1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Amazing music from an emerging talent, February 3, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: The First Recordings (Audio CD)
This one is for Oscar fans only. Although the casual listener should be awestruck by the dizzying speed at which he plays, most fans of this master will find it elementary compared to what he would later accomplish on the keyboard. Unless you must have every cd and album ever in print, hold out for "The Complete Young Oscar Peterson". It has the same exact material plus lots more. However, if you enjoy boogie-woogie piano at break-neck tempo, then order this cd. It makes a fine sampler of one of the masters of modern jazz' early work.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Young Oscar Flying, March 11, 2007
This review is from: The First Recordings (Audio CD)
These recordings date from 1945 and 1946 and were recorded in Montreal with various different musicians including Bert Brown on Bass and either Franck Gariepy or Roland Verdon on Drums.
Whilst Oscar wasn't quite the finished article when these recordings were made, listen to the opening track and you can already hear a great musician. Perhaps most noteable on these early recordings is Oscar's phenomenal boogie woogie playing, which the more mature Oscar would later reserve mostly for encores. But here "I Got Rhythm", "My Blue Heaven", The Sheik of Araby and many others are given a through boogie work-out!
Its not all boogie by any means and theres a nice version of "East of the Sun" which shows off Oscar's developing ballad playing skills.
These recordings are great fun. Naturally the recording quality isn't as good as Oscar's later recordings, but its well worth getting to hear Oscar aged about 20 and having great fun. You will too if you buy this.
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