Oscar Peterson: The Oscar Peterson Trio at Baker's Keyboard Lounge

If any one player fills a soul to the brim with unbridled joy, Oscar Peterson—his whole 'tude, his smile, his swing—is that grand soul and our grand fortune. Put on any of Peterson's archival releases— Around the World, Con Alma: The Oscar Petersen Trio—Live In Lugano, 1964,  or City Lights: Live in Munich 1994 (Two Lions Records/Mack Avenue, 2025, 2022, 2023)—and it becomes spontaneously apparent that the man brought the JOY every day to every stage. It was his life mission to make us light-hearted and open to the next guy's woes.

Now, that may be a long-held knowledge, but it hardly matters when becoming fully immersed in Live at Baker's Keyboard Lounge. With equally ebullient bassist  Ray Brown  and drummer Ed Thigpen, the trio, still at the beginning of their six-year reign, strolls into "Ill Wind" after a classically charged intro. Break through and free with "Chicago." "Liza," a beauty of a Peterson original, charges from the gate. "Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise" is sweet talk. Bring out the best with their best: "Politics and Poker" and the classic remembrance, "I Remember Clifford." Bring the accelerant to "Swamp Fire." Fuse the bop with the pop on "The Touch of Your Lips." Sashay and romp through "Where Do I Go From Here" and "Woody n You." In lesser hands, "I Didn't Know What Time It Was" can ring shmaltzy. No need to entertain that thought here.

The textbook opposite of tactile hallucinations, "Autumn Leaves," "Dancing On The Ceiling," "S'posin," "Satin Doll," "Billy Boy," "Scrapple From The Apple," are just some of the bedrock tunes the trio makes you feel and rightly delight in. Live at Baker's Keyboard Lounge is the great Peterson trio recorded by Verve over five sets in August 1960 at the world's oldest (1934) continuously operating jazz club on Livernois Avenue in Detroit.  Live at Baker's Keyboard Lounge, a 2CD/3LP set to be proud of, continues the great Peterson discoveries of recent years, and proves positive the theory stated in the last sentence of the first paragraph.