A Swinging Oscar Peterson Soars

Oscar Peterson’s return, to put it as succinctly as possible, was a triumph. Eight years since he last performed in Los Angeles, five years after a stroke that seriously impaired his left hand, four days after his 73rd birthday, Peterson gave a performance at the Hollywood Bowl Wednesday night that confirmed his status as one of the great jazz pianists of the second half of the 20th century.

A large man with arthritic knee problems, Peterson came onstage slowly, greeted by a standing ovation and waves of enthusiastic applause from an audience of nearly 12,000. Smiling warmly and acknowledging his fans with a wave, he sat at the piano and, wasting no time on formalities, immediately charged into the music.

It was an appearance, however, that differed in many respects from Peterson’s earlier work. He was playing, for one thing, as part of a quartet rather than a trio, with a United Nations lineup of Swedish guitarist Ulf Wakenius, Danish bassist Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen and English drummer Martin Drew. The instrumentation, in effect, combines both formats--piano/bass/guitar and piano/bass/drums--that have provided some of Peterson’s most attractive working environments.

The result was a musical interactivity that underscored playful piano-guitar passages with sturdy rhythmic underpinning from Drew’s drums. It also took some of the soloing burden off Peterson, whose left-hand playing, while still clearly very serviceable, especially for chording purposes, is not what it once was.

Nonetheless, Peterson, even with slightly diminished technique, was a marvel to hear. There was, above all, no reduction in his ineffable capacity to swing--to make every note, and every connection between notes, seem energized with an electric rhythmic charge. On numbers such as “Falling in Love” and “Shiny Stockings,” he worked his familiar magic, first bringing the themes alive with his surging articulation of the melodies, then moving into propulsive improvisations filled with layer after layer of imaginative, nonstop, body-moving phrases.

On several new compositions--especially a lovely line titled “When Summer Comes”--he revealed a lyricism not always immediately apparent in his music. Although he has been justifiably honored as an improviser, Peterson is also a gifted composer, and hearing a program that, for once, devoted some space to that aspect of his talent was an unexpected treat.

Also unexpected was the down-home, blues-drenched playing of Wakenius, a superb European artist with little visibility in this country. Pedersen’s contributions, on the other hand, although fairly modest for this program, were well up to the standard he has established as one of the finest, most musically intelligent bassists of the last 30 years. And Drew provided a perfect mixture of dependability, drive and musical subtlety.

It was, in sum and by any measure, one of the finest hours of jazz heard in this busy season of music.

Singer-pianist Diana Krall, like Peterson a Canadian, and one of his many devoted young followers, preceded him. Her too-brief set was intriguing, a revealing perspective on the continuing progress of this gifted artist. With each successive appearance, Krall is expanding the horizons of both her piano work and her singing.

On one of her most familiar numbers, “I’m an Errand Girl for Rhythm,” her vocal floated teasingly above the surging rhythms of guitarist Russell Malone and bassist Ben Wolfe. Her phrasing, especially in a smoothly seductive rendering of “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” was stunning, sung over an insinuating bossa nova-like rhythm that claimed the song away from its more familiar, Sinatra-styled swing. And Krall’s piano efforts, often overshadowed by her vocals, were also first-rate, giving as good as she got in the occasionally fiery interplay with the fast-fingered Malone.

The evening opened with a brief set by the talented young musicians of the Henry Mancini Institute Orchestra, featuring a performance of Mancini’s Concerto for Bassoon and Orchestra showcasing the inimitable playing of Ray Pizzi.