Nigerian Marketplace by Oscar Peterson
This is probably one of my top 5 albums of all time, and the title track, more likely than not, would be my answer to "best jazz piece of all time". And yet I have never reviewed it here (I discovered the album in the mid-90s, way before this blog ever existed.) Last Sunday, as I was preparing food for the family I decided to treat myself and listen to the whole thing, which prompts this review. Nigerian Marketplace is a live recording from 1981 at the Montreux Jazz Festival. It features Oscar on piano (obviously), most notably Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen on bass as well as Terry Clarke on drums. This a live album, and not the best recorded live album at that, but it's also a unique moment, all the more so because there is no publicly available studio recording of title track Nigerian Marketplace. I will discuss the rest of the record, but this opener is such a masterpiece it's hard to put into words. And that's due just as much, if not more, to NHØP as it is to Peterson. His bass is truly the star of this piece, mellifluous, bouncy, elastic, fast, precise, it's just a joy. Niels-Henning carries the melody, and softly brings you into this wonderfully constructed piece. Even if the album only contained that one track, I would still consider it a fantastic album. But that would be dismissing the rest which, while closer to Peterson's usual fare, is trailblazing in its own right. The next three tracks are standards, Au Privave at breakneck pace with NHØP again smoking a long and meandering solo, Nancy with the laughing face with Oscar alone on the piano, more pensive, and a medley of Misty (again, Oscar alone on piano) and Waltz for Debby swinging as all hell. Then follows a second Peterson composition, Cakewalk, again never recorded in the studio as far as I know. Where Nigerian Marketplace was modern and somewhat complex, Cakewalk feels like an hommage to where Peterson came from: stride and swing. It's bouncy and exhilarating, speeds up as it goes along and ends in joy. The finale is an old Peterson classic from We Get Requests, a Fats Waller tune called You Look Good to Me, much reharmonised and at mid-tempo, it provides a fitting ending to what was throughout a crazy ride. To me this is peak Oscar Peterson, and I don't understand why this album is not more of a reference.
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