He was 82.
One of the best loved figures of the jazz world, Peterson played with all the greats during his six decades in the business with a versatile style that ranged from boogie-woogie to stride to bebop.
The Montreal native succumbed to kidney failure on Sunday night, CBC television and Radio-Canada reported. He defied ill health in his later years and continued to record even after a stroke in 1993 disabled his left hand.
His studio and live partners included Roy Eldridge, Charlie Parker, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Nat King Cole, Stan Getz and Lester Young.
A genius at improvisation, Peterson recalled in 2005 how the heat of live free-form jazz could enable "moments of great beauty to emerge."
The Canadian, who won seven Grammy awards including the Grammy for Lifetime Achievement in 1997, was born in 1925 to a railway porter father who was a talented amateur pianist.
Young Peterson's talent was clear enough at high school that he came under the tutelage of Hungarian classical pianist Paul de Marky, who taught the budding jazz great "technique and speedy fingers."
After winning a CBC radio talent show aged 14, Peterson went on to drop out of school and play on a weekly jazz program before hitting the hotels and music halls of Montreal.
Overcoming the endemic racism of the era, in 1943 he became the first black musician to play in a dance music orchestra in Montreal.
Aged 24, Peterson's international career got off to a sensational start when he was brought on stage at New York's Carnegie Hall in 1949 by the impresario Norman Granz.
He later regularly toured European clubs and concert halls, often accompanied by the stellar voice of Ella Fitzgerald.
Married four times, Peterson leaves behind six children.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2007