The jazz pianist and composer Dick Hyman discusses his new album, a collaboration with the clarinetist Ken Peplowski, Counterpoint Lerner and Loewe (Arbors Records, 2019), the music of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe, improvisation, and his storied career in music and film, with Joseph Planta.

Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, British Columbia, at TheCommentary.ca.

A new album celebrates the music of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe. Counterpoint Lerner and Loewe features Dick Hyman on piano, and Ken Peplowski on clarinet and tenor sax in duet, doing improvisations of songs from Brigadoon, Gigi, My Fair Lady, Camelot, Paint Your Wagon, and The Day Before Spring. Mr. Hyman joins me now in a conversation we taped a few weeks ago, to talk about his collaboration with Mr. Peplowski, who is considered one of the great clarinetists of our time, someone who it has been said, fills the void in the time since Benny Goodman’s death. We talk about what makes the music of Lerner and Loewe so conducive to improvisation. I ask Dick about his own musicianship, what contrapuntal is, as well as his remarkable career. Dick Hyman has worked as a pianist, organist, arranger, music director, and composer. His career began in the early 1950s after graduating from Columbia University in 1948. He was music director for Arthur Godfrey, an organist on the television program Beat the Clock, and was the composer of original movie scores for Moonstruck, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Bullets Over Broadway, and Stardust Memories. He was a frequent guest on A Prairie Home Companion. He has worked as a soloist, arranger and music director for a myriad of artists from Count Basie, the Mills Brothers, Tony Bennett, Margaret Whiting, Doc Severinsen, Barry Manilow, Pearl Bailey, Billie Holiday, Perez Prado, Kate Smith, as well as two of my favourites Sylvia Syms, and Bobby Short. He received an Emmy, and is a member of the Jazz Hall of Fame of the Rutgers Institute and the New Jersey Jazz Society. In 2017, he received the Jazz Master Award from the National Endowment of the Arts, as well as an honorary doctorate from the Julliard School of Music. This new album is from Arbors Records and is available online and stores now. Visit Dick’s website at www.dickhyman.com. There are so many Lerner and Loewe favourites on this album: “They Call the Wind Maria,” “I Could Have Danced All Night,” “Gigi,” “I Talk to the Trees,” “Almost Like Being in Love,” “On the Street Where You Live,” and “Thank Heaven for Little Girls,” among others. We’ll play his solo of “Gigi” out of the interview. I reached him from his home in Venice, Florida. Please welcome to the Planta: On the Line program, Dick Hyman; Mr. Hyman, good morning.

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