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Some facts that no one else can tell you...

 

• Peter’s first recordings, as a teenage bassist with Lou Praeger’s Orchestra on radio broadcasts in the late '40s.

 

• His famous bass was given to him as a bag of bits – before he could collect it, it had been in a house that was bombed.

 

• His first gig in New York? Invited by Lennie Tristano to play with him at the recently opened Birdland.

 

• He inherited Henry Miller’s bath, re-installed in the Goat House he rented at Big Sur.

 

• The night Charlie Parker died he had been due to join Lee’s band, with Peter, at Storyville.

 

• One of Peter’s most cherished memories? In 1952 at the Down Beat club on 48th Street Peter was playing with Miles Davis (they only played a few gigs, more at the all night jams) Bird came to watch and after a particular solo he gave Peter the nod of approval.

 

• Peter’s only Top Ten Hit in New York was playing oriental music with an Armenian band.

 

• A key memory of the US?  Going to the largest exhibition of Van Gogh’s work.

 

• Peter went off to Scandinavia/ Europe on a motorbike painting trip, finally  painting in Arles following his favourite artist Van Gogh. 

 

• Coming back the motorbike died in Paris. he happened to meet Stan Getz on the street who gave him a gig so he could then pay to take a train back home.

 

• For the first 5 minutes of the film -The Sandpiper with Liz Taylor and Richard Burton the scene is a beach barbecue - the band is Al Shackman and Peter.

 

• Peter was jailed overnight in 1960 in NY for interfering when a cop was harshly arresting a black guy. No charges but Peter could have sued the police. NY was no longer safe. 

 

• After Reich died in jail, Peter drove out to his house to sympathise, driven off by a shotgun-wielding Anna Reich.

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