For well over 50 years Oscar Peterson has been arguably the world's finest jazz pianist. Naturally talented and technically brilliant, he has an exquisite lightness of touch on the keyboard, and none of his arrangements or improvisations go so far off the original tune, or lean too far to the avant garde, to alienate all but the jazz enthusiast.
This collection is taken from his time with the Verve and MPS labels, from 1954 to 1971, certainly his most prolific and commercially successful period. The tracks mine the deep pit that is the Great American Songbook, with the odd excursion out to Liverpool and France, and they all swing, but gently, with the exception of Michel Legrand's "Windmills Of Your Mind", where something of a gale blows up.
They are all original recordings, digitally remastered, and they've done an great job on them - clarity and dynamic range are excellent, and only the very earliest recordings show any age. He is accompanied throughout by acoustic bass and percussion - the Oscar Peterson Trio; although over the years the personnel of his backing changed they were always top-ranking musicians and in perfect harmony with their master.
This set was first released seven years ago - you'll find the original, with its smokey blue cover, still in the listings here and that's where (at the time of writing) to find the tracklisting. Until the issue last year of "The Genius Of Oscar Peterson" it was just about the only "Very Best of..." collection of his work. It is a shame, then, that no less than eleven tracks come up on both sets. This one is probably the more mainstream of the two, and is great for the peaceful end of an evening - as someone who didn't really like jazz at the time, I bought it in 1998, loved it immediately, and it has been one of my favourite albums ever since.
