Talented jazz musician dies

Jazz fans and Canadians both home and abroad are mourning the death of Oscar Peterson, the virtuoso known globally as one of the most talented musicians ever to play jazz piano. Peterson died Sunday night at his home in Mississauga, Ont., from kidney failure. He was 82. "The world has lost the world's greatest jazz player," Hazel McCallion, mayor of Mississauga and Peterson's friend, told CBC News on Monday afternoon. Renowned for his speed and virtuosity as a pianist, Peterson - who was born in Montreal and later made Toronto his home - made hundreds of recordings in his career, even after a stroke in 1993 disabled his left hand. "What he was able to achieve [after his stroke], playing with half of what most other pianists had, he was still light years ahead of every one else," said jazz broadcaster Ross Porter. Liberal politician and former Ontario premier Bob Rae said he "worshipped" Peterson as a musician and a fan, and hailed the pianist for his achievements. "The young Oscar was without question the greatest piano player of his time ... the greatest piano player player of jazz," Rae said, praising Peterson for "the dexterity of his right hand, the stride, the power of his left." "As he got older, the depth of his humanity came out in his compositions," added Rae. Over the years, Peterson's recording and performing partners included such stars as Charlie Parker, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Nat King Cole and Stan Getz. Some of Peterson's most legendary works came after he teamed up to form the Oscar Peterson Trio in 1953. The trio created such classic recordings as 1955's At Zardis, 1956's At the Stratford Shakespearean Festival and 1957's At Concertgebouw. Lived for music's 'moments of great beauty' He formed another classic piano-guitar-bass trio in the 1970s with guitarist Joe Pass and Danish-born bassist Niels Pedersen. Peterson revelled in the kind of improvisation he could...