tam

I also highly recommend his album with Clark Terry "Trio + 1" - joyous!

I received my copy of 'Exclusively for my friends' yesterday. I've played two of the four CDs and both were excellent. CD4 is all solos and is particularly good. Thanks for the recommendation.

Nigel

If you like the vibes, Very, Very Tall is a good choice.

John Litwin

Trilobyte,

Night Train and We Get Requests are among his most famous and most highly regarded sets. They have both been reissued in the last 2 years with 20-bit remastering which brings them up to true fidelity recordings without ruining them in the process. really fine and available for sensible money (£7 or so each) in a gatefold sleeve with lots of liner notes, and Night Train gets extra takes and one extra track that wasn't on the original album. The performances are superb. In particular, 'Georgia on my mind' and 'I got it bad' are my favourite tracks from him of all time (and I have a lot of Peterson's records). The Exclusively set is also excellent, although I have it on vinyl so I don't know what the CDs sound like. On vinyl it's a 6-record set. Interestingly (I hope), there is a high quality pressing that was brought out a year or two ago called The Lost Tapes which is meant to be part of the Exclusively set but got lost. I have it and although it's good, it doesn't sound in the same league as my original MPS rubbish pressings - the performances sound lifeless to me by comparison to the 70's records. And I wonder if some of those tracks are on the other 6 records which means they weren't lost in the first place...

I also really like 'Hello Herbie' which is him in a quartet with his original guitarist Herb Ellis (a great guitarist). Peterson originally made his name in a trio featuring bass and guitar (no drums). There is some argument whether his move to a more traditional drum and bass trio configuration was better or worse. Either way, the music is superb. If you don't mind ropey recordings have a search for a CD called 'This is Oscar Peterson' (available from Amazon). It's a double CD from his earliest sets to more mature ones. It's a fascinating body of work and you can tell that this man was a spectacular pianist from his earliest days. The performances on this album are not high fidelity recordings but they are fabulous performances which I feel are only enhanced by the clinking of glasses and chat in the background.

My favorite OP Verve recording is remastered version of "The Trio"(with Ray Brown, Ed Thigpen) from the Live at the London House sessions. Great live recording, including "Sometimes I'm Happy", "The Night We Called It A Day", and "In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning".

I've just bought another excellent OP record - West Side Story. The version of 'Somewhere' is brilliant - the way the melody is hinted at and drifts away in the improvisation is lovely. In fact it's probably my favourite version of this great song apart from Tom Waits' rendition on the Blue Valentine album.

Nigel

I, too, have recently purchased the Exclusively .... 4CD set. Superb playing and recording quality throughout. Shame that the man's playing wasn't up to this standard when I saw him earlier this year - that's getting older for you.