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Duke Ellington dubbed him the “Maharajah of the Keyboard” and Count Basie said he played “the best ivory box I’ve ever heard,” while Ray Charles simply called him “one motherfucking piano player!” Oscar Peterson, one of the all-time jazz greats, died at the age of 82 over the holidays, and we here at Kempt can’t help but be saddened by the passing of man who provided the soundtrack to some of our most memorable moments.
When the great Miles Davis was assembling his quintet in 1955 and chose a troubled young saxophonist named John Coltrane over more established and experienced players, many assumed the partnership wouldn’t last. While Davis was a reserved, dapper aesthete born to achievement, Coltrane was cut from coarser cloth but no less of a musical genius for that. Surely two such outsized talents were bound to clash, especially with the specter of Coltrane’s drug use looming overhead.
There were no pyrotechnics apart from the musical variety however, note Farah Jasmine Griffin and Salim Washington, authors of an illuminating book due out next week, Clawing at the Limits of Cool: Miles Davis, John Coltrane and the Greatest Jazz Collaboration Ever—because “Coltrane was too humble, and Miles was simply too cool.” And thank god for it, or they might never have gotten around to laying down Kind of Blue.
All That Jazz: The men and women of the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival. [A Continuous Lean]
Mama’s Pearl: Could microblog dress-up be the future of the fashion industry? We certainly hope not. [PSFK]
Monkey Business: The headline says it all: Monkey Eludes Net-Wielding Police at Tokyo Station. Well, almost all. [Reuters]
Hidden Treasures: Yet another accoutrement for surreptitious drinking. [Uncrate]
