Oscar Peterson Research Paper

Oscar Peterson was born to immigrant parents descended from the West Indies on the day of August 15, 1925 (“Oscar Peterson Facts”). Oscar Peterson grew up in a poor multi-ethnic neighbourhood in Montreal, Quebec, Canada (“Oscar Peterson: Piano Master”). His neighborhood was mostly a black neighborhood. He found himself surrounded by the jazz culture which started to develop in the early 20th century (“Peterson,Oscar And Friends”). Oscar's father, Daniel Peterson (who worked as a Pacific Railroad porter and also was an amateur trumpeter and pianist), was one of Oscar’s music teacher as a young boy along with his sister, Daisy, who taught him classical piano (“Peterson,Oscar And Friends”). His father pushed the kids mostly into the direction

At the age of seven, Oscar stopped playing the trumpet due to tuberculosis which hindered his play and so he started to mostly focus on playing piano (“Peterson,Oscar And Friends”). Oscar was so dedicated to the piano that he would spend hours daily trying to perfect it, so around the age of nine, his hard work paid off. Oscar became more virtuoso on the piano which caught the eye of other musicians ("Oscar Peterson"). At the age of 14, Peterson worked with Paul De Marky, a Hungarian-born classical pianist who was a student of Franz Liszt ("Oscar Peterson"). Through De Marky, Oscar learned that he could mimic Art Tatum who was a well known pianist at the time and was considered the “ Greatest Jazz Pianist of all Time” ("Oscar Peterson"). Oscar also worked with Lou Hooper, another well-known pianist and composer who mostly taught his students how to communicate in phrases and also taught Oscar the importance of classic (“Oscar Peterson Facts”). A couple of months later, at the age of 14, Oscar won the Canadian Broadcasting Company Radio Show Competition and also started making more appearances on the Canadian Radio Show CBC (“Oscar Peterson: Piano