Chords for Count Basie on "What He Looks for in a Piano", with Oscar Peterson 1980

_ You know, Bill and I have spent many, many evenings in many, many concert halls in many,
many places in this world, cities of this world, sitting in dressing rooms, talking,
I guess as any two pianists would, about some of the pitfalls of doing what we do for _ _ _ _ _ _ a
_ And one of the points that I wanted to talk to Bill about tonight was his feelings about
the piano, his instrument.
It's been his instrument all of his life.
Here we are sitting playing
the two giant _ Gusendorfer's, Bill.
What were some of the pianos like that you had to play
during the early Kansas City days? _ _
_ You mean they weren't Gusendorfer's? _ _
Well, I tell you,
there were some brutal uprights.
What's a brutal upright?
And some of them were real nice,
too, you know?
Oh, yeah, some of the uprights are great.
Believe me.
You could get a good
some of them had pedals on them that had little things on them that had some different little
spring sounds to them, you know, that added a little jazz to them.
And there were some nice
ones, really, actually.
And when they built this master here, they built it right there.
They made
it for you. _
_ Nobody but you, especially that other thing they got down there on that trip we were on
one day.
Well, yeah, I was going to mention that.
Bill and I played a concert somewhere in Germany,
and of course the earlier models of this particular piano were like the one I'm using at the moment.
Bill doesn't have it on his.
Mine is an earlier model because it has a flap on it that opens
because there are extra keys.
And at that time, they used to leave the keys, the extra keys,
in their normal white and black configuration.
Now, of course, on Bill's piano, the one like
the one he's using today, they all sold keys.
You had all sold keys.
_ _ _ _ Anyway, one night I preceded
him on a concert and I went out and was fairgrounding a little bit and I was playing double
octave things.
And these keys actually by themselves, they don't they they don't really sound that good.
_ _ _ _ _ I'm telling you now.
But in tandem with with octaves, then it gives it [Cm] a lot more body.
[D] _
[C#] _ [D] _ _ [G] _ _ You just had to [N] play that, you know.
_ _ _ [E] _ So _ [F] I went out and I was playing this with the trio and inadvertently forgot and left the flap
open. _
And then Bill came on with the band and he elected to play one of the stride thingies.
_ [F#] _
[F] And I was standing back there and I heard misses, which he never does.
I've never known him to miss that.
And it was sounding [D] like, you know.
[N] _ _ _ And I went out and I looked at Bill and he had made the mistake of looking down at the keyboard.
I had left the flap open.
And of course, with the extra notes, it threw his perspective. _ _
I was looking for him after. _ _ _ _
But, you know, actually, what do you look for?
What do you like in the way of a piano, Bill?
What type of piano do you like?
What do you like in the way of a feel?
Well, I don't know.
Just the good feel.
This is a beautiful piano that I'm sitting in front of.
Does it affect you?
How does it affect your playing?
If you, for instance, you're a very
speculative player, you you you are thoughtful, you're very sparse.
We all know this because this
is the one thing you brought to the jazz world.
And if you ran into a piano that is
very light, let's say, what does it have any particular reaction on you?
Well, I don't know, Oscar.
I don't know how to answer that question, really.
But
it does have a wonderful feeling for me because I do like a light piano.
You like a light piano.
This is what I mean.
You prefer the light action