Customer Reviews

The Berlin Concert

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
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I am only half-way through watching this DVD and I had to go on-line at Amazon and say what a mind-blowing experience I am having with this DVD performance by Oscar, Neils and Martin!!! The slow version of 'Who Can I Turn To?' is beautiful enough, but then the Trio kicks into high gear and you are off on a rocketship ride of your life!!! The audience goes nuts when it ends. Oscar cues Neils and Martin into a ridiculous prestissimo tempo and then walks off the stage. The duo cooks up a storm. Oscar comes back and POW - we are off on another rocketship ride. This time even FASTER!!! Then Oscar goes into a furious solo all by himself, and let me tell you I have never seen any pianist (or any human being for that matter) play so fast AND with such superb musical taste and artistry! I started to cry. I just couldn't believe what I was hearing. In this world of war, genocide, hatred and injustice, Oscar reminded me that there is beauty and art in this world. The Arts would nourish us and keep us all safe and sane. Oscar is my idea of Heaven on Earth. God bless you, Oscar!!! Oh my God, now I can die!

For my 19th birthday, my friend Olivier who had - and still has - a jazz culture way deeper than mine gave me Oscar Peterson: Live!, a record that in many ways opened my ears to jazz. It swung fiercely, it was deeply rooted in blues, and it featured Peterson's jaw-dropping velocity. I still listen to it fondly. Later on, my collection of OP records increased, with Night Train and Nigerian Marketplace holding a special place in my heart.

When I realised that a DVD of a 1985 Oscar Peterson concert featuring Martin Drew on drums and Niels Hennig-Orsted Pedersen on bass had been released, I had to be on it like a rat on a piece of cheese: this is roughly my favourite period in Oscar Peterson's live playing, and the backing band I find the most interesting (the same one as on Nigerian Marketplace).

I watched The Berlin Concert over a couple of nights, and it's an absolute marvel. The concert opens with the so-called Bach Suite (here called A Salute to Bach). This is a marvelous trio of jazz compositions by Peterson inspired by harmonies used by Bach. It starts with an uptempo piece (called Allegro on Oscar Peterson: live!), then shifts to a more meditative composition (Andante) and ends with my favourite part, a wonderfully deep blues number called Bach's Blues. I already knew all of these, but the interpretations here are superb, with NHOP and Drew forming a perfect backdrop to Peterson's playing. Each of these three pieces (and indeed nearly each on the whole concert) starts with Peterson alone on the piano, and it's a marvel to see NHOP watching over Peterson's shoulder and nodding, or smiling at the improvisational turn these intros take.

After a somewhat deep beginning, the concert takes a slightly lighter touch with a succession of tunes more firmly in the ground of classic jazz. Peterson's playing is still as distinctive, of course, and he manages to remain melodic even at the lightning speeds he sometimes plays at. The rhythm section swings like hell and NHOP's supple sound and precision are nothing short of astounding. I surprised myself staring at the screen in disbelief several times, watching his right hand pluck at the double-basse's strings like a spider running on its web. But NHOP is not just a virtuoso. Indeed his melodic sense matches Peterson's and that's partly why I think they fit together so well. He's more than just part of the rhythm section, he's part of the front line at the same time, playing around the harmonies laid by the piano and soaring when it's his turn to take solos.

This concert is honestly great from start to finish, but the next highlight for me in the DVD is Nigerian Marketplace. I love that piece, it's intricate yet accessible, the theme is superb, carried by NHOP's funky sounding bass, it starts melancholy but gradually builds up to great intensity. Peterson's solo on this is breathtakingly beautiful. But the highlights don't stop there: the following tune, Cakewalk, is an uptempo swing that tears the place down. Everyone is playing really fast and yet, in the hands of these seasoned veterans, it sounds so easy... Astounding.

The DVD ends on two very fast covers, Perdido and Caravan, the second more interesting - in my opinion - as the first. It's the only time in the concert where you feel that Peterson is a bit of a show-off, but his playing is so amazing that it's hard to grudge him. On Caravan, his long fingers are moving so fast over the keyboard that you can't actually see them, they blur! The final chord is one of those rolling affairs that gradually builds up until you're convinced the piano itself is going to start rattling and then fall apart.

And I have a huge grin on my face. Yes, The Berlin Concert is that good.

This is a fabulous recording from 1985, which is the first DVD of Oscar Peterson, in colour, with a proper trio that you can buy. Neils Pederson is on bass and Martin Drew is on drums.

They play a mixture of standards and Peterson originals:

Blues Etude

Cakewalk

Caravan

Falling in love with Belle Province

Nigerian Marketplace

Perdido

A Salute to Bach

Skylark-My Foolish Heart

Who Can I Turn To

Yours Is My Heart Alone

Some of these are virtuoso shopwstoppers, but Peterson was always more than a great technician so there is some lovely ballad playing as well.

The DVD is region 0 and lasts 80 minutes. Having seen Oscar live in the 1980's, his shows were around this length, so you are probably getting the whole show on this DVD. The sound is good with 5.1 DD and DTS. Sadly there are no extras.

I can't recommend it strongly enough.

I've written about Oscar Peterson extensively at All About Jazz, especially a review of a Mosaic Box Set. Some may not comprehend the following, but Oscar does have no small number of detractors--even (perhaps, especially) among music critics, musicians and pianists. The charge is usually along the lines of impugning Oscar for being some sort of polymath, a "mere" technical machine, as opposed to a genuine "creative" artist. With a Thelonious or Keith, it's possible for a listener, even a neophyte pianist, to feel as though he or she is a "participant" in the action--you're right there in the game with the pianist, matching your moves against him, working things out together. Also, Oscar is such an immoveable, relentless force, locking in the time so completely, that any other musicians he's appearing with (including, on one occasion, Coltrane) have little choice but to follow his lead (more power to the accomplices who have the chops to stay with him). As a result, the argument goes, Oscar can't give way to the greater freedoms of a Coltrane, an Elvin Jones, or an even later polyrhythmic, a-metric, multicultural artist.

Two responses: 1. Oscar is Oscar. Why would you have him be someone else, bending to the limits of others? 2. So he's not God. Isn't it enough that he's one of the best (if not numero uno) several pianists in the music's history?

It's true that when Oscar plays, you simply sit back and, providing you have real ears, settle for being amazed, overwhelmed, overcome--no more nor less. But when you have a chance to think about things, to reflect on the experience (and I do stress the word "experience"), it becomes clearer than ever that Oscar, perhaps more than any other single musician, redefined "swing," kicking it up a few notches. The prototypal, quintessential rhythm section will never be the same. Some pianists--Gene Harris, Monty Alexander, Benny Green--are able to come close to Oscar's achievement, but no one is able to lift you right out of your chair the way Oscar can. Compared to him, most rhythm sections--pianists, bass players, and drummers--sound like mere time-keepers.

So to the extent that jazz is a physical, visceral experience, Oscar is the all-time Olympian. No one swings harder. All the same, jazz, as we know, is also capable of yielding deep spiritual insights and cerebral discoveries. So one must certainly make room for Fatha Hines, Bud Powell, Thelonious, Art Tatum (perhaps the main rival to Oscar's supremacy), stylists supreme like Errol and Ahmad, and above all the "possessed" Bill Evans, including "late" Bill Evans (the places he took the music during the last 18 months of his life are dark, deep and mysterious, perhaps even dangerous--so much so that none have dared follow him there). I've frankly heard no one since--with all due respects to the brilliance of Chic, Herbie, Brad, the beloved Red Garland and Wynton Kelly, and the vastly if not shamefully under-appreciated Dave Catney--who's struck me as indispensable.

As for the present DVD, the sound is marvelous. Much has been made of the "Jazz Icons" series of the past couple years, but none has the sonic spectrum covered like the present disc (even the Buddy Rich disc is so weak in the treble the drums sound muffled, like an afterthought). Maybe "Jazz Icons" is responsible for the present disc--whoever it is managed to capture that glorious Bosendorfer by engineers sensitive to an authentic piano sound), the resonance of Pedersen's bottomless bass (Peterson's, too), the shimmering, scintillating cymbals of the relatively obscure (but highly effective) Martin Drew. (Oscar eats drummers alive--they have to be in top physical condition and prepared to hang on for dear life. God bless Ed Thigpen, who once could do it with his arms at his sides (it's all about the left foot and the hi-hat, and many drummers these days have extremely anemic, even torpid, hi-hat "claps"), and the little man of steel, the late Bobby Durham. I can't believe that I have no O.P. CDs with Martin Drew, but add him to the list: he's a killer drummer.]

The program is ample and amply varied, with a nod to Bill Evans ("My Foolish Heart") and Duke Ellington (the most unconventional, idiosyncratic "Perdido" you're likely to hear in a lifetime along with the most hard-driving version of "Caravan"--a piano trio impersonating a hundred thirsty, charging camels whipping up blinding sandstorms in their wake). Oscar's frequent unaccompanied demonstrations of stride piano--a la James P. Johnson, Fats Waller, and the superlative Tatum--certainly raise the question of why Jarrett bothers to attempt a similar feat in his concerts of late. (Forgotten about is Stanley Cowell, who has elected, for the most part, not to demonstrate his mastery of a difficult style that few can do justice by any more.)

[In the "not to be missed" category: Oscar's 1st encore. He walks off stage, next bass and drums set the fastest tempo humanly possible while somehow managing to keep together, Oscar walks back on stage and joins the pair, then bass and drums drop out leaving the field to a naked Oscar attacking his instrument with ten thousand fingers, finally the threesome reunite for a fantastic finish compared to which Wagner would sound tepid.]

[Speaking of which, Oscar approaches the operatic mode (and his 2nd encore) with Victor Herbert's "Yours Is Mine Heart Alone." The title is just like Oscar--he's all alone. No one like him before, since, or forevermore. (However, based on the evidence here, Ray Brown may have to share the spot with Niels-Henning Orsted.)]

[If jazz DVDs strike your fancy, don't fail to check out Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers recorded at the Umbria Jazz Festival circa 1975. The scandalously overlooked and even forgotten Bill Hardman, Dave Schnitter, Mickey Tucker, and Cameron Brown launch the music into orbit with a huge assist from the cutting-edge compositions of Walter Davis, Jr.]

Please see Ben Felten's excellent review for the blow-by-blow details of this awesome performance. I would add that the sound reproduction (DTS, 5.1 & PCM) is impeccable, although there is a little falloff on the bottom end of NHOP's bass. The visuals concentrate where they should, mostly on Oscar's fingers (there's some nice shots where you see NHOP playing in reflection on the back of the piano fingerboard), with the occasional group or face shot. The Berlin audience is enthusiastic, but quiet during the playing. And what playing! In addition to the more expected pyrotechnics, some of Peterson's more rarely displayed pretty side is on display. I've seen all the available Oscar Peterson DVD's; this one, folks, is the one.

Performance is superb. Problem is with image. Last half of DVD has an

intermittant blue band across the top of the picture which is quite annoying.

The world is stunned by the passing of jazz piano giant Oscar Peterson on Sunday December 23 2007 at his home in Toronto, aged 82. He had suffered ill health recently. Having heard him in concert with his trio here in New Zealand in April 1973, the memories of that occasion came flooding back after watching this great DVD. Recorded live on a Bosendorfer Concert Grand piano at Philharmonie, Berlin on June 2nd 1985, when Oscar was a few months short of his 60th birthday, he is superbly backed by bassist Niels Henning Orsted-Pedersen, and drummer Martin Drew. The opener "Salute to Bach" is a tour de force of nearly 15 minutes in which Oscar begins rather in the way of a Bach chamber piece, but finishes with a flourish which includes block chords, glissandi and flurries of notes. The beautiful Anthony Newley ballad "Who Can I Turn To", opens with chordal variations on the melody before settling into a gently paced 3/4 time and ending in uptempo improvisations, still with the theme, and Niels Pedersen and Martin Drew accompanying on bass and drums - at this point Oscar leaves the stage briefly while the rhythm section continues playing and the audience is in raptures- absolutely marvellous! "Blues Prelude" is taken at a frantic pace, slowing near the end for some ragtime and featuring the drums of Martin Drew. The Franz Lehar operetta tune "Yours is my Heart Alone" is given Oscar's pretty introduction staying close to the melody with chords, before keeping the rhythm section busy with his uptempo improvisation- keen listeners may hear Oscar play a few bars of "On the Trail" from Ferde Grofe's Grand Canyon Suite! Part 2 of the concert starts with the Rodgers and Hart tune "Falling in Love with Love" which opens with the melody and proceeds with Oscar and the rhythm section settling into a medium tempo which really swings hard, while Martin Drew shows his skills on drums swapping "8s" with the boss. More beautiful music follows with the concert running for 80 minutes. The sound mix is superb, reproducing the gorgeous sounds of the Bosendorfer beautifully, and bass and drums accordingly. Similarly the camera work leaves little to be desired with all the trio members receiving excellent coverage. In short, this DVD is a fine addition to any jazz fans collection, and will be even more so now that the great man has left us. It represents a collection of songs which we will all remember as being "Oscars Own" and a concert which represents his playing as good as I ever remember. He will be forever in our hearts.

Of all Oscar Peterson media that I own (and I do own most of the recordings and videos that are available), this is the one I dig out when I want to show someone what Oscar was about. The video production is only adequate, but any shortcomings are forgotten once Oscar hits his stride. "Blues Etude" is amazing... I'd heard recordings of it, but it's a whole new thing to watch the hands in action. Pianists will find it exhilarating and humbling at the same time. My only quibble is that only two of the three sections of his "Bach Suite" were included... I'm sure he played the whole thing at the concert... maybe they had technical problems. If you're interested in seeing Oscar in peak form, this is probably the best purchase you could make.

Say what you will about Europeans, they love Trio Jazz as much as anyone. They are create an outpouring of love on this DVD for a man who deserves the adulation. Mr. Peterson and his crew deserve the praise, he is at the top of his game. Truly, OP is Canada's most gifted Jazz artist. Caveat: Because he is fully engaged, Mr. Peterson does softly hum and grunt a fair amount while playing, and it does get picked up by the piano mic. Those of us that dig him find it endearing. It sure doesn't bother anyone at this concert.

The video is really good and I play it all the time in our Jazz Club.

Everyone seems to enjoy the video. Very good quality.