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Calgary Herald

Remembering Oscar: NMC to celebrate 100th anniversary of Oscar Peterson's birth with exhibit, concerts

Article content When Andy Milne was a student studying jazz at York University, one of his teachers offered some seemingly obvious advice: 'Learn the song.' Article content It was in the mid-1980s, and Milne, who would go on to be a versatile and Juno-winning composer and jazz pianist, at first thought this guidance was a little flippant. But it was coming from the great Oscar Peterson, who would routinely toss out these sorts of pearls and spark some deep thinking in Milne about what he meant. Eventually, he realized Peterson was not being flippant or obvious. Article content Article content 'It was weeks later when it hit me what he meant,' says Milne, in an interview with Postmedia from his home in Ann Arbor, Mich. 'It was much richer than that. I just found it fascinating, and, as a teacher myself now, I think back to him saying it literally and matter-of-fact and giving you the assignment to go figure out what he meant. Learn the song could mean 'Oh, I don't know the song very well. I guess if I just learn the song a little better, I'll sound good.' That's not what he meant. In terms of a 360-degree relationship with a piece of music, it's much more of an investigation around it and thinking more richly about the relationship.' Article content Article content Aug. 15 marks the 100th anniversary of Peterson's birth in Montreal and is also the date when Milne will perform Andy Milne: In Tribute to Oscar Peterson 100 at the National Music Centre. It coincides with the centre's newly opened exhibit, Timeless: 100 Years of Oscar Peterson, which features a wide variety of artifacts, awards, testimonials and instruments from the pianist's illustrious career. Article content Article content Milne will play some of Peterson's compositions and talk about the legend's influence on him. As a Canadian jazz pianist and composer — not to mention someone with a personal connection to the man — it may seem that Peterson's influence is a given. But Milne says he hopes to 'highlight maybe the more unusual ways that central cultural and artistic figures' influence people and communities. Article content 'I'm going to pay homage to him by talking about him and talking about his influence and playing pieces that he composed that I played in my formative years,' he says. 'At this point, they mean something different to me now than they did when I was a young kid. My approach is different, and the sound I'm going to be going for is different because I'm not an artist where someone would say 'Yeah, you really sound like you're influenced by Oscar Peterson' — that low-hanging fruit that someone might associate with me, even though he is a huge influence. It's important to talk and share what influence means and how we can be distracted by more obvious ways of looking for that and validating that kind of weight in a cultural space.'