I'm neither young nor a jazz pianist, but this morning I made my way through a few of Oscar Peterson's songs he wrote for students called Exercises for the Young Jazz Pianist. Now that I think about it, I'm almost embarrassed to say I'm a pianist, but I love to play and his exercises have shaped not only what and how I play, but how I think about music and its infinite possibilities.
I dream that they'll invent a machine that would allow me to play piano like Oscar played it, even for just a few minutes. What must that be like? I'm not even talented enough to imagine that. Oscar says in this that when his dad had him listen to Art Tatum for the first time he asked, "Who are those two guys playing piano?" When his pop told him it was only one guy...and that he was blind, the distraught young Oscar stopped playing for two months. I know the felling, like every time I watch Oscar play it maked me want to throw my piano out my fourth floor window.