Just before Christmas, Canada lost one of its greats – jazz pianist Oscar Peterson, who recorded with everyone from Charlie Parker and Louis Armstrong to Ella Fitzgerald and Nat King Cole.
Peterson, however, was, in his own way, a geek whose enthusiasm for technology was clearly evident in a state-of-the-art recording studio in his basement that featured electronic keyboards, synthesizers, sequencers and computers It was through this connection that I got the opportunity to interview him a few years ago.
It all started with Nokia Canada, which happily discovered Peterson was a fan of the Nokia Communicator but couldn’t find one in Canada. Rather than wait, Peterson called Nokia Canada, which was more than happy to add him to the company’s beta testing group.
Presented with a golden marketing opportunity, they approached Peterson about whether he’d be willing to spread the word. After Peterson agreed, I got a call from Nokia’s Doug Dawson, who asked if I would be interested in meeting with Peterson.
At best, this was probably a tenuous technology story because lots of famous people use technology. But this was the one and only Oscar Peterson, so there was no way I was going to pass on the chance to meet him.
After the arrangements were made, I drove to Peterson’s home in suburban Toronto where we talked for about 30 minutes. He was gracious and fascinating, and while it’s wasn’t a sizzling story, it was probably one of the highlights of my journalistic career – after all, you don’t get the chance to meet truly great people that often.
Technorati Tags: Jazz, Nokia, Oscar Peterson
Mark, I remember that day like it was yesterday!
Oscar (he laughed when I tried calling him “Mr. Peterson”) was such a incredibly, incredibly gracious man. When we first met to talk about technology, he told me how his band-mates used to call him “the Astronaut” because he had always been obsessed with technology. Our 30-minute chat lasted more than 2 hours, and only because I had an appointment that I couldn’t change.
Two things I remember about that visit — “keyboards” and my grandmother.
When we began discussing the keymat of the 9290, Oscar invited me to “experience a REAL keyboard” and we shuffled over to his piano keyboard — which he was testing for Yamaha (I think) that automatically recorded and wrote the music of whatever he was composing. For 30 minutes, I sat there, totally awe-struck, on the same bench as Oscar, as he demonstrated “his other new toy” with his left hand, while pointing out “improvements” to the 9290 with his right.
At some point during our visit, we began talking about my grandmother, who was such a huge Oscar Peterson fan. I don’t recall how it came up, but I mentioned tol Oscar that my grandma wasn’t in the best of spirits due to her health. Oscar looked at the phone, asked if it had a speaker phone (of course, it did) and suggested we call my grandmother to say hello. We did. (And sadly, the number was busy!)
I visted Oscar a few more times after your interview (the only one we ever did together), bringing the latest tech toys Nokia had announced. When I was transferred to our head office in Finland, where I still am today, Oscar bid me such a fond farewell, teasing me by calling me “The Executive” throughout the visit.
Sadly, we lost touch after I left Toronto, but I will never forget those visits with Oscar. A jazz legend, and a technology pioneer.