Scott Routenberg Trio: Live at Merrimans' Playhouse: Oscar Peterson Tribute

The indomitable spirit of Canada's gift to pianistic supremacy is ever-present on the Scott Routenberg Trio's radiant and swinging centennial Oscar Peterson Tribute, recorded in concert at Merryman's Playhouse Jazz in South Bend, Indiana, on October 11, 2025.

Routenberg, an award-winning pianist, composer, arranger and educator, knows as well as anyone that there has been and likely will always be only one Oscar Peterson, a giant of jazz piano whose peerless ingenuity and mind-numbing technique were (and remain) unequaled in the realm of improvisational keyboard artistry. Rather than seeking to climb that formidable mountain, Routenberg and his companions (bassist Michael Santos, drummer Cassius Goens III) chose instead to perform music written by or otherwise linked to Peterson using the tools at their disposal while never seeking to emulate or surpass any of Peterson's acclaimed trios. It is a blueprint that works quite well, especially as Peterson, in addition to his enduring stature as one of the greatest jazz pianists who ever lived, was an astute and accomplished composer who wrote six of the nine tunes on this thoroughly charming tribute.

Routenberg, mind you, is no slouch at the keyboard, having earned a number of awards for his virtuosity, and nothing he does here impairs that resume. This would be a first-rate concert session even without Peterson's name appended. As it is, listeners can hear and appreciate an alluring event that showcases themes penned by the master himself. First among them is the loping "Kelly's Blues," which lends the concert an auspicious start. Peterson also wrote "City Lights," "Wheatland," "Cool Walk," "March Past" and the brief yet charming finale, another blues, this one a "Blues for Big Scotia."

Peterson was an admirer of Brazilian maestro Antonio Carlos Jobim, two of whose best-known themes—"The Girl from Ipanema" and "Corcovado"—are performed by Routenberg's trio. Another Peterson favorite, Franz Lehar's "Yours Is My Heart Alone," completes the handsome program. A splendid Tribute, and, one dare hope, the first of many during the hundredth anniversary of the incomparable Peterson's birth.