PETTIFORD, OSCAR. Jazz bassist ( in Okmulgee, Oklahoma; in Copenhagen, Denmark). His family moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, when he was three years old. The father organized a family orchestra, including the mother along with eleven children, which toured widely in the Midwest from the 1920s to 1941. Oscar played several instruments as a child, learning from his sisters and brothers. At fourteen he began playing string bass in the family band. In 1943 he left Minneapolis...