Oscar Peterson

It's worth comparing this live 1964 version of "C Jam Blues" to the studio recording the Oscar Peterson trio recorded for the album Night Train a year or so earlier.  I think the studio version, which is only about three minutes long, is superb, but this nine-minute concert performance adds a whole solo-piano introduction, a few more breaks when Ray Brown (bass) and Ed Thigpen (drums) enter, and a much longer solo by Peterson once things really get going.  Although Peterson was always popular with the public he doesn't get enough credit from certain musicians and writers.  I guess, as is often the case, people are sometimes disappointed that he doesn't do things that he has no intention of doing.

Here are a couple of aspects of this live performance that I think reward a close hearing: listen to where Peterson places his accents within some of those long melodic lines.  The dynamically emphasized notes add a whole additional layer to the musical texture.  And listen to the pick-ups that Thigpen plays at the end of each four-bar break; each time he finds a different way to launch the groove when Ray Brown enters.  Thigpen was a very subtle and inventive thinker.