Dick Hyman

Feb 22, 2020

9 min read

Updated: 5 days ago

There are great jazz pianists, there are great classical pianists, and then there is Dick Hyman—a musician whose seemingly limitless command of the keyboard makes it difficult to believe that only two hands are responsible for everything coming out of the instrument.

Hyman is one of the most versatile and technically accomplished pianists in American music. Whether tearing through a dazzling stride piano arrangement, improvising a sophisticated jazz ballad, recreating the exuberance of 1920s novelty piano, or performing a delicate Chopin-inspired passage, he seems equally at home in every style. His fingers can move at astonishing speed, but what makes his playing truly remarkable is the intelligence, imagination, and effortless musicality behind every note.

While best known as a jazz pianist, Hyman's accomplishments extend far beyond the keyboard. He is a composer, arranger, conductor, film-score creator, recording artist, and an extraordinary authority on the history of American piano music. His career has encompassed more than a hundred albums, countless concerts, television appearances, Broadway productions, and collaborations with some of the biggest names in entertainment.

And, remarkably, his musical journey has spanned more than eight decades.

A Classical Beginning

Richard "Dick" Hyman was born on March 8, 1927, in New York City, at a time when jazz was rapidly transforming American popular music. Growing up in one of the world's great musical capitals, he was surrounded by an extraordinary variety of sounds, from classical concert music to the increasingly sophisticated jazz coming out of Harlem.

His earliest formal piano instruction came from his uncle, Anton Rovinsky, an accomplished concert pianist who gave Hyman a strong foundation in classical technique, touch, and interpretation.

Rovinsky introduced him to the music of Beethoven and other classical masters, while Hyman independently developed a fascination with Chopin. The Polish composer's ability to decorate and transform a melody particularly appealed to the young pianist, who recognized a surprising connection between Romantic-era piano writing and jazz improvisation.

Hyman once remarked, "Chopin would have been a terrific jazz pianist!" He has also acknowledged that the composer's waltzes continued to influence his improvisations decades later.

Jazz entered Hyman's life through another family member—his older brother Arthur, who introduced him to recordings of the great early jazz musicians. Soon, the young pianist was absorbing the sounds of stride piano, ragtime, swing, and the emerging language of modern jazz.

It was the beginning of a lifelong musical balancing act: one foot firmly planted in the classical tradition, the other swinging enthusiastically to jazz.

Twelve Lessons That Changed Everything

After completing his freshman year at Columbia University, Hyman enlisted in the United States Navy in 1945, serving as a radio technician during the final months of World War II. While stationed at the Great Lakes Naval Station, he also found opportunities to play music with military ensembles.

Following the war, he returned to Columbia, where an unexpected opportunity helped launch his professional jazz career.

A New York radio station sponsored an on-air piano competition, with a rather unusual first prize: twelve private lessons with the legendary jazz pianist Teddy Wilson.

Hyman entered the competition—and won.

Wilson, celebrated for his elegant touch, sophisticated harmonies, and groundbreaking work with Benny Goodman, became an important influence on Hyman's developing style.

Years later, Hyman recalled asking Wilson why his playing could seem wonderful one day and disappointing the next. Wilson offered a wonderfully simple answer: "That's why you practice."

It was a lesson Hyman never forgot.

By the late 1940s, Hyman was already working professionally with established jazz musicians, including vibraphonist Red Norvo and trumpeter Max Kaminsky. In 1950, at the age of 23, he joined Benny Goodman's group for a European tour.

For a young pianist who had grown up listening to the great swing musicians, performing alongside Goodman must have been an extraordinary experience. More importantly, it established Hyman as a musician capable of holding his own among jazz royalty.

A Walking Encyclopedia of Jazz Piano

One of the most remarkable things about Dick Hyman is his ability to reproduce the distinctive playing styles of other pianists—not merely their melodies, but their phrasing, rhythmic habits, harmonic vocabulary, and individual personalities.

Give him the music of Scott Joplin, and he can capture the elegant precision of classical ragtime. Ask for Jelly Roll Morton, and suddenly the piano speaks in the colorful, rhythmically complex language of early New Orleans jazz. James P. Johnson brings thunderous stride piano, while Fats Waller adds playful humor and seemingly impossible leaps across the keyboard.

Hyman has devoted an enormous portion of his recording career to preserving and celebrating this music. His explorations have included the works of Joplin, Morton, Johnson, Zez Confrey, Eubie Blake, Fats Waller, and numerous other pioneers of American keyboard music.

But his interests hardly stop in the 1920s.

He has also recorded extensive interpretations of the Great American Songbook, exploring compositions by Irving Berlin, Harold Arlen, Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Richard Rodgers, and Duke Ellington. His repertoire stretches forward into bebop and modern jazz, encompassing the musical languages of Thelonious Monk, Bill Evans, and other influential innovators.

One particularly fascinating demonstration of his versatility is the 1977 recording Themes and Variations on "A Child Is Born." In it, Hyman transforms the beautiful Thad Jones ballad through the distinctive approaches of eleven different jazz pianists, ranging from Scott Joplin to avant-garde pianist Cecil Taylor, before offering his own interpretation.

It is an extraordinary musical history lesson, delivered by a single performer at a single piano.

And unlike a mere imitator, Hyman understands the musical thinking behind each style. He is not simply copying the notes. He understands why those musicians played the way they did.

The Composer Behind the Pianist

Although his reputation rests primarily on his extraordinary playing, Hyman is also a substantial composer whose works range from short piano pieces to large-scale orchestral and chamber compositions.

Of particular interest to pianists is his collection Etudes for Jazz Piano, consisting of fifteen original compositions inspired by the techniques and musical personalities of great jazz pianists.

These are not merely technical exercises. They are engaging musical compositions in their own right, each exploring a particular aspect of jazz piano technique and style.

Pieces such as Azalea Rag, Decatur Stomp, Cuttin' Loose, and Ivory Strides pay tribute to Scott Joplin, Jelly Roll Morton, James P. Johnson, and Fats Waller, respectively. Through these compositions, Hyman demonstrates how the traditions of American jazz piano can be studied, preserved, and transformed into fresh musical ideas.

For classically trained pianists interested in exploring jazz, the etudes offer a fascinating bridge between two musical worlds. They require considerable technical ability, but also demand a sense of swing, rhythmic freedom, and stylistic understanding that cannot always be learned from printed notation alone.

Hyman's other piano compositions include Indiana Variations, a set of twelve concert variations on the popular song Back Home Again in Indiana, and original ragtime pieces such as The Old Professor.

His concert works extend to a piano concerto, Ragtime Fantasy for piano and orchestra, a clarinet concerto, chamber works, and compositions for various instrumental ensembles.

The breadth of his output reveals a musician who sees few boundaries between classical composition and jazz. To Hyman, they are different languages available to the same musical imagination.

From Ragtime to the Moog Synthesizer

Just when one might think Hyman's interests were firmly rooted in music's past, he demonstrated an unexpected fascination with its future.

During the late 1960s, when electronic music was still in its infancy, Hyman became one of the first prominent keyboard musicians to explore the newly developed Moog synthesizer.

In 1969, he released Moog: The Electric Eclectics of Dick Hyman, an adventurous album featuring electronic interpretations and original compositions. Its most famous track, The Minotaur, became an unlikely popular hit, reaching the Billboard charts.

The contrast is wonderful: the same musician who could faithfully recreate a century-old ragtime performance was now helping introduce audiences to sounds that seemed to come from another planet.

His electronic recordings would eventually influence later generations of musicians, with elements finding their way into hip-hop and other contemporary genres.

It was another demonstration of Hyman's musical curiosity. Although he was a passionate historian of jazz, he was never interested in treating the music as something frozen in time.

Bringing Jazz to the Movies

Millions of moviegoers have heard Dick Hyman's music without necessarily knowing his name.

Beginning in the late twentieth century, Hyman developed a long and fruitful association with filmmaker Woody Allen, whose movies frequently celebrate the music and atmosphere of early twentieth-century America.

Hyman contributed as composer, arranger, conductor, and pianist to more than a dozen Allen films, including Stardust Memories (1980), Zelig (1983), Broadway Danny Rose (1984), The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), Radio Days (1987), Bullets Over Broadway (1994), Mighty Aphrodite (1995), Everyone Says I Love You (1996), Sweet and Lowdown (1999), The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001), and Melinda and Melinda (2004).

It was a particularly appropriate collaboration. Allen's films frequently revisit the bustling New York of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s—the very musical world Hyman knows so intimately.

His work on The Purple Rose of Cairo produced one of his most recognizable original melodies, a beautifully nostalgic theme that perfectly captures the film's romantic, dreamlike atmosphere.

Hyman also worked on films outside the Allen universe, including Scott Joplin (1977), Moonstruck (1987), The Lemon Sisters (1990), and Alan & Naomi (1992).

His film work demonstrates another side of his musical talent: the ability to create exactly the right atmosphere for a story, whether playful, sentimental, dramatic, or irresistibly nostalgic.

Broadway, Ballet, and Beyond

Hyman's talents have also found an enthusiastic home in the theater and dance worlds.

He served as orchestrator for the Broadway musical Sugar Babies, a celebration of classic American burlesque that opened in 1979 and became a major success.

His collaborations with choreographer Twyla Tharp brought jazz piano into the world of modern ballet. He arranged and performed music for productions including Eight Jelly Rolls, Baker's Dozen, and The Bix Pieces, helping translate the rhythmic energy and character of early jazz into movement.

He also composed and performed music for Tharp's The Bum's Rush and created the score for the Cleveland/San Jose Ballet production Piano Man.

In 2007, his ballet The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, commissioned by the John G. Shedd Institute for the Arts and choreographed by Toni Pimble, premiered in Eugene, Oregon.

These collaborations were a natural extension of Hyman's musical personality. His playing has always possessed an almost physical quality, with propulsive rhythms, surprising accents, and moments of humor that seem tailor-made for the stage.

Whether accompanying dancers, creating music for film, or performing alone before a concert audience, Hyman has consistently demonstrated an instinctive understanding of how music can tell a story.

A Remarkable Recording and Television Career

During the 1950s and 1960s, Hyman became one of New York City's busiest studio musicians.

In an era when television networks, recording companies, and advertising agencies relied heavily on live musicians, a pianist of Hyman's versatility was invaluable. He could read virtually anything placed in front of him, improvise convincingly in numerous styles, and adapt instantly to the demands of a recording session.

He worked for NBC as a pianist, organist, and musical director, and served as musical director for entertainer Arthur Godfrey. His assignments ranged from television variety shows to recordings, orchestral performances, and special musical productions.

His work earned seven Most Valuable Player Awards from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, along with two Emmy Awards.

Despite this demanding schedule, he continued developing his own career as a jazz soloist, producing an immense catalog of recordings and collaborating with musicians including cornetist Ruby Braff and fellow pianists Ralph Sutton, Marian McPartland, and others.

Hyman also founded the highly regarded Jazz in July concert series at New York's 92nd Street Y, serving as artistic director for twenty years. The series provided a setting for distinguished performers to explore jazz's history while introducing new audiences to its remarkable variety.

An American Musical Treasure

In 1995, Hyman was inducted into both the Jazz Hall of Fame at Rutgers University's Institute of Jazz Studies and the New Jersey Jazz Society Hall of Fame.

In 2017, the year of his ninetieth birthday, he received one of jazz's highest distinctions when the National Endowment for the Arts named him an NEA Jazz Master. That same year, the Juilliard School awarded him an honorary doctorate in recognition of his remarkable contributions to American music.

Born in 1927, Hyman turned 99 in March 2026—an extraordinary milestone for a man whose career began when swing was still America's dominant popular music.

A longtime resident of Venice, Florida, Hyman has spent decades sharing his musical knowledge through concerts, recordings, and educational appearances.

What makes Dick Hyman so special is not simply that he can play nearly anything. Plenty of great pianists possess dazzling technique. What sets him apart is his remarkable ability to move through the entire history of American piano music as though he had personally experienced every chapter.

He understands the stately elegance of ragtime, the exuberance of Harlem stride, the refined sophistication of swing, the harmonic complexity of bebop, and the adventurous possibilities of modern jazz. He can summon the ghosts of great pianists from the past while speaking in a musical voice that is unmistakably his own.

For anyone interested in the evolution of American piano music, listening to Dick Hyman is like taking a guided tour through more than a century of musical history—with one of the greatest possible guides sitting at the keyboard.

He is not merely a virtuoso pianist, composer, and historian. Dick Hyman is a living connection to the extraordinary musical traditions that helped define American music.

Selected Performances

Carousel Memories (1985) - This lovely little waltz was composed by Hyman for the 1985 Woody Allen film "The Purple Rose of Cairo."

https://youtu.be/Nx2Lmo8abRI?si=NPG0PR803QC-xBpJ

Blues for Jay McShann - I somehow came across a midi file of Dick Hyman playing this piece many years ago. I loved it so much, I transcribed it to sheet music so I could learn it. It's a wonderful example of the piano blues genre.

https://youtu.be/HjJbioT4Ke4?si=XxHiMhM75XbVWrdp

Variations on Shenandoah (1998) - This is a lovely set of piano variations around the American folk song Shenandoah. This piece also has a very nice cadenza that starts at 4:50.

https://youtu.be/oRQjus4SlW4?si=acKudVkqVSVvNG-w