It was 9 p.m. on 10 February 1961 as Norman Granz took to the stage of the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam to present one of the Oscar Peterson Trio’s most sensational concerts.
Waiting in the wings was his protégé, the artist he discovered purely by chance one night in 1949 while listening to the radio in a Montreal taxi, the man he would take to the very pinnacle of pianistic success. He was the man Granz presented that evening as the “Ineffable”. Certainly it can be said that Peterson played a hundred notes where other pianists may have used ten, but he gave each of these notes a life of its own, bringing a whole new dimension to the music. As only he could.
One of the Oscar Peterson Trio’s most sensational concerts.
The melodic purity and throb of the concert’s opening number, "Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise", overwhelm the listener. Before you know it, Peterson’s Latino homage to his friend Dizzy Gillespie transports you somewhere between Broadway and Rio.
