Hello everybody,
I am trying to find simple, slow ballad-style pieces of Oscar Peterson to learn in a short time. Any suggestions of well-known tunes? I ordered a big book of Oscar Peterson solos and it turned out that all of them were very fast and highly ornamented-- not at all what I was looking for.
Thanks so much for your help! I’ll try to find the sheet music online if I know some titles.
ZB
When I took a Jazz transcription class a few years back, I picked this Oscar Peterson Original. It was a LOT of fun:
Oscar Peterson : Love Ballad
ca.youtube.com/watch?v=dAZucc4EJV8
Last year I managed to find a book that has sheets for this tune also, so I can scan it for you if you’d like. This is not his best recording of this tune. Once I get home I’ll post a good rec.
I’ll come up with a few more tunes later.
Thanks SO much for this suggestion. Lifesaver. This is exactly what I was looking for. I like the music, and feel I could learn the piece in a reasonable amount of time. Pardon my ignorance about jazz style-- can this piece be performed without the other instruments?
Yeah, I think so. There’s not really a whole lot going on besides the piano.
Here’s a good example ca.youtube.com/watch?v=KPqMtaTP-mE
yeah, slow Oscar tunes are fairly difficult to find;
IMO he rules, i’ve seen him (fairly) often critisized as being a “show-boat”, not listening to everyone as much as himself, etc,
but hell if I could play like him I’d do the same damned thing.
Ivan, what’s the occasion? Gig? Self interest?
Thanks so much everybody, for your awesome help and encouragement. I was asked to start out a gig next month with some of these slow Peterson solos, and I was freaking out a bit. I didn’t know how to look for this stuff, let alone know if I could be remotely convincing in the repertoire. Any idea if there are websites where I can download Love Ballad, and another title I think I remember, something like “Misty”. Ah, if it’s too difficult, I won’t be able to learn it… I feel like I’m marching to my own death… 
Does it have to be just Oscar Peterson? Even his easier stuff has a lot of notes. Something by Bill Evans or Herbie Hancock would likely be easier.
I’ll look through my Oscar Peterson scores and see if I can scan a few nice ones for you.
Hmm you make a great point. Maybe I can change the program since it’s still a month away. Great suggestions-- plus I think Bill Evans of Herbie Hancock are well-known and people would probably love them just as much. I’ll for sure look at those scores if they happen to be readily accessible to you and not much effort to retrieve. Thanks so much for this-- I really am so grateful.
Evans would appeal to pretty much everyone;
very lyrical/semi-romantic style.
Oh! I forgot! It can’t be Bill Evans-- the stipulation was that the composer had to be African American, in honor of African American History Month…
Sorry for the wait, here’s the lead sheet + transcribed main theme for the Love Ballade:
Thanks a million for this! Awesome-- I will pounce on this. Thanks for saving the day.
A bit out of date, I guess, but the 2 Peterson’s slow tunes in which he impressed me the most are Wheatland and Smile (both from “The Great Connection” Album).
Pianistic tours de force
