Confessions of a teenage prog-rocker

This is not the post that I'd intended to write today, but Oscar Peterson's recent passing triggered this memory. Why I'm compelled to make it public beats me, but it was the one time that I met him.

I was never into jazz as a kid. My folks were MOR listeners, Dad into the Ray Conniff Singers and the like, and my mom finding nirvana with Englebert Humperdinck and Tom Jones. We weren't allowed to have rock and roll records until I was in grade 9. The first lp we got was Abbey Road, an album I still listen to, unusually good taste in retrospect. From there, I listened to whatever was in with my friends at school. We had a pretty impressive collection of K-Tel records, but who didn't back then?

One day, one of my friends in music class brought in some "classical rock", namely Emerson, Lake and Palmer's Pictures at an Exhibition. I was hooked. This was something way beyond what I had been listening to and gave a purpose to the classical music I was studying in school. Soon I was into it whole hog: Genesis, Yes, King Crimson and a token American group, Gentle Giant. I'll confess it now - I was a teenage prog-rocker.

Everything is absolute when you're sixteen. ELP was the shit for me. Nobody was better. In my world, Keith Emerson was the best piano/organ/synth player on the planet (even better that that showboater Rick Wakeman - I mean, anyone could wear a gold cape!); Carl Palmer was the greatest thing ever to hold drumsticks (way better than Ringo); and nobody could sing like Greg Lake. OK, Chris Squire was better on bass (I loved his Rickerbacker 4001 sound), and his Yes bandmate Steve Howe was the ultimate guitarist (like, Jimmy Page totally sucked dog farts in comparison, no, dead dog farts.)

But the star was Keith Emerson. I loved his Moogs - what classic sounds. I dug the way he would get under his B3, lean it on top of him, reach over and still keep playing. Sometimes he'd light it on fire. For me, the big thing was his piano playing, even when he wasn't strapped into that grand piano that spun through the air. I especially loved his boogie woogie bits - I thought that's when he let go of his classical training and really let his hair down. He was God.

With two of my high school classmates, we formed a progressive rock group, my first real band. Paralandra was an interesting footnote in Nova Scotia's rock history, its only true prog band, with some minor measure of success. Kurt, our keyboard player, initially copied not only Emerson's keyboard setup, but had the same shag haircut.

Auditioning for university, one of my pieces was The Old Castle by Mussorgsky. They may have thought it was because it was one of the few compositions that had crept into classical sax repertoire, but I really chose it because of ELP.

My first-year roommate turned out to be a fine jazz drummer (now lost to Scientology somewhere in California, but that's another story). That first weekend at Acadia, he unwittingly changed my life when he played Kind of Blue, turning me on to Miles. He had a pretty good collection and he would put a different album on the record player every night, and we would doze off listening to all of this fantastic jazz. Someone would wake up in the middle of the night, probably due to that skipping sound at the end of the record, and turn the stereo off.

Bill had no tolerance for my prog-rock fetish, at least at first. Finally he let me put on something, and knowing I had only one chance, I picked the most awesome ever Carl Palmer drum solo from Brain Salad Surgery. That did him in - he was one of us. I was anxious to show him what an excellent jazz player Keith Emerson was. So I played him my favourite cut, but he was unimpressed, saying that Emerson was simply ripping off Oscar Peterson.

I was devasated. Even when he played lots of Oscar for me, I couldn't accept it. Sure, there was no question that Emerson was copying Oscar's style to the note, but c'mon, Keith Emerson was God.

Later that year, Oscar played a solo concert at Halifax's Rebecca Cohn Auditorium. Bill, Kurt and I had to go. It was my first true jazz concert. I was totally caught up in Oscar's magnificent stage presence, and worshipped that thundering left hand. I have no idea of what tunes he played, not having any real grasp of jazz repertoire at the time, but loved it anyway. He made me proud to be a Canadian. I allowed in my heart of hearts that maybe, just maybe, he was better than Keith Emerson.

Bill insisted that we wait outside the stage door to talk with him. We stopped Oscar as he came out by himself. Bill asked him about Ed Thigpen, and he graciously answered, probably the same answer the had given a thousand times before. "Ed Thigpen?" I recall asking myself, "Who cares about Ed Thigpen?" We needed to discuss something much more important.

I shook Oscar's hand, and was astounded by its size. It seemed to wrap around mine twice - I guess that's what's needed for a thirteenth reach. We hit him with our trump card. "What do you think about Keith Emerson?" He smiled and told us that he had just recently been in London and taped a TV show with Keith. We were awestruck - it must have been musical perfection.

He excused himself after a couple of minutes and left the theatre. We were ecstatic.


Now, all these years later, just before writing this post, with the help of YouTube, I finally saw this meeting of musical giants for the first time, for what it really was - a plain, old-fashioned ass-kicking of a self-indulgent rock star. And Oscar wasn't even getting warmed up in the three scant choruses he played, it was nothing fancy, his playing was just really deep. He had that same gracious look on his face as when we were speaking. I don't think he was being condescending or competitive, he appeared to be just enjoying life, happy to be making music.

He was a truly great man. He rocks.