Dick Hyman on Sound of Jazz

We're happy to have with us on the sound of jazz tonight a man who these days spends a lot of time in our area and will be and has been working on the Sarasota Jazz Festival that you've been hearing a lot about here on WSF NWS FPN that is approaching in the coming week. Dick Hyman Thanks for taking some time from your busy schedule to join us. Thank you very much Bob. You are a part time resident of Florida of our part of Florida these days still between here in New York. I still. You might say commute to New York can I run around the country playing concerts in various areas but I spend as much time as possible here. We have a place in Venice. And it's now our fourth winter as is true. It's nobody's. All right. Well now here's a belated welcome to Florida. Thank you. You a the rest of the time is as well the rest of the time. We're in New York or as I say I'm out on the road somewhere as you put it on one of your liner notes on the nutty 40 seconds how do

naughty frothy bawdy Forty second Street which has a line from the song of that name. That's where that comes from. That's right. Huge you're probably tired of being called Renaissance man. But all of your career it seems to apply composer arranger jazz archivists maybe as well as having your own voice at the piano and movie score. In recent years and a lot of studio work is that something that just kind of came naturally from you or in your career early on to cover a lot of bases. I think it was always the natural thing to do. I don't know quite how it developed but I always had the philosophy that if something needed to be done I would do it and something didn't need to be done I would try to keep my mouth shut and just do whatever the job was. So that developed in a number of unexpected ways and it still is developing that way. Those things you mentioned although jazz archivists is a term I've never been quite comfortable with it seems to to

imply that I spend time in in the dusty libraries looking up. Trivial information. And really it all starts with the fact that early on my big brother. Brought home a lot of classic jazz recordings and at a very early an impressionable age I memorized them and that's really the core of my knowledge. All of those old 78 that he introduced me to. The first wave of reissues which would have been told long time ago now but the first wave of 70 78 reissues on Columbia Records was involved with the biter back biter back when Armstrong and Victor they were there putting out reissues of the Jelly Roll Morton records of the 1920s all of those things. So those were my fundamental instruction.

When I hear some of your music are you working still on or off with Ruby Braff that's been kind of the you didn't studio in concert were we ever. Well in a few years Ruby and I are often. They do it duo and concerts and we made a bunch of records by now. The newest one is My Fair Lady song selections from My Fair Lady. And that's on Concorde. We did it in two sessions and it was a happy time we we were Hurston a lot of that is to say we didn't just go into the studio and hope that inspiration would quit work magic we really thought about the tellings a lot and figure different ways of doing them. But you know not to the point where you could say anything at all was substantial was written down. We just became familiar with them. Then in one case we weren't quite sure which way to go with a certain tone and. That's why. There were two versions. Of different tempo. All the record of with a little bit of luck.

It just came from not being able to decide which would she prefer to do.

Well. It was time to record that song and we just began playing it and then we remembered oh yeah we already were her set and we have an entirely different approach Well let's do that one now. The two of them were about equally good so we put them both on the record. Carl Jefferson had the idea of featuring that funny thing in the notes and in the title of the album we call the Oh My Fair Lady with a little bit with a little extra bit of luck. That's from the most recent recording died on Concord Records spied Dick Hyman who was our guest in the

studio. And Ruby Braff the cornet player the great militarist he has a great sound and he's a wonderful player. He is a. Truly creative and individual player and I consider myself fortunate to have been his partner. Really what was something going 10 between 10 and maybe 12 years ago we first did this. And. As I say we played numerous concerts and. By now maybe half a dozen recordings. It's an unusual do it instrumentation but it harkens back to a pretty good line and 20s with Armstrong in hindsight of pave the way I guess. Well that the idea of piano and cornet. Yes we are directly thinking about Armstrong and Hines. Rick records of 1927 I think a Weather Bird rag was that was the one that really

establishes what can be done with those two instruments. Let's talk up for a minute about the new CD that you have done that is the first direct to CD recording it was a fascinating process. You know we heard some of it last week on the Jazz legacy a couple of things. Is this a brand new release. Yes it has just been released within the last couple of months by reference records which is a San Francisco company that is particularly devoted to high end audio product on the bosun d'Or for reproducing piano it seems sort of like a 90s player piano. Well there it is exactly that a player piano that. While we can recall if we're old enough is the kind that had pneumatic air activating the keys with a. Piano roll. Them in. A. Kind of a scroll of paper with. With perforations in it. Now days the piano is

activated. By Saul annoyed. Electrical. And the whole thing is. Encoded. On a computer disk on floppy disk. This recording was. It was the process was a fellow named Stan who. He calls his process piano mation and he installed it in a wonderful Bose indoor for piano. But the peculiar thing about it is that I recorded it on a piano in New York. Both indoor for piano and then some time later. It was played back on a different piano in Santa Ana California in a recording studio. So what I recorded in an in an acoustical sense was not what I heard back. And it was a very strange sensation because what I heard back on was a better piano than the one I first used.

But technically the technical notes the time everything technically everything every nuance is exactly the way I did it. This is a remarkable piece of equipment that scans each key action eight hundred times a second which is which is so sensitive that. The very touch that a pianist plays with is really really recorded. And the pedal action is has also done in an equivalent way so that what you get may really be. Exactly the way you play it. And in this case what we got was able to be played back on a better piano than the one I played it on. It has a radical improvement right there. And that recreating on another piano on a floppy with a floppy disk involved is pressed direct to compact disc. Yeah well the re creation is then. The way they did this it was very

complicated. But the piano played in the studio. And the signal was converted into a radio signal which was beamed to a mastering studio. And the record was made from that very performance of the piano without any intermediary step tape or any other system. So what you get in the end is a disk which is the master. Any one of the disks you buy is an equivalent master. And that's that's pretty remarkable. Amazing. Well enough for high tech. Let's hear a couple of Fats Waller songs common at the piano at the bosun d'Or for reproducing piano. I am.

I am.

I am. From the newly issued direct to CD compact disc Fats Waller is music

performed by Dick Hyman the common is with us and you're tuned to the sound of jazz here on WUSA from WSF PFM the Sarasota Jazz Festival is upon us. Bigger and better than ever in the 10th Annual it's five nights this year. And unlike previous years every night is really something entirely different and the whole five nights is sort of under the title the amazing Dick Hyman. You've done a lot of work as the music director and planner but you're also in the headlines on this one. I'm the honored guest you might say and I'm very grateful for that. In other words it's my turn in the barrel is here. I think Milt Hinton was the last honorary. He's back this year I will be with us actually this year should be Milt's in many other places Milt is being honored because it's his 80th birthday right. Which is just an amazing thing to think about what we're doing. Some of us are involved in a concert

of Milt's in June for the JVC Festival in New York on his birthday. But here. I am helping Hel Davis with the programming and the we're having we're having more specific themes and more arrangements then I think than in the past. I've been trying to put together a variety of things and some of the some of them are historical sort of things I'm interested in jazz of the past as well as present. And I find the audiences are too so we'll be doing some recreation arrangements of them. Artie Shaw Benny Goodman Jelly Roll Morton Fats Waller and Maki Alexander comes equipped to do two remarkable and very different things he's he has a Nat Cole. Show sings and he plays Matt Coles

style. He's really a versatile musician. He's a wonderful player and versatile. And the other thing he's going to do is bring his. Caribbean trio which includes a steel drummer a percussionist and a regular drummer. So we're will bear the burden for a couple of nights in that way. And then there's a big band night as well in the battle of the bands. Well on the last night we'll divide up all of our forces into two units. And we will. Do that legendary thing called the Battle of the bands which really means it will just play opposite each other and pass the ball back and forth. I have a certain amount of competition but then will join forces to play for Sadie's Ellington and her dancers. And I believe this is the first time there has been any dance at the Cyrus festival. The orchestral night is the second night and that involves. Paul Wolf on the West Coast Florida Florida West Coast Chamber Orchestra

augmented by some of our players from the basic festival. And it is my my compositions for orchestra. Several of them with piano. And this one. I just mentioned for orchestral loan. And then some things I wrote for soloists one waltz Levinsky who played soprano sax in an arrangement I did from a theme from The Purple Rose of Cairo. That's one of the what are you films and wire and that will be featured on a piece I wrote for him called Waltz called called the Bobby Hackett waltz. But you wrote it with Warren in mind. I did write it with Warren in mind yeah because he's very much in the tradition of Bobby high culture then and there's a piece with Milton. Well Milt will be doing a piece which he composed which I

arranged for him called The judge meets the section and it involves Milt as a soloist and for other bass players. Yeah it is but you put an orchestra. Well no that's all there is on that when we're not we're just having pure base. Oh OK. And that. That will be your specialty. What's the next Woody Allen movie going to be about. I don't know I really don't know. I haven't. Been contacted on this and I'm not sure that I will be because what he has the option sometimes of not using an original score at all. I use that as kind of a joke because you know there's the mystique around his movies that there's not to be much talk about as filming goes on and so on but you've done well that's true let's. Call him full of his movies as well as Moonstruck. Yeah. It's true that when you work with what do you work in great secrecy on a need to know basis.

You do music for specific scenes I don't necessarily get to see the entire film that is that's the case in the past anyhow. And it's a pretty unusual way to work I would imagine. Well if it's necessary to see the whole film of course we will but I have a feeling that what he prefers people not to know in the same way that he doesn't title the film every film you work on with what he has called what he Allen's fall project. Which sometimes leads to confusion later which fall project are you talking nineteen eighty five six seven eight. But he's he's wonderful to work with and he's very knowledgeable about what is needed. Musically and otherwise. Do you have a film project in the works or you know I'm between film projects now so let's have a couple of years ago when you were in the process of doing one it was fascinating because I was stopped by your place in Venice and there was a chart on the wall scene by scene and you were filling in what parts had been written and what had not. And it must be a quite a project to

link together what you have to do for scene after scene as the film goes on. It can get pretty complicated you may end up with as many as 40 to 50 separate pieces of music that have to go in the film. Some of them only a few seconds long none of them I would say more than two minutes long. And to do all that you may have to have as many as four five or six recording sessions. Just to keep track of all that I suppose is like a novelist keeping track of all of his characters and making charts about the exact action because it's not only the music that needs to be written it's the law just takes up the individual players who have to be hired in the studio that has to be booked and a few other things of that practical nature.

But it's a big thing with so many different irons in the fire that you might have at any given time are you happy these days with the Division of your labor between playing clubs or concerts and composing and film work and so on. I think so. Actually of what I do now is somewhat different from what I have done in years past. I guess the main difference now is that I become somewhat of a ham and enjoy playing for people. There was a long time when I just primarily played for other musicians and recording studios or broadcasting studios. And I had to really. Get out into the real world and begin playing in clubs and concert halls. Now I do that really more than anything else and I enjoy it. I've gotten to be happy about audiences being there and hoping that they're enjoying what I'm doing. Well continued success with a little time off on the beach

along with it and we'll look forward to seeing you in a lot of other great players in the coming week at the amazing Dick Hyman Sarasota Jazz Festival and thanks for taking some time now. Well thank you very much been very pleasant. Try to. With.

With. Us.