Oscar Peterson Trio: We Get Requests (180g, Verve Acoustic Sounds Series) [VERVE]

Why you'll love it

This Verve Acoustic Sounds Series edition was cut from a new analogue stereo tape made from the original three-track master, pressed on 180g vinyl in a gatefold jacket. It's the Montreal-born pianist's trio with Ray Brown and Ed Thigpen at their most relaxed and swinging.

This edition

• 180g vinyl
• Verve Acoustic Sounds Series
• Cut from a new analogue master made from the original tapes
• Mastered at Sterling Sound
• Gatefold jacket
• Remastered
• Stereo mix

About the album

The title is a wink. Oscar Peterson, by the mid-60s, could play anything at any speed, and audiences tended to ask for the songs they already knew. So the trio made an album of them, and made every one sound brand new.

Brazil gets the first word, with a gentle "Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars (Corcovado)" and later "The Girl from Ipanema." "The Days of Wine and Roses" is pure velvet, "People" comes straight from the Broadway hit Funny Girl, and the Rodgers and Hart standard that closes side one bounces along with a grin. Side two adds "You Look Good to Me," "D. & E.," "Time and Again" and "Goodbye J.D." Ray Brown's bass and Ed Thigpen's brushes are so close and clear you can practically hear the room. Several of these tunes were brand-new hits of the day, from the bossa nova boom to Broadway, which is exactly the point. Jim Davis produced it for Verve, and there isn't a wasted note.

Ninety-odd seconds into side one, you'll understand why people buy good speakers. Requests are, as the title suggests, welcome; we'd start with side two.

Also at Kops: more Oscar Peterson on vinyl · browse Classic Jazz

Tracklist

Listen

On Verve (cat# B0033797-01), a reissue of the 1965 album.