A tribute to Oscar Peterson - Live at The Town Hall - Telarc Jazz (1997) Audiophile recording [CD-83401]
CD FULL RANGE ONLY | EXACT AUDIO COPY IMAGE (WAV + CUE)
767 MB  MUSIC + COMPLETE ARTWORK


A Tribute to OSCAR PETERSON
1. Anything Goes (5:20) (Cole PorteO Warner Bros Musk; (ASCAP)
Oscar Peterson, piano; Herb Ellis, guitar; Ray Brown, bass; Lewis Nash, drums
2. Reunion Blues (6:18) (Mitt Jackson) MJQ Music (BMI)
Benny Green, Oscar Peterson, pianos; Herb Ellis, guitar; Ray Brown, bass; Lewis Nash, drums
3. If You Only Knew (8:06) (Oscar Peterson)Toml Music Co. (BMl)
Benny Green, Oscar Peterson, pianos; Herb Ellis, guitar; Ray Brown, bass; Lewis Nash, drums
4. Bag's Groove (7:20) (Milt Jackson) Reecle Music (BMl)
Milt Jackson, vibes; Oscar Peterson, piano; Herb Ellis, guitar; Ray Brown, bass; Lewis Nash, drums
5. Willow Weep For Me (6:33) (Ann RoneH) Ann Ronell Music / Bourne Co (ASCAP)
Milt Jackson, vibes; Oscar Peterson, piano; Herb Ellis, guitar; Ray Brown, bass; Lewis Nash, drums
6. Mumbles (4:00) (Clark Terry) Pastel Music <BMI)
Clark Terry, vocal and flugelhorn; Oscar Peterson, piano; Herb Ellis, guitar; Niels-Henning 0rsted Pedersen, bass; Lewis Nash, drums
7. I Can't Face the Music (3:39) (Rube Bloom. Ted Koehler) Remick Music Corporation (ASCAP) Shirley Horn, vocal; Oscar Peterson, piano; Herb Ellis, guitar;
Niels-Henning 0rsted Pedersen, bass; Lewis Nash, drums
8. Here's to Life (5:05) (Artie Butler. Phyllis Molinary) Artie Butler Music (ASCAP)/Live Music Publishing (BMl)
Shirley Horn, vocal and piano
9. In a Mellow Tone (5:18) (Duke Ellington) EMI Robbins Catalog (ASCAP)
Stanley Turrentine, tenor saxophone; Oscar Peterson, piano; Herb Ellis, guitar; Niels-Henning 0rsted Pedersen, bass; Lewis Nash, drums
10. My Foolish Heart (5:15)
(Ned Washington. Victor Young) Chapped & Co. / Catherine Hinen / Pattl Washington Music (ASCAP)
Roy Hargrove, flugelhorn; Oscar Peterson, piano; Herb Ellis, guitar; Niels-Henning 0rsted Pedersen, bass; Lewis Nash, drums
11. The Duke of Dubuque (2:07) (William Faber, James Merchant Lawrence Royal) Screen Gems EMI (BMl) The Manhattan Transfer, vocals
12. (Get Your Kicks On) Route 66 (4:07) (Bobby Troup) Londontown Music (ASCAP)
The Manhattan Transfer, vocals; Oscar Peterson, piano; Herb Ellis, guitar; Niels-Henning 0rsted Pedersen, bass; Lewis Nash, drums
13. Mack the Knife (7:25) (Marc Blitzstein,Kurt Weill)Weill-Brecht-Harms Company Inc (ASCAP)
Oscar Peterson, piano; Clark Terry, trumpet; Herb Ellis, guitar; Niels-Henning 0rsted Pedersen, bass; Lewis Nash, drums

About this recording:
The Jackie Robinson Foundation and Telarc Jazz paid tribute to Oscar Peterson at Manhattan's Town Hall on October 1, 1996; and, not surprisingly, the occasion was equal parts musical banquet and love test. Anyone in the full house might agree, after witnessing the strong musical and personal vibrations that passed between the honored guest and his fourteen old and new friends heard on this document of the evening, that there is no greater affection than that shared by creative artists.
The vibrations were just as strong in Town Hall on the previous evening, when Peterson and his pals got ready for the upcoming gala. One after another, the jazz giants arrived, embraced Peterson, kicked ideas around for the upcoming performance ? and then lingered in the near-empty house to hear what Peterson and his subsequent guests would come up with next. The joy of these encounters ? Peterson resembled nothing so much as a kid on Christmas morning ? was as obvious as their ease. Some of the friends were venerable, some quite new, yet all spoke the pianist's language and felt comfortable in his presence.
"What Oscar is doing, and what he's always done," bassist Niels-Henning 0rsted Pedersen explained as he sat in the hall, "is using people to do the best of what they can do. To me, Oscar is like Miles Davis in this way. He is totally and fully aware of who he has around him."
This knack for getting the best out of others as well as himself is what makes playing with Oscar Peterson such a memorable experience, and ensures the musical quality of events like the Town Hall summit. There is a refreshing blend of egoless camaraderie and serious creation that sets the perfect atmosphere ? no attitudes, and no coasting, either. This is why Peterson found such a wide array of musicians eager to participate in this tribute.
Roy Hargrove, the youngest musician on the guest list, had only made Peterson's acquaintance a few months earlier, when Oscar Peterson Meets Roy Hargrove and Ralph Moore (Telarc CD-83399) was recorded, andadmitted to "jumping at the chance to play with Oscar again. I had only heard his records and seen him on video before the recording session; and standing there to his right, seeing all of that music pour out of him, was like ? wow! I was just speechless."
The more seasoned Shirley Horn still had vivid memories of her first encounter with Peterson thirty-five years earlier. "I was in New York," she recalled after running through I Can't Face the Music with Peterson the night before the concert, "and my manager, John Levy, asked me whether I wanted to hear the Basie Band at Birdland or Oscar at the Vanguard, Oscar's been my number one pianist all my life, so the Vanguard it was. He was playing a red upright piano, and when he finished you could see the dust."
"But this is my first chance to sing with Oscar, which is something I've wanted to do all of my life," Horn added. "When I heard him playing behind Billie Holiday, that was the best ever."
Benny Green, who (like Horn on Here's to Life) was given the daunting task of playing the piano while Peterson sat on stage at a second keyboard, is a long-standing fan who became a protege when Peterson cited Green as jazz's most promising young pianist at a Glenn Gould Foundation event in 1992. "To me," Green explained, "Oscar is the most dynamic pianist in jazz. Having gotten to know him on a deeper level as a friend, I can now also appreciate how his music reflects his depth of spirit. He can play so purely on a harmonic level, yet will also explore the chords. He is relaxed at every tempo. And, like Benny Carter says, Oscar plays so much yet never gets in your way. To me, he represents the perfect marriage ?instrumental mastery as a means to convey a very beautiful soul."
Any number of pianists would have seconded Green's tribute, including several (Monty Alexander, Barbara Carroll, Marian McPartland, George Shearing, Billy Taylor, James Williams) who were spotted in the audience the night of the performance. Like the rest of the house, they cheered when Ray Brown and Herb Ellis, members of the first great Oscar Peterson Trio, initially took the stage with drummer Lewis Nash; then rose and cheered more loudly when Peterson himself appeared and the four musicians dove into Anything Goes.
Seeing Peterson, Ellis, and Brown, three men who were making musical history in 1956, reassemble forty years later and still deliver the goods was only one indelible moment from the Town Hall concert, It is captured here, on the opener and the appropriately titled Reunion Blues (with Benny Green as duo pianist), as are others that lingered in this listener's memory. Sparks flew when Peterson and Green, master and disciple, blew through If You Only Knew in overdrive, and when Milt Jackson, who always rises to the occasion when in Peterson's company, played his signature tune, Bag's Groove. Then Bag's soared on Willow Weep For Me. Clark Terry, the senior member of the program, added another wrinkle to his trademark Mumbles (which he made famous in a recording with Peterson's trio) by soloing with flugelhorn held upside-down. Shirley Horn, after singing I Can't Face the Music with her favorite pianist in support, did the keyboard honors herself on one of her own personal bests, Here's to Life. Stanley Turrentine, whom Peterson had never met before the previous evening's rehearsal yet was eager to include on the program, rose to the challenge on In a Mellow Tone (a.k.a. - In a Mellotone). Roy Hargrove, playing his flugelhorn in the expected position, sounded as wise as any of his elders on the ballad feature My Foolish Heart. Four more first-time acquaintances, the Manhattan Transfer, recalled Peterson favorite and early inspiration Nat Cole on (Get Your Kicks on) Route 66.
With the exception of solo performances by Horn and The Manhattan Transfer, Peterson played through it all, inspiring his partners and the audience with his typically generous conception. Some were no doubt doubly amazed, given the knowledge of Peterson's 1993 stroke; yet as Benny Green remarked, and as the music makes clear, "No physical affliction can ever impede pure love."
Love this pure is a tonic. Which is why Oscar Peterson left those in attendance at Town Hall, and will now leave those who hear the results of his tribute evening, feeling all right.
? Bob Blumenthal

Special thanks to Dolph Timmerman, Jay Jantzer, Kate Elliot: David and Dusty Hewitt, Remote Recording Services;
Steve Tasch, Toy Specialists: Karl Winkler, Neumann/USA;
Ken Riechel, Audio-Technica US;
Lawrence Tucker. Bill Dehling, Town Hall;
Dave Andrews, Andrews Audio Consultonts;
Kelly Mann; Evelyn Szabados, Cheryl Hawkins, Kathy DeJohn;
Steve Lee, Conorus Inc.;
Tom Knox, Nagra US; and Betty Adams and William Goodloe, The Jockie Robinson Foundation.
Benny Green appears courtesy of Blue Note Records. Roy Hargrove appears courtesy of Verve Records. Shirley Horn appears courtesy of Verve Records. Milt Jackson appears courtesy of Qwest Records-Manhattan Transfer appears courtesy of Atlantic Recording Corporation.

Technical Information
Recorded in The Town Hall, New York City, October 1, 1996 Microphones: Bruel and Kjaer 4006 & 4007; Sennheiser MKH-20, MKH-40, MKH-50; Audio-Technica ATM-35; Neumann KU-100, Coles 4038 On-Stage Microphone Preamplifers: Millennia Media HV-3 & Quad Console: Neve VR-3
Additional Mixing at Javelina Studios, Nashville, Tennessee, December 7, 1996 Console: Neve Capricorn Digital
Digital Recording Processor: Telarc / UltraAnalog Tandem 20-bit 128x oversampling ADC, custom engineered by Kenneth Hamann and Gary Gomes
Microphone and Interconnecting Cables: Music Interface Technologies Proline with Balanced Line Terminators
AC Power Conditioning: Music Interface Technologies Z-Line and Z-Center
Monitored through Audio Alchemy Digital Decoding Engine v3.0 with Digital Transmission Interface v2.0
Power Amplifiers: Bryston 4B ST
Monitor Speakers: ATC SCM-20
Digital Editing: Sonic Solutions
20- to 16-bit Encoding: Apogee UV-1000 Super CD Encoder
This recording is enhanced by Spatializer, a new audio technology which creates a three-dimensional surround listening experience using two ordinary stereo speakers. No decoding equipment is required, however speakers must be properly wired and positioned. Spatializer encoded recordings are compatible with Dolby Pro-Logic and Dolby Surround decoders. Playback through these systems will further enhance the listening experience.
Mr. Peterson's Piano: Bosendorfer Emperiai Grand courtesy of Bosendorfer Additional Piano: Hamburg Steinway "D" from Pro Piano, New York Piano Preparation: Barbara Pease Renner
Recording Producers: Elaine Martone, Robert Woods Recording Engineers: Jack Renner, Michael Bishop Executive Producers: Wayne Baruch, Robert Woods Technical Assistance: Phil Gitomer. Shawn McClintock. Remote Recording Services. Joe Hadyn, Javelina Studios Live House Sound Mixer: Tom Young Editor: Thomas Moore
Photography: ¨Ï Edward Gajdel
Art Director and Cover Design: Anilda Carrasquillo