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August 26, 2006
A Legendary Day
As many of you may know, I'm lucky if I manage to stay awake past sunset. This is changing, because so much of the wonders of New York come to life after the sun sets. We bought tickets to see one of jazz's legends, Oscar Peterson, about a week ago, and I was anxious about being sleepy by the time the 11pm show started.
I went first to an invigorating hot yoga class at 5:30, home by 7:30. Chis was having a snooze on the couch, with the newspaper on his chest. My man works harder than anyone I know, so I was glad that he took some time for himself while I pampered the bod at yoga. We decided to head for a place called eight-and-a-half. It's a swanky lounge spot in some cool space in the bottom of a cool building locally known as 9 West 57th Street. It ramps up smoothly out of the ground and gradually becomes vertical. We had a drinky, and chilled a little, swapping stories of our hectic days.
We have discovered an awesome little restaurant in New York, right on our street (West 55th) called Il Corso. We are slowly becoming familiar to them, thanks to an incredible Napa Cab from Rombauer Estates. They had been out of stock for a while, and we took our chances that their cellar was restocked. Alas, we were in luck!
The restaurant is small, maybe 10 tables, quiet (rare for New York), with an unbelievable menu and even better wine list. To make it a fully incredible experience, the service is excellent.
The second time we had been to Il Corso, we met a lovely couple from Australia, visiting the city for a week before heading to England to see family. She was from Malta, he was from Australia. They were serious travellers, and we struck up a conversation about all kinds of things.
Last night, a woman eating alone at the table next to us asked about the wine we had ordered. She had apparently overhead my enthusiasm when we learned it was again in the cellar. We offered her a glass, and we instantly hit it off. We chatted all through her dinner and ours, and thoroughly enjoyed her company. She, too, was a serious world traveller, having been a flight attendant (stewardess in her days) for PanAm. Now, she is a fashion, flower and jewellry designer, and wife of the Danish Consul in Hawaii. Wow. Interesting woman.
Like our lives on the boat, we make transient friends. We laugh, talk, share, and then move on.
We got carried away chatting so much that it was 15 minutes to the Oscar Peterson show. We dashed into a cab, and got to our seats with about 5 minutes to spare. We have been blessed with jazz legends. We saw Ella Fitzgerald at Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto just before she died, and Dave Brubeck (now 80 years old) at Massey Hall in Toronto this past summer, and now Oscar Peterson, having just turned 81.
He was awesome. He did struggle to keep up with the tempo on some pieces, but his quartet stuck with him. He made it on to the stage by himself, but needed some help to get off when he finished. No encores, sadly, but the man is 81, and I can only hope that I am still doing what I love to do when I am his age.
In a crazy, complex, emotionally charged world, there really is only the basic necessities - good friends, good wine, good food, and good music. That's it. All the rest is just noise.
NEW YORK TIMES
MUSIC REVIEW
The Twilight of a Jazz Star, Still Filling the Seats, and Still Swinging
“There have been many reports that I died,” the pianist Oscar Peterson said on Tuesday night at Birdland. He waited a beat. “I haven’t gone there yet.” This was by no means an original comic premise — Mark Twain beat him to it by more than a century — but it still sparked grateful applause. Of course the audience was also making a general offering to Mr. Peterson, whose ebullient piano style has been much beloved since his emergence at the dawn of the 1950’s. He is one of a small handful of jazz musicians who can not only sell out a steeply priced weeklong engagement, but can also receive a standing ovation just for walking onstage.
Mr. Peterson, who just turned 81, required some assistance as he climbed the stage at Birdland. And his playing, once so breezily self-assured, has assumed some poignant vulnerabilities. He opened with Milt Jackson’s “Reunion Blues,” noticeably struggling with its jaunty melody, a steplike descending pattern. Because his guitarist, Ulf Wakenius, was also playing that melody, Mr. Peterson’s imprecision was evident even to those in the audience who didn’t know the song.
It was after that inauspicious beginning — the first song of the first set of the week, in fairness — that Mr. Peterson made his bid at morbid humor, which doubled as a kind of a disclaimer. More than a dozen years ago he had a stroke that severely weakened his left hand. Though he recovered and resumed playing, his technique inevitably suffered, and age now seems to have exacted a toll on his legendary right hand as well.
Yet there were some delightful moments in the set that underscored Mr. Peterson’s affinity for the blues. He has a canny sense of dramatic contrast and often followed a string of bebop licks with a chunkier, chord-based approach. On one slow blues he set up a dialogue between both hands, answering each careful right-handed phrase with a crudely rhythmic left-handed accent, not unlike an Amen chorus.
The other members of his quartet — Mr. Wakenius, the bassist David Young and the drummer Alvin Queen — were attentive and supportive, and they kept up a strong sense of swing.
Ballads also played a prominent role in the set. Mr. Peterson prefaced one of his own, “When Summer Comes,” by proudly noting that it had recently been adopted into the repertory of Diana Krall. (He didn’t mention that the lyrics are by her husband, Elvis Costello.) The sparseness of the song suited his pianism, which has always been more about line than color, even on ballads, and even in his prime.
Before he played another original ballad, “Requiem,” Mr. Peterson reflected on the many people jazz had lost over the years. His list began with the bassist Ray Brown, his closest musical partner, and the impresario Norman Granz, his most influential supporter. It ended with the pianist Art Tatum, whose virtuosity served as an obvious precedent during Mr. Peterson’s most glorious years.
“If I keep naming names, I won’t have time to play the tune,” Mr. Peterson said, placing his hands on the piano keys. There were a few good-natured chuckles, but this time he seemed fully serious.
Performances continue through Sunday at Birdland, 315 West 44th Street, Clinton, (212) 581-3080.
Posted by dave at August 26, 2006 10:36 AM