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Track 8 - Sleep (Lebieg) Composer: Legrand; Ronell; Rodgers; Johnson; Kahn; Weill; Freed; Lebieg; Waller; Warren; Wrubel; Hyman; Berlin
On June 17, 1973, pianist Dick Hyman left home as usual on a Sunday evening to perform at The Cookery in Greenwich Village. This night, however, he did something different - he brought with him a cassette recorder.
Now 30 years later, JRB Records brings Dick's renditions of 13 of his most brilliant performances from that evening in '73 to your ears in 2003! Using the only-recently-available audio technology of Holographic Wide Field Spatialization, JRB has remastered this tape as to give it the fullest and richest sound possible.
But...this is really a 'throwback' recording, where the occasional clinkng of glasses and background chit-chat takes a far back audioseat to the miraculous music-making that is happening live. Hyman's palying is what matters here. At that time his appearances at The Cookery were receiving plaudits from such sources as the Vilage Voice which said, "every Sunday winning new converts...by his superb playing."
Hyman has had a long and illustrious career. In case you need some brush up, here is the short bio on Dick written by noted jazz critic Scott Yanow on All-Music Guide: A very versatile virtuoso, Dick Hyman once recorded an album on which he played "A Child Is Born" in the styles of 11 different pianists, from Scott Joplin to Cecil Taylor. Hyman can clearly play anything he wants to, and since the '70s, he has mostly concentrated on pre-bop swing and stride styles. Hyman worked with Red Norvo (1949-1950) and Benny Goodman (1950), and then spent much of the 1950s and '60s as a studio musician. He appears on the one known sound film of Charlie Parker (Hot House from 1952); recorded honky tonk under pseudonyms; played organ and early synthesizers in addition to piano; was Arthur Godfrey's music director (1959-1962); collaborated with Leonard Feather on some History of Jazz concerts (doubling on clarinet), and even performed rock and free jazz; but all of this was a prelude to his later work. In the 1970s, Hyman played with the New York Jazz Repertory Company, formed the Perfect Jazz Repertory Quintet (1976), and started writing soundtracks for Woody Allen films. He has recorded frequently during the past several decades (sometimes in duets with Ruby Braff) for Concord, Music Masters, and Reference, among other labels, and ranks at the top of the classic jazz field.
This disc documents over 77 minutes of great piano playing with a wealth of knowledge and musicianship behind the notes.