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Dick Hyman Keyboard January 1995

The document discusses the musical contributions of Dick Hyman, a versatile jazz pianist known for his ability to emulate various jazz styles and artists. It highlights his extensive career, collaborations with jazz legends, and his mission to educate others about the history of jazz piano. Hyman emphasizes the importance of understanding the roots of jazz to enhance contemporary playing, particularly in the context of ragtime and stride piano styles.

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66 views14 pages

Dick Hyman Keyboard January 1995

The document discusses the musical contributions of Dick Hyman, a versatile jazz pianist known for his ability to emulate various jazz styles and artists. It highlights his extensive career, collaborations with jazz legends, and his mission to educate others about the history of jazz piano. Hyman emphasizes the importance of understanding the roots of jazz to enhance contemporary playing, particularly in the context of ragtime and stride piano styles.

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anavigante
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BY ROBERT L. DOERSCHUK dick hyman past tenths & other musical highlights of jazz piano history obody would ever mistake Dick Hyman for, say, Fats ‘Waller. Nobody, that is, except listener witha fine tuned pair of ears and a taste forthe bes in jazz piano. Like Waller, Hyman plays an ebullient stride — clean, speedy tenths altemating with chords inthe let hand intricate structural variations in the right. But there's more. On any given night, Hyman can fool even the disceming jazz gourmet with recreations of Teddy Wilson's spare, smooth lines, o Bill Evans's neo-Impressionist harmonies, or just leres= These broader harmonies are made pos- sible by the freer bass movernent. Thats right. The bass note changes the chord inversion. All this is miles away from standard ragtim How does that affect the right hand? Well the right hand is obliged to change chords frequently — typialy, every two beats. [See Ex. 4, page 61] Now the game of getting from here to there becomes more interesting, There’ this embroidery in the right hand, which often includes the melody and is punctuated every now and then by syn- copated accents. [See Ex. 5, page 61.] Since it stil a solo piano style, the right hand is fully voiced because it's still gen- ‘erating ehythm. ‘Yes, you'r playing more than one note, at that tempo anyhow, in the right hand. Isa full and vigorous style. It should be linc andthe barn nmonotons hat would come with bebop (See page 68) CONTROL YOUR OWN Micziter [Personal Monitoring System| POESNOTAFFECT HOUSE ICINPUT & ine SURE HEADPHONE (OUTPUTS BASS & TREBLE CONTROL OF Mix EASILY CLIPS TO MIC STAND MANY OTHER, FEATURES! os? $299 For FREE info call the MonitorMate Hotline at 714/858-1685 [Engineering incorporated hs, wanaanita cA soe ay juthafu=in’ 9 Ty STU ee zlvlip een tm SUE) LUST ADR ye Lis ie Sate uy S tanest rie dick hyman done as neatly as Fats Waller did it. You don’t want to pussyfoot on it; it has to be done with conviction. Earl Hines Although he was ‘more ofa catalyst in the development of ‘modern jazz piano, Earl Hines predated the stride movement bby a couple of years. Inshard to use the terms “predate” or WWI en WALLY coms cote We saved tal for yu, 404.497.0875. Recorded DEMO + 404.623.5887 DEMO DISK available for $5.00 Millions of Drum Beats, Rhythms, Bass, Melody and Lead Parts... One Software Package, [ote et nh rcs CS nko ray orto mse all, aay of tet Seo ans nko 256 sack GBP 201 See a or commnd, 6B conf mation pram Wl Sac al prorat he AMOR combine mac tary einige nd rendnnes oat ne guy mesa pares fo you ch ie you compote mean i an xt, uel emt compen you coms of eck mais on ch rac, out te espns, fects en ee fat loam So cnt WAIL! hoe icon wrk of in ma at wh “antedate” because many ofthese things ac- tually happened at about the same time Some things were more influential than oth- ers, andthe les influential things more or less died out, but people didn’t change just because the 20s were ending. They weren't really thinking about what era the jazz history ‘books would place them in. For example, I think that Ea Hines had sore relationship to lly Roll Morton as well aso Louis Arm- strong, whom everybody agrees was the source of alot of his thinking. Hines himself said that he’d been playing “trumpet style” some years before he began to play with Louis. He played very much lke Armstrong, 2 JAMMER. "The Complete PCMIDIStadio" (Studio Musicians Included | bot broke up the octave lines with runs You have to remember that all f these styles wore before microphones were used for pub- lic performances. Inthe case of Hines in par- ticular, fhe was playing in a band with Arm stron, re certainly had to play loud: he had to play principally in octaves. That's what you hear on his records. As far as his leit hand was concerned, he used tenths alot, and he broke up his pattems even more than Jelly Roll ci. Yue sil talking maily about slo per formances. When Hines recorded with _r0ups, his lft hand didn't seem tha active. Well, remember this: Because of the une advanced state of recording technology at the time, whenever a pianist had a solo, everybody else stopped. That may not have been the case when they were playing live, but when a group came toa piano solo dur- ing a recording, all the other instruments ropped out. Once ina wile you might hear drums keeping time, but theyre clearly across the room, leaking ito the microphone. No bass, no guitar or banjo. ‘He did develop certain idiomatic uns. Thee more arpeggios than runs. That {sto say, instead of fingered repetition, the whole hand is displaced: ‘That's more what | would call a run in the Tatum sense. define runs as being more ‘complex than arpeggios. Within the context of Hines playing these figures wore largely ornamental. You could hear the melody, but you were moving closer to freer blowing. ‘Actually, Hines abandoned the melody Quite often, to the extent that Armstrong might. Armstrong also had a vocabulary based on dramatic calls and effects, which often displaced the melody altogether, es- pecially onthe second or third chorus, Hines ‘ery offen did the same thing. Infact, | could give an impression of Hines without playing therelody ata (Soe Bx. 6, page 621 Theres 1n0 melody, but the right hand play a bundle of those characteristic phrases The whole fee! ofthis stride is different from the earlier style. Its sort of ouncien, That's right. I's swing etm pr pe pra led Ara b. ee 7 fi z | eet a ES 133 eee ae ero 3 i+ = te tg dick hyman Teddy Wilson - And that leads sto ta Teddy Wilson Siliscally Tey Wilson was a son of Hines He det nee esarlyplaynocaes heused moe dela Sige noes. ke 102y that Hines was, 1 toan ester piano ‘Asng Tel was more ike a caine He Ben Goednan This hye an Gavan ftiogaer and probably influenced each her inthe conceptions ofboth melody ad tine Bat insane Wison shared a sian see thelet and wih he walking tes Inge tems ofrastal character Hines was exc, and het, Won was calm and cool. Hines was fierce, Wilson was careful. You studied fora while with Wilson took 12 lessons with him and stayed in touch with him aerwatds, Isthre a keel to what you lead rom hi that til guides you asa player? Wel here was one if wisdom asked tim once what cull do about the fact that sometimes was ableto play quite wel but othertimest knew! wasn doing well t all He si, simply, “Thats why you practice (Ofcourse that was so cbvious that you might overlook it Inevitably, each of us has days Con which we don’t play at our highest level You practice so that even on the bad days the level is high enough, Did he look atthe style you had and ty to encourage what you were already doing, or were you mainly learning Teddy Wilsonisms from him? Idontthink we thought about sy. | want edto play with the musicality and the ease that he had. He demonstated runs and fin- sing, and showed me some important chord Substitutions on the songs of his repertoire. Subsite chords are another milestone in the evolution of jazz plano, What ws his approach? “Londonderry Air” would be a prey good Teddy Wilson tune [See Bx. 7, page 63,] He was doing many of those things that bop pes latched onto with alot more emphasis, substituting this for that: Playing the lowered Il instead of the V. Alotof this chromatic movement was an- ticipated in eatirjaze piano styles The let hand was really out of Earl Hines. Of course, we associate Teddy as much with tals as wi fast things, such 25 “fer Youve Gone.” it was in the siow tunes that he did some of his most intresting harmoni There were passages in the work o pianists, and even in Morton, where the let: hhand pattern would be broken by walking tenths. Wilson tok that idea but started the pattern at unusual places in the scale, which would fead toa th resolution atthe end of the phrase. Especially inthe fast tempos, Teddy set a standard that a let of people emulate Mel Powell isa marvelous example of a Teddy Wilson exponent. Attimes he even caried Teddy’ approach further than Teddy had DIP enener se eaten re DUNST ges oie Da Beeston Gertie MP TERe ence) See ets erent GB xevsosnowanvany 1995 ee iow i aa eae Remeeneners done. As a solo pianist, or with minimal rhythm, Teddy used a modified stride bass within the range of a tenth, with only 2 cou- ple of notes in the afterbeals, A lot of his runs \were pentatonic and best played with the first, second, and thir fingers. It appears to be awkward, but isthe most reliable: But apart fom the fingering, the rhythmic drive of a line of eighth-notes in this style is very effective. Benry Goodman and Lionel Hampton had the same feeling. The fet hand was getting lighter. More of the rychmic impetus was camming fom te ight Players are depending more and more on the rhythm section, That’ not unrelated to developments in recording technology. “That's right. You could now record the cums in fll and hear the bass. Some players like Teddy modified their playing because of the other instruments The harmonic language was sil fairly consonant. You only went outside at points of high tension leading to a cadence. Yes, and sometimes because chromatics lead you to something unexpected. Some- times you emerge in steange territory. Art Tatum Teddy lot up to art Tatum, whichis kind of like climbing fom 2 scenic hilltop to the peak of Mount Everest. ‘Tatum reverted, ina sense, to being ‘solo pianist par ex- cellence. When he played with a rhythm section, it was clear that he didn’t need them. They often ap- peared to get inhis way. He was, I think, fun- ‘damentally a stride player out of Fats Waller, as he acknowledged, But he had so much ‘on top of that in the way of harmonic ad- vvancernent, Lisztian runs, touch, and all that. "Londonderry Aie” was really made to order for Tatum. [See Ex. 8, page 67.1 This is the frst crossed hanes plying you've done today, which indicates thatthe separate roles ofthe hands are beginning to blur ‘That’ true. Tatum developed a lot ofthis sort of playing because he had been exposed to Lis, Chopin, and other nineteenthcentury piiano music. Sometimes you can spot literal ‘quotes; a favorite ending of his was out of lise] Liebestaume. So, ina way, he applied ‘well developed schoo! of pianism tothe poo. tuler song, but always with an underpinning of steady dance tempo and jazz/olves tonal You were also playing a few whole-tone passages. Certainly he used whole-tones. His har- monic universe started with nineteenth-cen- tury Romantic devices, went through De bussy and Ravel with respectto wholestones, and parallel movement, and involved a ‘acility with chromaticism comparable, per- haps to Scriabin’s. He voiced his chords very widely in the left hand, usually to fill tenth, and his ight hand often descended to extend the lefthand chords. He had the most mar- -velous balance between his harmonic sense and dramatic technical flourishes. Some people have criticized Tatum for being overly technical. Iemay be that his performances should be considered separately. Hearing a whole CD can be ovenvhelming: the frequent climaxes ‘may demand too much from some listeners. Even so, | dont think this is a good reason for some ofthe anti-Tatur writing Ive seen, There’sa certain amount of sour grapes. Oh, there is that. Also, I think that some titers give away their lack of comprehension lf music by saying that everything Tatum GOODMAN MUSIC \ World's Largest Selection of Keyboards » Computers * Pro Audio Digital Recording, MIDI Software Synthesizers, Workstations, Samplers Pro DAT's, Recordable CD, Multitrack CALL 1-800-842-4777 y ‘GOODMAN MUSIC--Universal City 3501 Cahuenga Boulevard West Hollywood, CA 90068 213/845-1145 Mc, VISA, AMEX, OPTIA DISCOVER, DINERS, CARTE BLANCHE, APPLE & ROLAND CREDIT dick hyman and use contrary motion at the same time: afin loverszete Sea Sometimes, if you slow them down, his lines are almost bebop. As fr the harmonic implications think it can now be said — no ‘one will throw a rock at me— that he was \way ahead of any of the boppers who followed him. Certainly he was ahead ofthe pianists. Charlie Parker did the best he could, but he .vassll playing aingle-note instrument. Turn ‘went about as far as you could go in Reenantic harmonies. It did seem to me that he avoided diminished chords, Instead of doing this: 03 Chim he would do: 5 cin ey 8 Pete Instead of a Gt diminished, he would make. it a Cim6. It's amusing, because certain melodies don't quite work with that spelling, Nevatholes, he would rather ake the melody than fall into the plain diminished voicing. ‘Maybe Tatum avoided diminished chores because they're harder to personalize. His approach pened the possibility of stacking extensions on top of the chord. | guess so, although you can do many things with a diminished chord. | think he Just wanted to make a substitution that no ‘one else was doing, And, to me, Em7 to m6 to Dm sounds more elegant than Em7 to Eydimto D7. | prefer itto Em? to Eym7 0 Dmi7 as wel. Anather harmonic use, when you listen closely isto add the lowered fith to a minor seventh, asin the first chord in the bridge on his version of “Cherokee,” What about his uns? A lotof them were simply conventional scales, done with great rapidity. They often siarted with a flourish above the main part: \F love He wouldnt necessarily do the same thing all the way up or down, He'd mix elements cof several different runs into a continuing line that was more than just a pattem. This is where you might get an impression of bop. Did you learn anything from watching him play that might not be apparent from listening to his records? The main thing was the ease with which he did everything, Itjust happened, | learned that ifs possible to play the most incredible things with a minimum of wasted effort. Bill Evans Lets end with Bil Evans Itseems to me that Evans didn't feel com- ‘Tom Coster, who brought you Let's Set The Record Straight, the record Narada Michaet Walden clled."A tremendous achievement ithe World of music and ‘one ofthe top 10 fusion records of 1995, now takes things a step further. ‘The Forbidden Zone, an uncompromised, in your face, musical experience. THE FORBIDDEN ZONI WVER040-2 (ED ONE ‘To ordor by phone with 2 major ereit card, cal tl ras 1-900-888-0574, For a free stalog write fo; IVC Music, 2800 Barham Bid, Suite 305, Los Angeles, CA 90088, 72 KEYBOARDWANUARY 1995 MIDI Gear Signal Processors Digital Multitrack Mixing Consoles Microphones Monitors 800-444-5252 Price Quotes & Information: 505-292-0341 Fax 505-293-6184 800 $-T Juan Tabo Blvd NE ‘Albuquerque, NM 87123, pled o keep the un- derlying beat explic, as Tatum did, Tatum being at hear a solo Pianist, Evans, ike the bulk of players since Court Base, was able to float along on top of a thythm section, but often in a more Taid-back manner than had been the custom before him, You might say that he didnot fel the need to call attention to the dance beat. Nor, unlike Tatum, did he need to be the whole orchestra harmonically. He often used only the top notes of complex chords. Omitting the root? Well, | think Evans assumed that a bass player, particularly Eddie Gomez when they were working together, would be doing something interesting down there. One of the mos important things about Evans’ har- ‘mony is that he got into chords in which the bottom four tones would be a fourth apart Emotionally, although he played in various ‘other ways, I think that his characteristic con- iribution was a sense of introversion and inelancholy Perhaps | ust read this into his playing, knowing about his addiction and tragic end. [See Ex. 9, page 70.1 ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTES Tins, ng_sondbewven Arca {lin x tar anaiog sun wate go in tga, weve heraly gb 8 toward ot fern Sesiten pioneer ine anaiog sound oret two eocades apo. So dent ese aroun, Sin te orginal The Mat T0C0 evo al the warner cust Rees tha On eh ‘nag srieszer ean uit completely in the USA using the moet ‘olabis comport, th Mato, 1000 ead for Sour ack for under sx hundred bucks The Matix 1000 Festus a uriaue “eroup” ‘ode tat als two Mate 1600 units Bo Imes togetior and operate as. a slo {Bevo smtbeciae. Up to ei ate 1000 Unie ean be. combined In tls, Way. MDL Gutarts wil aporeete the. Nati. 1060 ‘tari ode” which sats each ot he sh vues tan hela! sng Oberheim. MIDI SEQUENCES pee) NE Geneon roomie SEND NO MONEY NOW! That's right, we want to make subscribing to Keyboard 80 easy that you don't even need to send us any money now. Allyou have to dois send us your name and address on a piece of paper, ‘and tell us that you Want to be ‘bile’ $19.97 fora 1 year subscription to Keyboard. It's that simple. Your frst issue will be in the mail as Soon as Your request is processed. Send to: Keyboard P.O. 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