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As a guitar player I’ve always had gear-related empathy for pianists. It began when I read the diary/autobiography of Louis Moreau Gottschalk, a composer and piano virtuoso who did extensive touring throughout North and South America back in the mid-19th Century. We’re talking gigs in any town big enough to boast a meeting hall where ten or more could gather, and get this: he always brought along his own piano. Imagine! Endless touring down to Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Brazil, through the American dustbowl and into virtually uncharted territory, and all the while lurching along those mean dirt paths with a full-sized grand piano riding along in the back of the wagon.
Louis Moreau Gottschalk died at the age of forty, a few weeks after collapsing onstage at what ultimately became his final gig. The last song he ever performed live was a composition of his own entitled: Morte! (translation: “Death!”).
And so it is that piano players generally don’t tour with their own pianos. Okay, Elton John does, but classical and jazz players? Not so much. Generally when the music is that good the pay isn’t hefty enough to afford roadies and piano techs. Such is the bane of serious musicians.
And while you might think a guy who has to lug along his own guitar, amp, cables, blahblahblah might be just a wee bit jealous when he sees a piano player waltz in and sit down at hisorher ready-made instrument-of-the-day and simply crack their knuckles and start to play, well, you’d be (mostly) wrong. Why? Because I know how I would feel if at every show I was handed some random guitar that had been played by gawd-knows-who performing gawd-knows-what in front of gawd-knows-what-people, and that feeling would be: fear. Fear that the guitar’s action will be weird, fear that it might not buzz the right way when I hit it too hard, fear that someone might have been playing Blue Rodeo songs on it.
And so I always think how much I pity those poor, poor pianists. (But not the rich ones.)
Which somehow brings me to July 10th, 2017, when I attended a concert at the National Arts Centre starring none other than…Oscar Peterson’s piano. Now, you know I love Oscar. He was my foot in the door of jazz and to this day listening to any randomly plucked recording of his remains one of my greatest musical pleasures. I saw Oscar perform live twice and, great as he was, he still wasn’t big enough to tour playing his own piano. Of course I didn’t notice the difference, but I suspect Oscar did.
In 1981 Oscar travelled to Vienna to hand-select a piano. He visited the Bösendorfer factory and:
“Suddenly I touched this one instrument, and it spoke to me in a way I’d never heard before…’This is mine!’ I shouted in excitement. ‘This is the one!’”
Not only had Oscar found an instrument that had a sound that “…seemed to run through my fingers, straight up my arms, and into my whole body…” but it had ninety-seven keys instead of the standard eighty-eight, something I’ve never heard of before or since. That’s basically a whole extra octave on the bottom end. Sweet.
So Oscar planted the piano in his home studio and he used it as his main acoustic recording instrument until he passed away in 2007. After his death, a technician visiting from Vienna inspected the piano and told Oscar’s widow that it “needs to be played.” So she hatched a plan that brought together a who’s who of ivory ticklers, each of whom played one of Oscar’s songs on his very own Bösendorfer. The result was a tribute album called Oscar, With Love featuring Chick Corea, Oliver Jones and more, and whattya know, they took the show (and the Bösendorfer) on the road!
Chick Corea wasn’t part of the concert I saw, but Oliver Jones was. As was…let’s see now, I still have the program…Bill Charlap and Benny Green (who also appeared on the album), plus Robi Botos*, Gerald Clayton, Justin Kauflin, and Jon Kimura Parker, who were not. And Dave Young was there too, playing the bass.
I had never heard of any of them before, aside from my nemesis Oliver Jones of course, and Dave Young who is rather ubiquitous in Canjazz (and who I know intimately from his live duo recording with the great Lenny Breau, released in 2002 by Guitarchives under the title Bourbon Street). Come to think of it, not to take away from anyone but I might have enjoyed Dave’s playing the most at this concert.
And while I’ll admit that focussing in on the bass player at a piano concert (literally) is a bit weird I just couldn’t find my sonic groove at this concert. Everything laid somewhat flat on my ears. Great players (every one) playing a great piano hand-selected and favoured by one of the greatest players of all but the magic was simply not there.
I guess the wand selects the magician.
*I would see Robi Botos play in a small church in Winterton, Newfoundland seven years later and I can report that I sure know him now; he is fantastic.
Todd Man Out 