There are jazz ballad performances, and then there are Oscar Peterson ballads . His 1964 recording of Days of Wine and Roses (from the album The Oscar Peterson Trio – Live at the London House ) isn’t just a pretty melody—it’s a masterclass in reharmonization, inner voice movement, and swinging inside a waltz.
Instead, extract one chorus. Memorize his chord voicings. Steal his melodic paraphrase of the first 8 bars. Then internalize it—not as a note-for-note recital, but as vocabulary. Transcribing Peterson is like trying to catch lightning. But even catching the afterglow —one voicing, one turn of phrase—will change your playing forever. Days of Wine and Roses is the perfect starting point: beautiful, deceptively simple, and under Oscar’s hands, absolutely transcendent. oscar peterson days of wine and roses transcription
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