Dick Hyman

Richard Hyman (born March 8, 1927) is an American jazz pianist and composer. Over a 70-year career, he has worked as a pianist, organist, arranger, music director, electronic musician, and composer. He was named a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters fellow in 2017. His grandson is designer and artist Adam Charlap Hyman.

As a pianist, Hyman has been praised for his versatility. ''DownBeat'' magazine characterized him as "a pianist of longstanding grace and bountiful talent, with an ability to adapt to nearly any historical style, from stride to bop to modernist sound-painting."

Early life

Hyman was born in New York City on March 8, 1927 to Joseph C. Hyman and Lee Roven, and grew up in suburban Mount Vernon, New York. His older brother, Arthur, owned a jazz record collection and introduced him to the music of Bix Beiderbecke and Art Tatum.

Hyman was trained classically by his mother's brother, the concert pianist Anton Rovinsky, who premiered ''The Celestial Railroad'' by Charles Ives in 1928. Hyman said of Rovinsky: "He was my most important teacher. I learned touch from him and a certain amount of repertoire, especially Beethoven. On my own I pursued Chopin. I loved his ability to take a melody and embellish it in different arbitrary ways, which is exactly what we do in jazz. Chopin would have been a terrific jazz pianist! His waltzes are in my improvising to this day."

Hyman enlisted in the U.S. Army in June 1945, and was transferred to the U.S. Navy band department. “Once I got into the band department, I was working with much more experienced musicians than I was used to," Hyman once stated. "I’d played in a couple of kid bands in New York, playing dances, but the Navy meant business — I had to show up, read music, and be with a bunch of better players than I had run into." After leaving the Navy he attended Columbia College. While there, Hyman won a piano competition, for which the prize was 12 free lessons with swing-era pianist Teddy Wilson Hyman has said that he "fell in love with jazz" during this period.

Career

Relax Records released Hyman's solo piano versions of "All the Things You Are" and "You Couldn't Be Cuter" around 1950. He recorded two honky-tonk piano albums under the pseudonym "Knuckles O'Toole" (including two original compositions), and recorded more as "Willie the Rock Knox" and "Slugger Ryan".

As a studio musician in the 1950s and early 1960s, Hyman performed with Tony Bennett, Perry Como, Guy Mitchell, Joni James, Marvin Rainwater, Ivory Joe Hunter, LaVern Baker, Ruth Brown, The Playmates, The Wildcats, The Kookie Cats, The Four Freshmen, The Four Sophomores, Mitch Miller, and many more. He played with Charlie Parker for Parker's only film appearance. His extensive television studio work in New York in the 1950s and early 1960s included a stint as music director for Arthur Godfrey's television show from 1959 to 1961.

Hyman has worked as composer, arranger, conductor, and pianist for the Woody Allen films ''Zelig'', ''The Purple Rose of Cairo'', ''Broadway Danny Rose'', ''Stardust Memories'', ''Hannah and Her Sisters'', ''Radio Days'', ''Bullets Over Broadway'', ''Everyone Says I Love You'', ''Sweet and Lowdown'', ''The Curse of the Jade Scorpion'' and ''Melinda and Melinda''. His other film scores include ''French Quarter'', ''Moonstruck'', ''Scott Joplin'', ''The Lemon Sisters