This news totally put a damper on my holiday groove. You nailed it in your post Eric. We just don't have many such amazing musicians left. What really gets me is that America is losing its musical heritage and the general public doesn't even realize it because they're too busy worshiping whatever two-bit hack the industry has plastered all over the radio this week. I had the tremendous fortune of spending a day with Phil Woods a while back and listening to first hand stories about such iconic names as Basie, Ellington, Bird and so on was mind blowing. I kept thinking, "How is this man not a household name? How is it that people can name all the Backstreet Boys or list every Tori Amos track but not have a clue who Phil Woods is?" The same can be said for Peterson. So sad. I'm glad that there are at least a few of us who are genuinely mourning Oscar tonight and will truly understand the loss to music that happened today.
Today the music died a little more.
