Oscar Peterson: The Will to Swing (PB) (2000)

An engaging biography of a living musical legend, Oscar Peterson. A man Duke Ellington once called the " maharajah of the piano." Gene Lees carefully builds up the portrait of Peterson, his childhood and what it meant to be be black and talented in Montreal in the 1940s, hist three marriages and six children, his musical partners (Ray Brown, Herb Ellis and Ed Thigpen), his musical friends and colleagues (Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Art Tatum and Lester Young, amongst others) and the critical controversy and mythology that have long surrounded Peterson. This updated version has a new chapter that covers Peterson's appointment as Chancellor of York University; his receipt of ten honorary doctorates and the Order of Canada; his stroke and partial recovery; the origins and fallout of his cancelled North American tour and much more.