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Dick Hyman
Throughout a busy musical career that got underway in the early '50s, Dick Hyman has functioned as pianist, organist, arranger, music director, and composer. His versatility in all of these areas has resulted in film scores, orchestral compositions, concert appearances and well over 100 albums recorded under his own name. While developing a masterful facility for improvisation in his own piano style, Mr. Hyman has also investigated ragtime and the earliest periods of jazz and has researched and recorded the piano music of Scott Joplin, Jelly Roll Morton, James P. Johnson, Zez Confrey, Eubie Blake and Fats Waller, which he often features in his frequent recitals. Other solo recordings include the music of Irving Berlin, Harold Arlen, Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Richard Rodgers and Duke Ellington. Some of his recordings with combos are From The Age Of Swing, Swing Is Here, Cheek To Cheek, and If Bix Played Gershwin, plus numerous duet albums with Ruby Braff, Ralph Sutton and others. In a different vein, Mr. Hyman was one of the first to record on the Moog synthesizer, and his ?Minotaur? landed on the Billboard charts.
Mr. Hyman's concert compositions for orchestra include his Piano Concerto, Ragtime Fantasy, The Longest Blues in the World, and From Chama to Cumbres by Steam, a work for orchestra, jazz combo, and prerecorded railroad sounds. A cantata based on the autobiography of Mark Twain was premiered with the choral group, Gloria Musicae, in Sarasota. In a growing catalogue of chamber music compositions, his most recent pieces are Dances and Diversions for the Kinor String Quartet, and Parable for a Parrot, a trio for the Palisades Virtuosi. Earlier compositions include a violin/piano sonata, a quintet for piano and strings, and a sextet for clarinet, piano and strings. Mr. Hyman has been heard in duo-piano performances with Derek Smith, in Three-Piano Crossover with Marian McPartland and the late Ruth Laredo, and in pops concerts under the direction of Doc Severinsen. In 2004, after serving as artistic director for the acclaimed Jazz in July series at New York's 92nd Street Y for twenty years, he stepped down, as he has from a similar role in the annual Oregon Festival of American Music. He continues his Jazz Piano at the Y series in New York.
In addition to his activities in the jazz and concert worlds, Mr. Hyman has had a prolific career in New York as a studio musician and won seven Most Valuable Player Awards from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. He acted as music director for such television programs as Benny Goodman's final appearance (on PBS) and for In Performance at the White House. He received an Emmy for his original score for Sunshine's on the Way, a daytime drama, and another for musical direction of a PBS Special on Eubie Blake. He is a member of the Jazz Hall of Fame of the Rutgers Institute of Jazz Studies and the New Jersey Jazz Society.
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The Bix Centennial All-Stars: Celebrating Bix!
by Nicholas F. Mondello
Cornetist Leon Bismark “Bix" Beiderbecke, while certainly heavily influenced by Louis Armstrong, developed his own highly stylized way of playing and improvising jazz. One wonders what musical highlights might have been accomplished had he lived beyond his 28 years. Celebrating Bix!, originally released in 2003 as a single CD album, adds selections which, due to size constraints, did not make the original release, but they all certainly “make it" here as a double CD and vinyl release. What ...
read moreThe Bix Centennial All Stars: Celebrating Bix!
by Jack Bowers
Here's a new album by the Bix Centennial All Stars honoring the legacy of the renowned cornetist Bix Beiderbecke. Sort of. Actually, most of the music on Celebrating Bix! was recorded and released in March 2003, the actual centenary of Beiderbecke's birth in Davenport, Iowa. This expanded twentieth anniversary edition includes a trio of songs not released at that time owing to limited space, and has been reissued on two CDs instead of one. Having said that, ...
read moreIn the Studios-East Coast, Part 1
by Monk Rowe
After the big band era played itself out, the most versatile jazz musicians found plentiful work in the studios, recording every genre of music imaginable. Episode 19 focuses on the East Coast recording scene, specifically New York City. Dick Hyman, Bucky Pizzarelli, Alan Raph, and Manny Albam share their studio stories. ...
read moreAfrican-American Music: A retrospective at Jazz at Lincoln Center
by Nick Catalano
One of Jazz at Lincoln Center's most thoughtful concert ideas in recent memory came to life at the Appel Room on March 2, 2018. Dubbed “Rags, Strides & Habaneras" the intimate program managed to survey a host of strategic forms from origins in West Africa that shaped the art of music in the Americas. Most jazz fans know about ragtime and its popularity a century ago, which was led by the genius of Scott Joplin. Ageless piano wizard ...
read moreDick Hyman & Ken Peplowski: ...Live At The Kitano
by Dan Bilawsky
If musical knowledge and taste were currency, pianist Dick Hyman and clarinetist Ken Peplowski would be two of the wealthiest men around. Hyman, an octogenarian legend with killer technique and near-unparalleled knowledge about virtually every style of jazz, and Peplowski, the witty woodwind wonder who stands tall as one of the clarinet kingpins on the scene today, make for a perfect match. Both men have deep respect for the tradition(s) of this music, but neither one looks at jazz as ...
read moreDick Hyman: The Beat Goes On
by Chris M. Slawecki
Composer, arranger, bandleader, pianist, soloist and accompanist Dick Hyman has already lived several jazz lifetimes, and as he contemplates his 86th birthday in March 2013, his career shows no sign of slowing down.A New York City native, Hyman served as pianist with a Dixieland band and with Lester Young at the December 1949 opening of Birdland. He served as pianist for Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie when they blew through “Hot House" on network TV in 1952 (the ...
read moreHeather Masse & Dick Hyman: Lock My Heart
by Dan Bilawsky
In a way, vocalist Heather Masse has come full circle with the release of Lock My Heart. As a youngster, Masse used Dick Hyman's Professional Chord Changes and Substitutions for 100 Tunes Every Musician Should Know (Warner Bros., 1986) as a vocal road map through the world of jazz standards; little did she know she'd be recording with the very man who put the book together less than two decades later. Masse, who hails from Maine and ...
read moreDick Hyman and Austin High Revisited
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
In 1922, five white high-school teens started a jazz revolution. All attended Austin High School on Chicago's West Side and were mad about jazz—the jazz that came up to the city from New Orleans in 1920. That's when Prohibition led to bootlegging, organized crime, and speakeasies and clubs run by gangsters who needed exciting music to keep patrons drinking. The Austin High Gang, as they became known, took New Orleans jazz and gave it a peppy bounce, making it ideal ...
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Jazz Musician of the Day: Dick Hyman
Source:
Michael Ricci
All About Jazz is celebrating Dick Hyman's birthday today!
Throughout a busy musical career that got underway in the early \'50s, Dick Hyman has functioned as pianist, organist, arranger, music director, and composer. His versatility in all of these areas has resulted in film scores, orchestral compositions, concert appearances and well over 100 albums recorded under his own name. While developing a masterful facility for improvisation in his own piano style, Mr... Read more.
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Celebrating a man and his music
Source:
Ken Franckling's Jazz Notes
The depth and breadth of pianist, arranger and composer Dick Hyman’s career seems astonishing by any musical standards. Most aspects of his career, which began in the late 1940s in the thriving Manhattan music scene, were touched upon Tuesday, March 7 at the 37th annual Sarasota Jazz Festival. The evening’s journey, which Hyman called “wallowing in nostalgia,” featured the pianist with an all-star cast of supporters. They were pianist Bill Charlap, guitarist Russell Malone, tenor saxophonist Houston Person, trumpeter Randy ...
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Jazz Musician of the Day: Dick Hyman
Source:
Michael Ricci
All About Jazz is celebrating Dick Hyman's birthday today!
Throughout a busy musical career that got underway in the early \'50s, Dick Hyman has functioned as pianist, organist, arranger, music director, and composer. His versatility in all of these areas has resulted in film scores, orchestral compositions, concert appearances and well over 100 albums recorded under his own name. While developing a masterful facility for improvisation in his own piano style, Mr... Read more.
Place our Musician of the Day ...
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The fine art of solo jazz piano
Source:
Ken Franckling's Jazz Notes
Either as a snowbird or a full-time resident, pianist-composer-arranger Dick Hyman has lived 30 miles up the road in Venice for a few years longer than the Charlotte County Jazz Society has existed. The stars aligned on Monday, February 13, for Hyman to make his first CCJS appearance in Port Charlotte. It was long overdue. And it was also the first solo piano concert that the society has presented in its 27 seasons. Sitting center stage at the Cultural Center ...
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Jazz Musician of the Day: Dick Hyman
Source:
Michael Ricci
All About Jazz is celebrating Dick Hyman's birthday today!
Throughout a busy musical career that got underway in the early \'50s, Dick Hyman has functioned as pianist, organist, arranger, music director, and composer. His versatility in all of these areas has resulted in film scores, orchestral compositions, concert appearances and well over 100 albums recorded under his own name. While developing a masterful facility for improvisation in his own piano style, Mr... Read more.
Place our Musician of the Day ...
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Dick Hyman in Concert
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Last Friday, I drove down to Princeton University to hear jazz pianist Dick Hyman perform and review the concert for today's Wall Street Journal (go here). Dick, at 88, remains astonishing. If you're unfamiliar with him, Dick is a one-man Smithsonian when it comes to playing jazz keyboard styles. Jazz, today, is hardly easy music, but it was a much tougher physical challenge years ago, when ragtime and stride were in vogue. Dick is a master of those and every ...
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Jazz Musician of the Day: Dick Hyman
Source:
Michael Ricci
All About Jazz is celebrating Dick Hyman's birthday today! Throughout a busy musical career that got underway in the early \'50s, Dick Hyman has functioned as pianist, organist, arranger, music director, and composer. His versatility in all of these areas has resulted in film scores, orchestral compositions, concert appearances and well over 100 albums recorded under his own name. While developing a masterful facility for improvisation in his own piano style, Mr... Read more. Place our Musician of the Day ...
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Swinging At The Pearl: Catherine Russell, Dick Hyman & The Jim Cullum Jazz Band
Source:
Don Mopsick
For this week’s Riverwalk Jazz radio show, bandleader Jim Cullum welcomes two guest artists. One is piano master and old friend Dick Hyman, a guest on our first radio show in 1989. The second is a new friend, making her Riverwalk Jazz debut in 2010—jazz singer Catherine Russell. The program is distributed in the US by Public Radio International. You can also drop in on a continuous stream of shows at the Stanford Archive of Recorded Sound. Hyman joins The ...
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Jazz Musician of the Day: Dick Hyman
Source:
Michael Ricci
All About Jazz is celebrating Dick Hyman's birthday today!
Throughout a busy musical career that got underway in the early \'50s, Dick Hyman has functioned as pianist, organist, arranger, music director, and composer. His versatility in all of these areas has resulted in film scores, orchestral compositions, concert appearances and well over 100 albums recorded under his own name. While developing a masterful facility for improvisation in his own piano style, Mr... Read more.
Place our Musician of the Day ...
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