Oscar Peterson: Music in the Key of Oscar

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), Jan, 1996 by Robert S. Rothenberg

Jazz videos have been growing in popularity in recent years, especially those that give a musician or group ample time performing the music that viewers had grown familiar with from records or CDs. In focusing on Oscar Peterson, arguably the best - and certainly the most influential - jazz pianist of the past half-century, this video goes beyond the music to portray the man, especially in light of the turbulent times he has lived through.

Built around a historic reunion with guitarist Herb Ellis and bass player Ray Brown to re-create the original Oscar Peterson Trio, this thoughtful documentary uses narration by Peterson to set the framework for the struggle of black musicians before and after the civil rights movement. Interviews by fellow jazz stars Dizzy Gillespie, Quincy Jones, Ella Fitzgeraid, and Herbie Hancock deal mainly with Peterson the musician. However, it is Norman Granz, creator of the famed Jazz at the Philharmonic series of concerts that made that form of musical expression "respectable" for the general public, who puts the struggle against racism in perspective. Ironically, Peterson (a Canadian-born black) and Granz (white) were perhaps the most influential figures in breaking the barriers in gaining access for black American musicians to hotels, restaurants, and even concert halls and stadiums in the South during the turbulent 1950s and 1960s.

The jazz performances on this video are spectacular, especially the camera work that zooms in on the performers' hands - peterson on the keyboard, Ellis on the strings, and Brown caressing his bass. Yet, as sublime as the sound of classical jazz is here, it is the words that tell of the struggles and the rage that racism invoked which make this video memorable.