Is it possible to work up a sweat playing the piano? Definitely, if you are Oscar Peterson, because your fingers and your brain run several times faster than those of ordinary mortals. I love the expressions of Niels Pedersen and Barney Kessel (amazing musicians too) as they admire Oscar’s dazzling solos. Ever since I fell in love with jazz, as a teenager, I’ve been carried away by Oscar Peterson’s music and his story. What an amazing career he had . . .

Oscar played beautiful ballads too. Here he is in 2004, three years before his death, well after a 1993 stroke that severely compromised the use of his left hand. He was a stunningly good jazz player and composer, even with 1 1/2 hands at the age of 79.

One more thing. Neils Ørsted Pedersen died of heart failure in 2005 at the age of 58 in Copenhagen, Denmark. He was survived by his wife, Solveig, and his three children. Oscar Peterson wrote the following, which will tell you as much about Oscar Peterson as it will about Pederson:

After hearing this phenomenal talent on bass, I realized that somehow, someday we should meet, thereby giving me the opportunity to also play with him. This vision and thought took place in the early 1970s, when I was fortunate enough to be able to invite him to join my then trio.

Allow me to express my reaction to his playing this way: First and foremost, he never got in my way–but he also had such a great musical perception of what I was trying to do that he served to greatly inspire me from a spontaneous aspect. I came off walking on Cloud 3000 that evening because of Niels’ musical contribution. He had the most phenomenal technique, coupled with incredible harmonic perception, along with impeccable time. I shall never forget that evening.

Almost from that evening on, we became very close friends, not just musically but most certainly personally, for I developed a great admiration for the depth of Niels’ political, geographical and personal understandings. He was a man who had an almost unbelievable wealth of historic cognizance pertaining to European history. He also had a very kindred spirit as a human being, always able to easily make good friends, should he care to do so.