Results for "Dick Hyman"

Dick Hyman

Born: March 8, 1927

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.

Woody Allen: All Stick, No Schtick

by John Ephland
November 3, 2026

When I look back nowadays, the timing of my interview with comedian/filmmaker Woody Allen ("All Stick, No Schtick"), now turning 91, couldn't have been worse. In fact, I felt that way from the beginning, when I pitched this story at DownBeat, published in their October, 1993, issue. But, I had been a fan of his movies ...

Todd Robbins, Part 2: Dave McKenna as saloon pianist…

by Mike Jones
October 26, 2026

In Part 2 of their conversation, the magician, sideshow artist, and ragtime pianist tells Jonesy about his mid-80s job emceeing the piano room at the Fortune Garden Pavilion, where he brought on Tommy Flanagan and Dave McKenna under a greenhouse roof. Dave McKenna asked Todd Robbins to introduce him as “a saloon pianist," so Todd did, ...

Improvising the Russian Classical Composers: Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky and Borodin

by Larry Slater
February 6, 2026

Russia's contribution to the arts over the past couple of centuries has been extraordinary and unparalleled. Russian authors are among the greatest writers of the 19th and 20th centuries. Russia is synonymous with classical ballet and Russian composers transformed classical music. In the 19th century, Modest Mussorgsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Alexander Borodin and Pyotr Ilyich ...

Trilogy, Jose Luiz Martins, Jeff Libman, Medler Sextet, Nancy Kelly Plus Celebrations For Carline Ray, Bessie Smith & More

by Mary Foster Conklin
April 28, 2025

This broadcast continues the celebration of Jazz Appreciation Month with new releases from Trilogy, Jose Luiz Martins, Jeff Libman, Medler Sextet and Nancy Kelly, with birthday shoutouts to Carline Ray (100!), Bessie Smith, Madeleine Peyroux, Judy Wexler, Roxy Coss and Tia Fuller, among others. Happy listening and please support the artists you hear--see them live, buy ...

Celebrating Bix!

By Jon-Erik Kellso

Label: Turtle Bay Records
Released: 2023
Track listing: At the Jazz Band Ball; Proud (Of a Baby Like You); Deep Harlem; Riverboat Shuffle; Davenport Blues; The Jazz Me Blues; Blue River; I Need Some Pettin’; I’m Coming Virginia; Lonely Melody; Clementine (from New Orleans); Trumbology; From Monday On; Singin’ the Blues (Till My Daddy Comes Home); There’ll Come a Time (Wait and See); China Boy; Just an Hour of Love; Borneo; Clarinet Marmalade; ‘Way Down Yonder in New Orleans; San; Deep Down South.

The Bix Centennial All Stars: Celebrating Bix!

by Jack Bowers
September 14, 2023

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 ...

In the Studios-East Coast, Part 1

by Monk Rowe
July 26, 2023

The Art Of The Duo Personified

March 19, 2023

The jazz duo is the ultimate musical challenge. With just two musicians on stage, there is no coasting allowed. You're either doubling on the melody, listening intently to anticipate how to respond to the other player's solo, comping behind him—or all of the above. That fine art was in the spotlight at the 42nd edition of ...

Backgrounder: Milt Bucker's 'Block Chords Parade'

October 27, 2022

What are block chords? That's when a pianist (or guitarist) plays a melody with chords rather than individual notes. This is done with the top note of the chord playing the melody line with chord notes below creating the harmony. Block chords are often played on piano with a “locked hands" technique, when both hands play ...