classical and jazz players;
Oscar Peterson is a classically-trained pianist; what made him turn to jazz instead? In 1979, he offered these insights during a Dutch TV interview with Pim Jacobs:
"A classical player is an interpreter. He is not allowed to change the notes, he is allowed to give expression and articulation to those notes. A jazz player looks at a composition and says: '-It's beautiful - this is how I fell about this piece', and starts to improvise. The philosophy of jazz to me is to be able to react to a song or a tune that you like and to instantly compose your musical opinion of that tune. Jazz is instant composition, instant emotional composing."
'Instant emotional composing' is not everyone's cup of tea. I know outstanding musicians who, like Oscar, have total command of their instrument, but cannot improvise convincingly because they have not got the soul and the flexibility of mind for it, nor the intuition that guides the hands.
-Arnold van Kampen (translated by Jörg Eipasch)
(Arnold Van Kampen presents several jazz shows on Dutch radio and is the author of many publications on jazz in The Netherlands. His "Complete Oscar Peterson Discography" is to be published shortly.)
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Quoted from the liner notes of the album "Oscar Peterson - Two Originals", MPS, 1996
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