Reunion Blues

Oscar Emmanuel Peterson (August 15, 1925 – December 23, 2007) was a Canadian jazz pianist and composer. As a virtuoso who is considered to be one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time, Peterson released more than 200 recordings, won eight Grammy Awards, as well as a lifetime achievement award from the Recording Academy, and received numerous other awards and honours. He played thousands of concerts worldwide in a career lasting more than 60 years. He was called the "Maharaja of the keyboard" by Duke Ellington, simply "O.P." by his friends, and was informally known in the jazz community as "the King of inside swing".

He considered his 1953–1958 trio with Ray Brown and Herb Ellis "the most stimulating" and productive setting for public performances and studio recordings. He also worked solo, as an accompanist, and in duos and trios with Sam Jones, Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, Joe Pass, Irving Ashby, Count Basie, and Herbie Hancock.

Peterson won eight Grammy Awards between 1975 and 1997. He is considered among the best jazz pianists and jazz improvisers of the twentieth century.

== Early life and education ==

Peterson was born on August 15, 1925, in the St. Henri of Montreal of Quebec, Canada, to immigrants from the West Indies (Saint Kitts and Nevis and the British Virgin Islands): 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. Peterson grew up in the neighbourhood of Little Burgundy in Montreal. It was in this predominantly black neighbourhood that he encountered the jazz culture. At the age of five, Peterson began honing his skills on trumpet and piano, but a bout of tuberculosis when he was seven years old prevented him from playing the trumpet again, so he directed all his attention to the piano. His father was one of his first music teachers, and his sister Daisy taught him classical piano. Peterson was persistent at practising scales and classical études.

As a child, Peterson studied with Hungarian-born pianist Paul de Marky, a student of István Thomán, who had himself been a pupil of Franz Liszt, so his early training was predominantly based on classical piano. However, Peterson was captivated by traditional jazz and boogie-woogie and learned several ragtime pieces. He was called "the Brown Bomber of the Boogie-Woogie".

At the age of nine, Peterson played piano with a degree of control that impressed professional musicians. For many years his piano studies included four to six hours of daily practice. Only in his later years did he decrease his practice to one or two hours daily. In 1940, at fourteen years of age, he won the national music competition organized by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. After that victory, he dropped out of the High School of Montreal, where he played in a band with Maynard Ferguson. Peterson became a professional pianist, starring in a weekly radio show and playing at hotels and music halls. In his teens, he was a member of the Johnny Holmes Orchestra. From 1945 to 1949, he worked in a trio and recorded for Victor Records. He gravitated toward boogie-woogie and swing with a particular fondness for Nat King Cole and Teddy Wilson. By the time Peterson was in his 20s, he had developed a reputation as a technically brilliant and melodically inventive pianist.

== Career ==

=== Duos, trios, and quartets ===

According to an interview with Norman Granz, Granz heard a radio program broadcasting from a local club while taking a cab to the Montreal airport. He was so impressed that he told the driver to take him to the club so he could meet the pianist. Granz had seen Peterson before this but was underwhelmed. In 1949, he introduced Peterson in New York City at a Jazz at the Philharmonic concert at Carnegie Hall. He remained Peterson's manager for most of his career. 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.

In 1950, Peterson worked in a duo with double bassist Ray Brown.

In the early 1950s, he began performing with Brown and drummer Charlie Smith as the Oscar Peterson Trio. Shortly afterward Smith was replaced by swing guitarist Irving Ashby, who had been a member of the Nat King Cole Trio. Ashby was soon replaced by Barney Kessel, then Herb Ellis stepped in in 1953 after Kessel grew weary of touring. The trio remained together from 1953 to 1958, often touring with Jazz at the Philharmonic.

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

He considered the trio with Brown and Ellis "the most stimulating" and productive setting for public performances and studio recordings.

Their last recording, On the Town with the Oscar Peterson Trio, recorded live at the Town Tavern in Toronto, captured a remarkable degree of emotional as well as musical understanding among three players.

When Ellis departed in 1958, they hired drummer Ed Thigpen because they felt no guitarist could compare to Ellis. Brown and Thigpen worked with Peterson on his albums Night Train (1963) and Canadiana Suite (1965). Both Brown and Thigpen left in 1965 and were replaced by bassist Sam Jones and drummer Louis Hayes (and later, drummer Bobby Durham). The trio performed together until 1970. In 1969, Peterson recorded Motions and Emotions with orchestral arrangements of "Yesterday" and "Eleanor Rigby" by The Beatles. In the fall of 1970, Peterson's trio released the album Tristeza on Piano. Jones and Durham left in 1970.

In the 1970s. Peterson formed a trio with guitarist Joe Pass and bassist Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen. This trio emulated the success of the 1950s trio with Brown and Ellis and gave acclaimed performances at festivals. Their album The Trio won the 1974 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Performance by a Group. 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. In 1974, he added British drummer Martin Drew. This quartet toured and recorded extensively worldwide. 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." He recorded for Pablo, led by Norman Granz, after the label was founded in 1973, where he collaborated with artists including Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Roy Eldridge, Dizzy Gillespie and Stéphane Grappelli. For Pablo he also recorded the soundtrack for the 1978 thriller The Silent Partner.

Peterson was open to experimental collaborations with jazz musicians such as saxophonist Ben Webster, trumpeter Clark Terry, and vibraphonist Milt Jackson. In 1961, the Peterson trio with Jackson recorded the album Very Tall. Solo recordings by Peterson 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. In the 1980s, Peterson played in a duo with pianist Herbie Hancock. In the late 1980s and 1990s, after a stroke, Peterson made performances and recordings with his protégé Benny Green. In the 1990s and 2000s, Peterson recorded several albums accompanied by a combo for Telarc.

=== Ill health and later years ===

Peterson had arthritis from his youth, and in later years he had trouble buttoning his shirt. He had never been slender, and his weight increase to 125 kg (276 lb) hindered his mobility. He had hip replacement surgery in the early 1990s. Although the surgery was successful, his mobility was still hampered. He then mentored the York University jazz program and was the Chancellor of the university for several years in the early 1990s. He published jazz piano etudes for practice.

In 1993, a stroke weakened his left side and removed him from work for two years. During the same year, incoming prime minister Jean Chrétien, Peterson's friend and fan, offered him the position of Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario. According to Chrétien, Peterson declined the job due to ill health related to the stroke.

Although he recovered some dexterity in his left hand, his piano playing was diminished, and his style relied principally on his right hand. In 1995, he returned to occasional public performances and recorded for Telarc. In 1997, he received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and an International Jazz Hall of Fame Award. His friend, Canadian politician and amateur pianist Bob Rae, said: "a one-handed Oscar was better than just about anyone with two hands."

In 2003, Peterson recorded the DVD A Night in Vienna for Verve with Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, Ulf Wakenius, and Martin Drew. He continued to tour the U.S. and Europe, though at most one month a year, with rest between concerts. In 2007, his health declined. He cancelled his plans to perform at the Toronto Jazz Festival and a Carnegie Hall all-star concert that was to be given in his honour. Peterson died on December 23, 2007, of kidney failure at his home in Mississauga, Ontario.

== Personal life ==

Peterson was married four times. He had seven children with three of his wives. He smoked cigarettes and a pipe and often tried to break the habit, but he gained weight every time he stopped. He loved to cook and remained overweight throughout his life.

He enjoyed fly fishing and photography and had a cottage on Big Straggle Lake, Harcourt, Haliburton Highlands, Ontario, known as the Peterson Family Cottage.

Peterson taught piano and improvisation in Canada, mainly in Toronto. With associates, he started and headed the Advanced School of Contemporary Music in Toronto for five years during the 1960s, but it closed because touring called him and his associates away, and it did not have government funding.

== Musical style and influences ==

Peterson was influenced by Teddy Wilson, Nat King Cole, James P. Johnson, and Art Tatum, to whom many compared Peterson in later years. After his father played a record of Tatum's "Tiger Rag", he was intimidated and disillusioned, quitting the piano for several weeks. "Tatum scared me to death," said Peterson, adding that he was "never cocky again" about his ability at the piano. Tatum was a model for Peterson's musicianship during the 1940s and 1950s. Tatum and Peterson became good friends, although Peterson was always shy about being compared to Tatum and rarely played the piano in Tatum's presence.

Peterson also credited his sister—a piano teacher in Montreal who also taught several other Canadian jazz musicians—with being an important teacher and influence on his career. Under his sister's tutelage, Peterson expanded into classical piano training and broadened his range while mastering the core classical pianism from scales to preludes and fugues by Johann Sebastian Bach. 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. Among his students were pianists Benny Green and Oliver Jones.

Building on Tatum's pianism and aesthetics, Peterson also absorbed Tatum's musical influences, notably from piano concertos by Sergei Rachmaninoff. Rachmaninoff's harmonizations, as well as direct quotations from his 2nd Piano Concerto, are scattered throughout many recordings by Peterson, including his work with the most familiar formulation of the Oscar Peterson Trio, with bassist Ray Brown and guitarist Herb Ellis. 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.

== Legacy ==

Peterson is considered one of history's great jazz pianists. He was called the "Maharaja of the keyboard" by Duke Ellington, simply "O.P." by his friends, and was informally known in the jazz community as "the King of inside swing".

Peterson was honoured on two postage stamps: one from Austrian Post in 2003, and another from Canada Post in 2005.

In 2021, Barry Avrich produced a documentary on Peterson's life titled Oscar Peterson: Black + White that had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. In the same year, he was the subject of a Heritage Minute for Canadian television, with contemporary jazz pianist Thompson Egbo-Egbo playing the young Peterson.

Oscar Peterson was featured on a circulating commemorative one dollar coin (a "loonie") from the Canadian mint in 2022.

== Awards and honours ==

=== Grammy Awards ===

1975: Best Jazz Performance by a Group The Trio

1977: Best Jazz Performance by a Soloist The Giants

1978: Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Soloist Oscar Peterson Jam – Montreux '77

1979: Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Soloist Oscar Peterson and The Trumpet Kings – Jousts

1990: Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Group Live at the Blue Note

1990: Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Soloist The Legendary Oscar Peterson Trio Live at the Blue Note

1991: Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Group Saturday Night at the Blue Note

1997: Lifetime Achievement Award Instrumental Soloist Lifetime Achievement

=== Other awards ===

Pianist of the year, DownBeat magazine, 1950, and won again for the next 12 years

Order of Canada, Officer, 1972; Companion, 1984

Canadian Version of the Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal, 1977

Canadian Music Hall of Fame, 1978

Martin Luther King Jr. Achievement Award, Black Theatre Workshop, 1986

Roy Thomson Award, 1987

Toronto Arts Award for lifetime achievement, 1991

Governor General's Performing Arts Award, 1992

Order of Ontario, member 1992

125th Anniversary of the Confederation of Canada Medal, 1992

Glenn Gould Prize, 1993

International Society for Performing Artists award, 1995

Loyola Medal of Concordia University, 1997

Praemium Imperiale World Art Award, 1999

Oscar Peterson Concert Hall named at Concordia University, 1999

UNESCO Music Prize, 2000

Toronto Musicians' Association Musician of the Year, 2001

Canadian Version of the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal, 2002

SOCAN Special Achievement Award, 2008

Canada's Walk of Fame, 2013

Canadian Jazz and Blues Hall of Fame

Juno Award Hall of Fame

BBC Radio Lifetime Achievement Award

National Order of Quebec, Chevalier

Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France

Civic Award of Merit, City of Mississauga, 2003

Oscar Peterson Theatre, Canadian Embassy, Tokyo, Japan, 2007

Oscar Peterson Hall, University of Toronto Mississauga, 2008

Oscar Peterson Public School, Stouffville, 2009

Parc Oscar-Peterson, Little Burgundy, Montreal, renamed in Peterson's honour 2009

Statue of Oscar Peterson unveiled in Ottawa by Queen Elizabeth II, 2010

Jazz Born Here, mural by Gene Pendon depicting Oscar Peterson, at Rue Saint-Jacques and Rue des Seigneurs in Montreal

Historica Canada Heritage Minute, 2021

Honorary degrees from Berklee College of Music, Carleton University, Queen's University, Concordia University, Université Laval, McMaster University, Mount Allison University, Niagara University, Northwestern University, University of Toronto, University of the West Indies, University of Western Ontario, University of Victoria, and York University

(Announced) Public square to be named in honour of Oscar Peterson, Montreal, 2021

== Instruments ==

Bösendorfer pianos – 1980s and 2000s, some performances from the 1970s onward.

Yamaha – Acoustic and Disklavier; used from 1998 to 2006 in Canada (Touring and Recording)

Steinway & Sons Model A (which currently resides at Village Studios in Los Angeles) – most performances from the 1940s through the 1980s, some recordings.

Baldwin pianos – some performances in the US, some recordings.

C. Bechstein Pianofortefabrik pianos – some performances and recordings in Europe.

Petrof pianos – some performances in Europe.

Clavichord – on album Porgy and Bess with Joe Pass

Fender Rhodes electric piano – several recordings.

Synthesizer – several recordings.

Hammond organ – some live performances and several recordings.

Vocals – some live performances and several recordings.

== Discography ==

== See also ==

Music of Canada

List of jazz pianists

== References ==

== Further reading ==

Oscar Peterson. A Jazz Odyssey: The Life of Oscar Peterson (autobiography of the pianist edited by Richard Palmer). Continuum Press. 2002. London and New York.

== External links ==

With Marian McPartland on Piano Jazz

Video interview in which his passion for photography is discussed

At Jazz Police

Entry at the Jazz Discography Project

Oscar Peterson discography at Discogs

Oscar Peterson: A Jazz Sensation—A Virtual Exhibition

Oscar Peterson postage stamp

CBC Digital Archives: Oscar Peterson: A Jazz Giant

Piano transcriptions

Oscar Peterson at IMDb

Source: Wikipedia ↗

Milton Jackson (January 1, 1923 – October 9, 1999), nicknamed "Bags", was an American jazz vibraphonist. He is especially remembered for his cool swinging solos as a member of the Modern Jazz Quartet and his penchant for collaborating with hard bop and post-bop players.

A very expressive player, Jackson differentiated himself from other vibraphonists in his attention to variations on harmonics and rhythm. He was particularly fond of the twelve-bar blues at slow tempos. On occasion, Jackson also sang and played piano.

== Biography ==

Jackson was born on January 1, 1923, in Detroit, Michigan, United States, the son of Manley Jackson and Lillie Beaty Jackson. Like many of his contemporaries, he was surrounded by music from an early age, particularly that of religious meetings: "Everyone wants to know where I got that funky style. Well, it came from church. The music I heard was open, relaxed, impromptu soul music" (quoted in Nat Hentoff's liner notes to Plenty, Plenty Soul). He started on guitar when he was seven, and then on piano at 11.

While attending Miller High School, he played drums, timpani and violin, and also sang in the choir. At 16, he sang professionally in a local touring gospel quartet called the Evangelist Singers. He took up the vibraphone at 16 after hearing Lionel Hampton play the instrument in Benny Goodman's band. Jackson was discovered by Dizzy Gillespie, who hired him for his sextet in 1945, then his larger ensembles. Jackson quickly acquired experience working with the most important figures in jazz of the era, including Woody Herman, Howard McGhee, Thelonious Monk, and Charlie Parker.

In the Gillespie big band, Jackson fell into a pattern that led to the founding of the Modern Jazz Quartet: Gillespie maintained a former swing tradition of a small group within a big band, and his included Jackson, pianist John Lewis, bassist Ray Brown, and drummer Kenny Clarke (considered a pioneer of the ride-cymbal timekeeping that became the signature for bop and most jazz to follow) while the brass and reeds took breaks. When they decided to become a working group in their own right, around 1950, the foursome was known at first as the Milt Jackson Quartet, becoming the Modern Jazz Quartet (MJQ) in 1952. By that time Percy Heath had replaced Ray Brown.

Known at first for featuring Jackson's blues-heavy improvisations almost exclusively, in time the group came to split the difference between these and Lewis's more ambitious musical ideas. Lewis had become the group's musical director by 1955, the year Clarke departed in favour of Connie Kay, boiling the quartet down to a chamber jazz style, that highlighted the lyrical tension between Lewis's mannered, but roomy, compositions, and Jackson's unapologetic swing.

The MJQ had a long independent career of some two decades until disbanding in 1974, when Jackson split with Lewis. The group reformed in 1981, however, and continued until 1993, after which Jackson toured alone, performing in various small combos, although agreeing to periodic MJQ reunions. From the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, Jackson recorded for Norman Granz's Pablo Records, including Jackson, Johnson, Brown & Company (1983), featuring Jackson with J. J. Johnson on trombone, Ray Brown on bass, backed by Tom Ranier on piano, guitarist John Collins, and drummer Roy McCurdy.

In 1989, Jackson was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Music from the Berklee College of Music.

His composition "Bags' Groove" is a jazz standard. ("Bags" was a nickname given to him by a bass player in Detroit. "Bags" referred to the bags under his eyes.) He was featured on the NPR radio program Jazz Profiles. Some of his other signature compositions include "The Late, Late Blues" (for his album with Coltrane, Bags & Trane), "Bluesology" (an MJQ staple), and "Bags & Trane".

Jackson died of liver cancer in Manhattan, New York at the age of 76. He was married to Sandra Whittington from 1959 until his death; the couple had a daughter.

== Discography ==

=== As leader/co-leader ===

Compilations

I/We Had a Ball (Limelight, 1965) – rec. 1964

All Star Bags (Blue Note, 1976)[2LP] – rec. 1952-1957

Milt Jackson (Quintessence Jazz Series) (Pickwick, 1979)

The Best of Milt Jackson (Pablo, 1980)

=== As leader of the Modern Jazz Quartet ===

Vendome (Prestige, 1952)

Modern Jazz Quartet, II (Prestige, 1955)

Concorde (Prestige, 1955)

Fontessa (Atlantic, 1956)

The Modern Jazz Quartet at Music Inn (Atlantic, 1956)

The Modern Jazz Quartet (Atlantic, 1957)

The Modern Jazz Quartet and the Oscar Peterson Trio at the Opera House (Verve, 1957)

The Modern Jazz Quartet Plays No Sun in Venice (Atlantic, 1958) – film score rec. 1957

The Modern Jazz Quartet at Music Inn Volume 2 (Atlantic, 1958)

Music from Odds Against Tomorrow (United Artists, 1959) – soundtrack

Third Stream Music (Atlantic, 1960) – rec. 1959–1960, including Sketch for Double String Quartet (1959)

Pyramid (Atlantic, 1960)

The Modern Jazz Quartet & Orchestra (Atlantic, 1960)

European Concert (Atlantic, 1960) – live

The Comedy (Atlantic, 1962) – recorded in 1960-1962

Lonely Woman (Atlantic, 1962)

A Quartet is a Quartet is a Quartet (Atlantic, 1963)

Collaboration with Laurindo Almeida (Atlantic, 1964)

The Modern Jazz Quartet Plays George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess (Atlantic, 1965) – rec. 1964–1965

Jazz Dialogue with the All-Star Jazz Band (Atlantic, 1965)

Concert in Japan '66 (Atlantic [Japan], 1966)

Blues at Carnegie Hall (Atlantic, 1966)

Place Vendôme with The Swingle Singers (Philips, 1966)

Under the Jasmin Tree (Apple, 1968) – rec. 1967

Space (Apple, 1969)

Plastic Dreams (Atlantic, 1971)

The Legendary Profile (Atlantic, 1972)

In Memoriam (Little David, 1973)

Blues on Bach (Atlantic, 1974) – rec. 1973

The Last Concert (Atlantic, 1974)

The Only Recorded Performance of Paul Desmond With The Modern Jazz Quartet with Paul Desmond (Finesse/Columbia, 1981) – rec. 1971

Reunion at Budokan 1981 (Pablo, 1981)

Together Again: Live at the Montreux Jazz Festival '82 (Pablo, 1982)

Echoes (Pablo, 1984)

Topsy: This One's for Basie (Pablo, 1985)

Three Windows (Atlantic, 1987)

For Ellington (East West, 1988)

MJQ & Friends: A 40th Anniversary Celebration (Atlantic, 1994) – rec. 1992–1993

Dedicated to Connie (Atlantic, 1995) – live rec. 1960

Lost Tapes: Germany 1956–1958 (Jazzhaus, 2013) – live rec: 1956–1958

=== As a member ===

CTI All-Stars, CTI Summer Jazz at the Hollywood Bowl (CTI, 1991)[2CD] – rec. 1972

=== As sideman ===

== References ==

== External links ==

Milt Jackson at AllMusic

Milt Jackson at the Hard Bop Homepage

Milt Jackson: Round Midnight on YouTube

Source: Wikipedia ↗

Raymond Matthews Brown (October 13, 1926 – July 2, 2002) was an American jazz double bassist, known for his extensive work with Oscar Peterson and Ella Fitzgerald. He was also a founding member of the group that would later develop into the Modern Jazz Quartet.

== Early life ==

Ray Brown was born on October 13, 1926, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and took piano lessons as a child. After noticing how many pianists attended his high school, he thought of taking up the trombone, but his father was unable to afford one. With a vacancy in the high school jazz orchestra, he took up the upright bass instead.

A major early influence on Brown's bass playing was Jimmy Blanton, the bassist in the Duke Ellington band. Brown's high school music teacher believed that he was a diligent student, as he took the bass home with him on weekends. Brown, however, was already using the school bass in gigs; when this was discovered, the bass had to be returned and Brown's father bought him one. Brown graduated from high school in 1944.

== Later life and career ==

As a young man Brown became increasingly well known in the Pittsburgh jazz scene, with his first experiences playing in bands with the Jimmy Hinsley Sextet and the Snookum Russell band. Later, having heard stories about the burgeoning jazz scene on 52nd Street in New York City, he bought a one-way ticket to New York. He arrived in New York at the age of 20, met up with Hank Jones, with whom he had previously worked, and was introduced to Dizzy Gillespie, who was looking for a bass player. Gillespie hired Brown on the spot, and he soon played with such established musicians as Art Tatum and Charlie Parker. In 1948, Brown left Dizzy's band to start a trio with Hank Jones and Charlie Smith.

From 1946 to 1951, Brown played in Gillespie's band. Brown, along with the vibraphonist Milt Jackson, drummer Kenny Clarke, and pianist John Lewis formed the rhythm section of the Gillespie band. Lewis, Clarke, and Jackson eventually formed the Modern Jazz Quartet. Brown became acquainted with singer Ella Fitzgerald when she joined the Gillespie band as a special attraction for a tour of the southern United States in 1947. The two married that year, and together they adopted a child born to Fitzgerald's half-sister Frances, whom they christened Ray Brown, Jr. Fitzgerald and Brown divorced in 1953, bowing to the various career pressures both were experiencing at the time, though they would continue to perform together.

From 1951 to 1965, Brown was a member of the Oscar Peterson Trio. The trio included a guitarist until 1958 (initially Barney Kessel, and then Herb Ellis). After Ellis left the group, Peterson decided to continue the trio with Brown and drummer Ed Thigpen. Brown recorded extensively as a session musician for producer Norman Granz during the 1950s (for Granz's Clef, Norgran, and Verve record labels), often alongside Peterson. After leaving the Oscar Peterson Trio, Brown concentrated on studio work in Los Angeles.

In the early 1960s, Brown began teaching, at the Advanced School of Contemporary Music, based in Toronto.

Brown guested as a bass player on "Razor Boy", the second track on Steely Dan's second album, Countdown to Ecstasy, released in 1973.

From 1974 to 1982, Brown performed and recorded a series of albums with guitarist Laurindo Almeida, saxophonist and flutist Bud Shank, and drummer Shelly Manne (replaced by Jeff Hamilton after 1977) under the name The L.A. Four.

In the 1980s and 1990s Brown led his own trios and continued to refine his bass playing style. In his later years he recorded and toured extensively with pianist Gene Harris. In the early 1980s, Brown met Diana Krall in a restaurant in Nanaimo, British Columbia. According to Jeff Hamilton, in an interview recorded on the Diana Krall Live in Rio DVD, he first heard Krall play at a workshop and, impressed with her piano skills (she was not yet singing), introduced her to bassist John Clayton. Hamilton and Clayton both encouraged Krall to move to Los Angeles to study under Brown and others. In 1986 Brown played bass on the song “Poisoned Rose” on Elvis Costello’s King of America album. In 1990, he teamed up with pianist Bobby Enriquez and drummer Foster, for Enriquez's album, The Wildman Returns.

Around the same time, Brown made seven albums with pianist André Previn when, after a hiatus of two decades, Previn returned to jazz to perform and record regularly again between 1989 and 2002: After Hours (1989, with guitarist Joe Pass), Uptown (1990, with guitarist Mundell Lowe), Old Friends (1992, live recording, with guitarist Mundell Lowe), Kiri Sidetracks. The Jazz Album (1992, with singer Kiri Te Kanawa and guitarist Mundell Lowe), What Headphones? (1992, with Mundell Lowe, Jim Pugh on trombone, Warren Vache on cornet, Richard Todd on horn, Grady Tate on drums, and The Antioch Baptist Choir), André Previn and Friends Play Show Boat (1995, with Mundell Lowe and Grady Tate), and Jazz at the Musikverein (1997, live recording, with Mundell Lowe). Brown and Previn had recorded together before in the 1960s on 4 To Go! (1963, with guitarist Herb Ellis and drummer Shelly Manne) and Right as the Rain (1967, with singer Leontyne Price). An hour-long film, Together on Broadway. The Making of Sidetracks documents the work on the album Kiri Sidetracks. The Jazz Album.

Brown played for a time with the "Quartet" with Monty Alexander, Milt Jackson, and Mickey Roker. After that he toured again with his own trio, with several young pianists such as Benny Green, Geoffrey Keezer, and Larry Fuller. The last edition of the Ray Brown Trio included pianist Larry Fuller and drummer Karriem Riggins. With that trio, Brown continued to perform until his death. Brown died in his sleep on July 2, 2002, after having played golf, before a show in Indianapolis.

== Awards and honors ==

In 1995, Brown was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Berklee College of Music. In 2001, Brown was awarded the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art, 1st class and in 2003, he was inducted into the DownBeat Jazz Hall of Fame.

He was awarded his first Grammy for his composition "Gravy Waltz", a tune which would later be used as the theme song for The Steve Allen Show.

== Discography ==

== Bibliography ==

Brown, Ray (1999). Ray Brown's Bass Method: Essential Scales, Patterns, and Exercises. Hal Leonard Corporation. ISBN 978-0793594566.

== See also ==

List of jazz bassists

== Notes and references ==

=== Notes ===

=== References ===

== External links ==

Ray Brown at IMDb

Ray Brown at Find a Grave

Source: Wikipedia ↗

Louis Hayes (born May 31, 1937) is an American jazz drummer and band leader. He was with McCoy Tyner's trio for more than three years. Since 1989 he has led his own band, and together with Vincent Herring formed the Cannonball Legacy Band. He is part of the NEA Jazz Masters awards class of 2023.

== Biography ==

Louis Sedell Hayes was born in Detroit, Michigan, United States, to a father, an automaker, who played drums and piano. His mother waited tables and played the piano. She was the sister of John L. Nelson, the father of the musician Prince. Hayes got his first drum set at age 10. The key influence in his early development was his cousin Clarence Stamps, an accomplished drummer who grounded his technical fundamentals and gave him lessons that stuck for life. He refers to the early influence of hearing jazz, especially big bands on the radio. His main influence was Philly Joe Jones and he was mentored by Jo Jones. His three main associations were with Horace Silver's Quintet (1956–59), the Cannonball Adderley Quintet (1959–1965), and the Oscar Peterson Trio (1965–1967). Hayes often joined Sam Jones, both with Adderley and Peterson, and in freelance settings.

When he was a teenager, he led a band in Detroit clubs before he was 16. He worked with Yusef Lateef and Curtis Fuller from 1955 to 1956. He moved to New York in August 1956, to replace Art Taylor in the Horace Silver Quintet and, in 1959, joined the Cannonball Adderley Quintet, with which he remained until mid-1965, when he succeeded Ed Thigpen in the Oscar Peterson Trio. He left Peterson in 1967, and formed a series of groups, which he led alone or with others; among his sidemen were Freddie Hubbard, Joe Henderson, Kenny Barron, and James Spaulding. He returned to Peterson in 1971.

The Louis Hayes Sextet, formed in 1972, became, in 1975, the Louis Hayes-Junior Cook Quintet and the Woody Shaw-Louis Hayes Quintet (Cook remained as a sideman until Rene McLean joined); in its last form the quintet played successful engagements throughout Europe and (without McLean) acted as the host group when, in 1976, Dexter Gordon visited the U.S. for the first time in many years. After Shaw left the group in 1977, Hayes continued to lead it as a hard-bop quintet.

Hayes has appeared on many records throughout the years, and played with John Coltrane, Kenny Burrell, Freddie Hubbard, Bobby Timmons, Hank Mobley, Booker Little, Tommy Flanagan, Cecil Taylor, McCoy Tyner, Ray Brown, Joe Henderson, Gary Bartz, and Tony Williams. He also led sessions for Timeless (1976), Muse (1977), Candid (1989), Steeplechase (1989–1994), and TCB (2000–2002).

He was with McCoy Tyner's trio for more than three years. Since 1989 he has led his own band, and together with Vincent Herring formed the Cannonball Legacy Band.

== Discography ==

=== As leader/co-leader ===

Louis Hayes (Vee-Jay, 1960)

Breath of Life (Muse, 1974)

Ichi-Ban with Junior Cook (Timeless, 1976)

The Real Thing (Muse, 1978) – recorded in 1977

Variety Is the Spice (Gryphon, 1979) – recorded in 1978

Light and Lively (SteepleChase, 1989)

The Crawl (Candid, 1989)

Una Max (SteepleChase, 1990) – live recorded in 1989

Nightfall (SteepleChase, 1991)

Blue Lou (SteepleChase, 1993)

The Super Quartet (Timeless, 1994)

Louis at Large (Sharp Nine, 1996)

Quintessential Lou (TCB, 2000)

The Candy Man (TCB, 2001)

Dreamin' of Cannonball (TCB, 2002)

Maximum Firepower (Savant, 2006)

The Time Keeper (18th & Vine, 2009) – recorded in 2008

Live At Cory Weeds' Cellar Jazz Club (Cellar Live, 2014) – recorded in 2013

Return of the Jazz Communicators (Smoke Sessions, 2014)

Serenade for Horace (Blue Note, 2017)

Crisis (Savant, 2021)

Exactly Right! (Savant, 2023)

Artform Revisited (Savant, 2024)

=== As sideman ===

== References ==

== External links ==

Official website

Source: Wikipedia ↗