first edition Hardcover
1988 · Toronto
by Lees, Gene (1928-2010)
Toronto: Lester & Orpen Dennys, 1988. First edition. Hardcover. Near Fine/Near Fine. Eight pp. photographs. First edition, preceding the American by two years. Standard biography of the Canadian-born classically-trained pianist who burst onto the American jazz scene in 1949. Oscar Peterson (1925-2007) organized his first trio with bassist Ray Brown and guitarist Herb Ellis in the mid-1950s. Sometimes issuing as many as six albums a year, Peterson toured with a succession of celebrated small groups until the early '70s. Showing influences of Nat "King" Cole, Art Tatum, Hampton Hawes, Phineas Newborn, and Bill Evans, Peterson developed an unmistakable (truncated)