Perhaps the most technically accomplished of post second World War jazz pianists, and certainly the most commercially successful, Peterson developed a bop-based style to which he clung, despite the innovations of the sixties and seventies. The child of West Indian immigrants,  Peterson abandoned his youthful trumpet studies after contracting tuberculosis.  He next took up classical piano, switching to jazz under the influence of  Art Tatum.  Playing in Montreal jazz clubs, Peterson  recorded in  1947  for  RCA Canada  and  made a dramatic New York debut in a ‘Jazz at the Philharmonic’ concert organized

by Norman Granz, who became his manager. After recording for Verve in 1950 with bassist Major Holley, Peterson formed a piano/bass/guitar trio using the format popularized by Nat King Cole, upon whom Peterson modeled himself in his few vocal recordings. Between 1951 and 1958 he performed and recorded copiously with Ray Brown (bass) and guitarist Herb Ellis. The style was chamber jazz but live recordings like those from Stratford, Ontario in 1957 showed an unusual rapport between the three players. Granz used the trio as a JATP and Verve house rhythm section with such performers as Lionel Hampton, Lester Young and Dizzy Gillespie and also recorded them on selections of tunes from shows such as My Fair Lady.                                    
   By then Ellis had left to be replaced briefly by drummer Gene Gammage and then by Ed Thigpen who stayed with Peterson until 1964. The new format allowed Brown to become more exploratory. In 1961 Granz sold Verve to MGM and Creed Taylor became the label’s new musical director. Producer Jim Davis gave Peterson a new freedom in his choice of repertoire, resulting in the successful ‘Night Train’ which included Duke Ellington and Hoagy Carmichael tunes and the big band album arranged by Count Basie sideman Ernie Wilkins.  
   In 1964 Thigpen and Brown were replaced by former Cannonball Adderley rhythm section Sam Jones (bass) and Louis Hayes (drums), with whom Peterson recorded his most ambitious composition, ‘Canadiana Suite’ for a new label, Mercury. He left Mercury in 1968 and his next releases came from the German MPS label for whom Peterson had made a series of recordings during the mid-sixties. Some of these were solo pieces and their enthusiastic reception contributed to Peterson’s decision to dispense with the trio format in 1972.            
   The following year Granz signed Peterson to his new Pablo label and recorded him extensively as a soloist, and as a small-group leader, most frequently with guitarist Joe Pass and Danish bassist Niels Henning Orsted Pedersen. In addition Peterson was teamed with singer Sarah Vaughan and trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie, Clark Terry and Freddie Hubbard.