Oscar Peterson was 17 years old when, in 1942, he joined one of Montreal’s leading dance bands of the day.

The Johnny Holmes Orchestra played on Saturday nights at Victoria Hall  in Montreal, from 1941 through 1951, broadcast on CBC radio, and occasionally toured in Quebec and Ontario.

Another member of that orchestra was Henry Kelneck.

“Dad played, I suspect a year or two, with Oscar in the Johnny Holmes band. Oscar was the pianist and dad was the lead trumpet,” said Kelneck’s son Ike, also a musician and a Bracebridge realtor.

Oscar Peterson died on Dec. 23 at his home in Mississauga, from kidney failure. He was 82.

The association between Kelneck and the virtuoso who would become known globally as one of the most talented musicians ever to play jazz piano, lasted for many years and covered many miles.

It was an invitation from Kelneck that brought Peterson to Timmins and an introduction to young Ike.

“I was born in Montreal, but we moved to Timmins in 1944. I was just over a year old,” said Kelneck.

“My dad had his own dance band in Timmins, Henry Kelneck’s Orchestra. He also had a music store.”

In 1946, Kelneck asked Peterson and Johnny Holmes if they would go on tour around northern Ontario with him and a couple of other musicians. The two men agreed.

It was a trip that could have spelled disaster.

On  April 11, 1946 Peterson, Kelneck, Holmes and another musician, Bill Kuinka, were in a cab heading to North Bay. About seven miles out of town and travelling at about 80 mph, the left rear tire of the car blew out and the vehicle rolled and landed on its top.

Peterson’s neck was badly wrenched, Holmes suffered a back injury, Kelneck cuts and bruises and Kuinka a wrenched shoulder.

Despite the trauma, the band went on to give a stellar performance to a packed house in North Bay. Watching from the wings, however, was Kuinka, whose bass was completely destroyed in the crash.

Ike Kelneck was just three at the time and his memory of Peterson comes a couple of years later.

“Dad brought home a piano from the store. I was five and had started taking music lessons,” recalled Kelneck, sitting on the same stool at that same piano, which now graces the living room of the Kelnecks’ log home just outside Bracebridge.

“I remember sitting on this very piano stool with Oscar. He was playing and I was totally enthralled by his ability. I remember him turning to me and saying, ‘If you want to get serious about playing piano, come and see me and I will teach you.’”

“Oscar at that time was the world’s finest piano player and he taught on the side in Toronto. You were very lucky if you got him. I never took him up on his offer. I regret it now.”

While Kelneck went on to attain Grade 10  piano with the Royal Conservatory of Music, he opted more often to play for fun.

“Indeed, when I put my bands together it is always for the purpose of promoting fun and happiness rather than serious music,” he said. He can now only play “by ear,” he added.

While his memory of Peterson is sketchy, there was one fact that came to light some years after he met him that still amazes Kelneck.

“All those years ago I am sitting on the left side of Oscar, who is impressing the heck out of me, and over the years I remember that and talking about him becoming a world-renowned pianist,” he said.

“It wasn’t until my late teens, when I saw a picture of him hanging in a Toronto window, did I notice that he was black. I just remembered this big, jovial man who was a great pianist.”

Henry Kelneck died in 1992 and his son tried then to get in touch with Peterson to let him know. “Oscar wasn’t well and his sister was fielding calls and wouldn’t let me get through to him.”

Kelneck was never to meet Oscar Peterson again, although he followed his career with considerable interest.

“About five years ago, Oscar was supposed to be in concert and we were going to go with my mother, who knew Oscar of course, but the concert was cancelled due to his ill health. Oscar Peterson was very arthritic by then.”

For many years, Kelneck said he thought about going to see Peterson at his Mississauga home, but never did.

“And I regret that,” he concluded.