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Musician Lance Anderson on Grammy radar

Orillia musician hoping for Grammy nomination; 'It's quite an honour,' Anderson says
2018-11-08 Lance Anderson
Orillia musician Lance Anderson, left, is shown with Chick Corea, centre, and Kelly Peterson. Supplied photo

An Orillia musician’s passion project in memory of a good friend has caught the attention of the Grammy Awards.

Having been selected for the first ballot of the Producer of the Year award, Lance Anderson is one step away from being nominated for a Grammy for his work on Oscar, With Love. It’s a three-disc set of music written, but never recorded, by late Canadian jazz great Oscar Peterson.

Kelly Peterson, Oscar Peterson's widow, and Anderson co-produced Oscar, With Love.

“It’s quite an honour in that it’s a very competitive category,” Anderson said, noting producers from multiple genres are included.

Grammy nominees will be announced Dec. 5. Even if he isn’t nominated, Anderson said making the first ballot is an accomplishment for musicians, as it catches the attention of those who are booking shows.

“I’ve been nominated for Junos and I’ve won Junos. That’s great, but it’s Canadian, so it’s a smaller music industry,” he said. “A Grammy nomination helps spread your name around a little more.”

To be considered for a Grammy, the work must have been released in the United States. Oscar, With Love was released in Canada a few years ago, but it was released in the United States last year.

Anderson took on the project at the request of Kelly Peterson.

“She had his piano in the basement and it hadn’t been played. It was just sitting there,” he said of Oscar Peterson’s Bösendorfer piano.

She called Anderson because she’d never produced a record before, so she wanted him to assist.

Kelly Peterson arranged for a variety of musicians, including Chick Corea, Ramsey Lewis and Michel LeGrand, to perform her late husband’s music on his piano.

“They were coming to play the master’s instrument and play songs that had never been recorded. It doesn’t get much more dramatic than that,” Anderson said, adding some of the artists — accomplished and acclaimed in their own right — were noticeably nervous.

Initially, Anderson wasn’t supposed to perform on the record, but he was talked into it. After all, the song he recorded, Sir Lancewell, was written for him by Oscar Peterson, who died in 2007.

The two met years earlier, when Anderson was working for a keyboard company. Oscar Peterson bought what Anderson was selling, and Anderson went to the musician’s house to help him learn how to use it.

“We hit it off and he asked me to come back again,” Anderson recalled.

Knowing some of the jazz piano greats were known to produce instructional videos, Anderson suggested his new friend do the same.

“That turned into a five-year project, from ’94 to ’99, which turned into the Oscar Peterson Multimedia CD-ROM,” he said, noting it is still available for purchase.

The two met almost weekly during those five years and their bond strengthened, with Anderson once joining the Petersons on vacation.

“He was a beautiful guy and we were very close,” he said.

That Oscar Peterson’s music might be recognized on the Grammy stage again — he won multiple Grammys from the 1970s to the late 1990s — is an exciting notion for Anderson and for Kelly Peterson.

“She’s thrilled that it’s on the first ballot,” Anderson said. “She’s being reserved about it until she sees what happens next. So am I.”

Oscar, With Love was also submitted to the Junos for consideration upon its release, but the response was baffling to Anderson.

“Strangely, it wasn’t considered Canadian enough for the Juno Awards,” he said.

That decision was made despite the fact it was recorded in Canada, produced by Canadians and featured the songs of a lifelong Canadian.

“This is a problem with the Canadian content aspect of the Junos. Oscar Peterson was an international artist, but a Canadian artist through and through,” Anderson said. “To be told it didn’t qualify — there seems to be something wrong. It speaks to Canada sometimes being a bit of a backwater.”

That is all “water under the bridge now,” he said, as he anxiously awaits the Grammys’ announcement in December.


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Nathan Taylor

About the Author: Nathan Taylor

Nathan Taylor is the desk editor for Village Media's central Ontario news desk in Simcoe County and Newmarket.
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