The complete original album Oscar Peterson Plays the Cole Porter Songbook, by the Oscar Peterson trio with Ray Brown and Ed Thigpen.
For our extended edition, we have added further Porter compositions recorded by Peterson on various occasions, including all of the songs from a Cole Porter songbook attempt made in 1952 by the Peterson trio with Brown again on bass and Barney Kessel on guitar.
Born in Canada, Oscar Peterson was convinced by Granz to travel to the United States, where he became one of the most featured musicians in the “Granz caravan”, with respect to both studio recordings and as part of the touring Jazz at the Philharmonic group. Peterson recorded as an accompanist for many other stars, and also as the leader of his trio, which at the time consisted of Ray Brown on bass and Ed Thigpen on drums.
This is the formation of the Oscar Peterson Trio heard on this homage to Cole Porter. These recordings came about during a series of intense sessions during which Peterson and his band taped many different songbooks by the most renowned American composers. Throughout 1959, Peterson waxed his tributes to Harry Warren & Vincent Youmans, George & Ira Gershwin (he would also record a trio version of Porgy and Bess that year), Jerome Kern, Richard Rodgers, Irving Berlin, Harold Arlen, Jimmy McHugh and Duke Ellington. Before all that, he had taped his Jazz Portrait of Frank Sinatra, presenting songs from the repertoire of the legendary singer. (The version of Cole Porter’s “I Get a Kick Out of You” belongs to that album. The tune was absent from the 1959 Cole Porter Songbook LP, and has been added here as a bonus track.) These massive songbook sessions, however, weren’t Peterson’s (or Granz’s) first attempts into this territory. In fact, Peterson had already made extensive recordings of several composers in 1952, when his regular group consisted of Ray Brown on bass and Barney Kessel on guitar.
During another set of marathon sessions in November and December of 1952, they waxed numerous compositions by the Gershwin brothers, Duke Ellington, Cole Porter and Irving Berlin. All of the Cole Porter songs taped on that occasion have also been added here as a bonus.
Bonus Tracks: * 13-25
