Manhattan jazz hour; Dick Hyman and Ruby Braff

This is the American Public Radio Network. The following program is brought to you by American Express Travel related services company. Welcome to the recorded live with our host. Conversation. Now let's join our host John Wilson. Hello. Welcome to the Manhattan. And it's very exciting to have our guests celebrating the great tradition of American pop music. Before we talk to them let's sit back and listen.

Think think think think. Think. Think think. And now let's go on to another one. What do you got.

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The next. Time I'm at the piano and the trio of Gershwin the man I love. How long has this been going on and what's the title of the third one he loves and she loves and she loves and I never get it straight I love it it can't be right. You two have been together for quite a long time. In fact you've both been in New York for over 30 years and you've been playing together all the time. I think we've been going steady. Well what brought you together as a question. Well music. I think the first time we worked together was on a date of release. The international quartet called it right. Oh yeah what was it. Well I think it was a record thing. Yeah one of the labels. Yeah yeah I think that was the first time that I played a record with you. But I've known about you for as we played at other places together but it was so long ago that it's in the midst of his own. I played with you improve that

and you know and you don't remember. No. Yeah see that I don't remember and I remember when I was a bird but I don't remember that you were there. I've course not. You've done a lot of things together you know in the past 10 years. Well we we made that record the Armstrong revisited record which was the recording live recording of the Carnegie Hall concert on account of which we began to play that concert and Europe. And several times since we recorded before that though too didn't really grab the other end. Well banks around that around that time we made a record of yeah we made James P. Johnson record that Charleston and then we did something before what was and what was the Fats Waller record called heavenly. That's always heavenly. With that you played organ. Yeah I don't know what that was. Now we're getting down to duo situation. That's right the first two well actually was was on that Armstrong record as

part of the concert and then we began making duel records for various labels various reasons. Well Dick you have always been a pianist haven't you. Yeah but you also have played clarinet. I did but I don't like to talk about it. You know I played clarinet well enough to play it in the navy band when I was you in the Navy and I was serving for serving our country and for a while I played clarinet for our country. We won the war anyhow. You know that's all me go yes yes. You seem pretty swift technique in the key of F but so far is the skill of you being and doing well it's and how did that happen. It happened on the James P. Johnson album that we did called Charleston and it occurred to us to do something that would sound somewhat along the lines of. Possible do at that as it might have been played say by Fats Waller in Oregon and maybe

Louis Armstrong on coronet. That was the stylistic thing we were after for a couple of those songs and we did we did a couple of tracks using the piano and then we did one. If I could be with you on the organ and we got that sound pretty well and since then we've been playing some concerts completely using the organ and several of them going back and forth. Was it on the organ cornet duo that you did America the Beautiful. That's right. What led you to that line. Well I think Ruby picked that song. It was the it was a school beautiful beautiful school auditorium high school auditorium and. And the people there really you know jazz of the day were regular working human beings. Normal people the American people actually they were their organ. It was an organ society that invited us to play there. That's right. And so it just seemed very appropriate and with

the pictures of Nixon and Jimmy Carter in front of me and Teddy Roosevelt and all these people. And we had to the program thinking of America the Beautiful. Do you do it as as a piano when cornered. You know what we have but it doesn't have the ground doesn't work. I don't know that it's not the kind of a tune that has to be a reason for it. Yeah. To insert that in the middle of the program and over it is like playing the Star-Spangled Banner from out of nowhere. Yeah. As a matter of fact America The Beautiful Life they got to be the national anthem is far more beautiful than the Star-Spangled Banner the lyrics of amber waves of grain rather than rocket bombs bronzer and all that kind of stuff. Really you know and people can sing it. Yes that's a big point if you go right back to the music. You want to do some Fats Waller. Yeah. I don't you know stride piano. I'm crazy about my baby my baby is crazy.

The way.

The earth. Thing. Will be great. Next time a movie buff playing Jeepers Creepers one

of the many things that Dick Hyman has done is been writing music for what he Allen's films. Is that a very specialized kind of thing. Is it different from writing other kinds of music. Well the films that I've done with what he have all period films 20s 30s maybe 40s music. And as such that's it's a little bit different than doing any other more contemporary kind of thing. And as usual the music has to fit basically that's that's what music is all about. The test has to be in place and kind of cue the cue viewer into an enhancement of his emotional reaction. The music tells you how to feel really. But doing it in a period context as you do does is not related to what you do with it. Rags will

stride piano with the other thing that you and I would hesitate to say you specialize in only going to so many. Yeah it's gotten to be a kind of specialty. Yes but I haven't had too much of an opportunity to play that particular kind of thing in the films even though they're like it was in the 1920s we dealt last with with jazz and more with the dance music styles of the 20s so that that was the nature of that that kind of writing I think was one of the specialties that you developed is something that probably is very little known to most people and that's the I guess you call them piano novelties of the 20s this is comb through thing. How did you get into that. Well it just seemed seemed to be a natural outgrowth of those pieces by contrie and other writers of that matter are not that different and some ways of looking at it from the

pieces of James P. Johnson and the jelly roll. They are different but they're not completely foreign to it is just a little bit over the boundary. I call them not quite jazz but nevertheless they are there. Pianist Dick and many of the same ways. They don't swing. They don't have a list of certain characteristics of. What we recognize as Trask but they're very attractive and very often very humorous and not infrequently kind of difficult to play. Solar Challenge too. Well you've done Jelly Roll Morton and you'll be played and Scott Joplin and James P. Johnson and fats wonder how far along are you coming with doing this sort of thing you want to thing on his mind. No I don't think so I think we're up to about 1930. That's about it. That's the end right. Yeah. I have a feeling we're retrogression we're probably going to go back to before we go forward now but she will be going forward or backward.

You know I don't know if you're going by for him but you come out of Louis Armstrong to a degree don't you know I don't know when Oprah might really does his own thing he's not a well I don't know you start you have to start from somewhere though. I come out of here with all the same things that you and everybody else hears on the radio and every place else and sees in the movies. With this James Cagney Louis strong good and it's all part of everything. That's what jazz is so it's a it's an American experience. What directed you in the way you went and sounds what directed me. Yeah I mean what what were your interests that led you in a lie does not like getting into jazz there would be a lot of the wild things like drinking gambling smoking and sex and and lots of money and crime and drugs and everything and. It's been a very disappointing time. Want to know. If you're the rock. Still trying. That's good. I still try to play tenor on my own. I have got to get my own way somewhere.

That's right. You do play tenor sax style So thank you very much for you and your heart. Well at the risk of being told that nobody else has anything to do with you. Tanner suggests maybe Lester Young might have had something to do. Everybody has something to do. Every Home Rule You mean you actually listen to everybody who's played every chorus. When you talk about you mentioned Louis Armstrong as you say you know one of the if Louis Armstrong influenced everything that had ever happened in American music that that was called Jazz and always derivatives. Everybody the saying play Dance wrote it so and I did it was whistled. Was was it was directed by Louis Armstrong so it's not a thing that it's something that you went through. Nobody nobody goes to the University of Armstrong never receives a diploma. There's no there's no such animal. So you spend your life going to everybody that you just mentioned Lester Young. You mention all these people. Lester Young Johnny Green he had harbored it. Billie Holiday

everybody. They're all just little pupils off of this big tree you know and that's all that is off that big tree. What do you get and where do you come from I don't know what I look at and if as a politician I know. I come from heaven. That's right and I know you and I you know and I know you're not a brain that's what it's come from from other that's what's so wild about this country and it's a music that comes from military marches from from the black church is a Spanish music name that comes from knowing all kinds of things. I mean it's a strictly American product and you can do it any way you feel or with whatever you want because you just mentioned whistling and here is one of our little whistlers. I'm Bruce Hurst whose first record was a whistling record wasn't this great. Yeah but I retired from whistling Crosby was a great whistler. Oh yeah I know you know I want to have the nerve to do a whistling duet with talks to you all when

I retire. I didn't actually know you. I think he was I should point out that Dick's great whistling record was more a talk which is now better known as Mack the Knife and that was the first pop hit of the tune. I believe it was yeah. You playing piano and was yeah. After that there was a record by Louis of course and then there was a record by Bobby Darin and few other people Ella and then my my friend and colleague Richard Hammond played him thereafter and created a joint career for the both of us ever since. What do you think you can go into now but let's not talk let's let's meet we will tell them. John you're not going because we don't know you. OK. This is the this is the great guessing game. I don't know. And we don't know. You know we play so many tones as it drives us crazy sometimes that we have that we can't think of anything but we. Did that tells the whole story. It's all fixed.

It's all fixed. You know some of the things we come out. Me.

And you. Think.

Now. It. Will be from.

Trying. Everything they know wrapped up right there. Well if you think that a common thread was not harboring it was you and you. Yeah that was the man that got away over the rainbow. If I only had a brain. I am I

am. With. The the.

Thank you. Thank you.

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