Email to a friend Printer friendly Font: * * * * Even though Peterson suffered from arthritis most of his life, he routinely topped international jazz polls. His memory for notes and lyrics was photographic. He played with such soul it seemed the piano spoke. “You can’t just sit down and play the piano. You have to think of phrases, colours, intensities.

That’s the only way it can be,” he said once, “I have to become the piano.” Peterson’s most famous compositions are his Canadiana Suite, which features jazz themes inspired by various Canadian cities and regions (Hogtown Blues, for example), and his Hymn to Freedom. The pianist’s international breakthrough came after he accepted an invitation from the U.S.

jazz impresario Norman Granz to be in the audience at Granz’s Jazz at the Philharmonic (JATP) presentation at Carnegie Hall in September of 1949. Peterson, brought on stage as a surprise guest, received critical acclaim for his performance, which jump-started his career. He made his first record in 1945, a 78 rpm version of I got Rhythm that sold well.

“For as long as I could remember he loved to laugh,” said Peterson’s cousin Lawrence Fraser, who made a special trip Monday to the community centre in Montreal where Peterson used to practice the piano. The instruments Peterson used as a teen are still there, though abandoned now. Fraser hopes the pianos, which he calls pieces of Montreal history, will be restored for the re-opening of the neighbourhood’s Negro Community Centre.