Four great pianists - Dick Hyman, Derek Smith, Bill Charlap and Ted Rosenthal - will come together for a powerful evening of "Jazz in the Grand Manner" on Saturday, May 14, at 8 p.m. at Fairfield University's Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts. The concert is the finale of the Quick Center's season-long Jazz Tribute Project and is co-sponsored by the Westport Arts Center.

The four musicians, some of whom have collaborated in the past, will offer a diverse program in tribute to the very best of the piano, which has played an important role in boogie woogie, be bop, ragtime and many other jazz forms.

"Perhaps no instrument in jazz has seen such a dramatic evolution as the piano," said Brian Torff, Fairfield University's Music Program Director. "From the early roots of ragtime and Scott Joplin to the 1920s stride piano of James P. Johnson, jazz piano has exemplified a European instrument that has been transformed into an original American voice."

Embarking on his musical career in the 1950s, Dick Hyman has worked as a pianist, organist, arranger, musical director and composer. He has recorded more than 100 albums under his own name and countless more in collaboration with other artists, favoring the early masters Joplin, Fats Waller and Jelly Roll Morton, as well as the classic standards of Cole Porter, George Gershwin and Duke Ellington.

Hyman's own compositions run the gamut, including "From Chama to Cumbres With Steam," a work for orchestra, jazz combo and pre-recorded railroad sounds, and pieces for choreographer Twyla Tharp's "The Bum's Rush." He is well known to filmgoers, having composed and played for many Woody Allen films, including "Broadway Danny Rose" and "Sweet and Lowdown." His work can also be heard on the soundtracks for "Moonstruck," "The Mask," "The Lemon Sisters" and "Two Weeks Notice."

Hyman has collaborated with Derek Smith, most notably in a set of piano duets called "Dick and Derek at the Movies."

"These... piano duets constitute consuming musical studies that achieve brilliant displays of technique and economy," wrote reviewer Daniel Bartlett, Jr. for All About Jazz. "Hyman and Smith make technically perfect contributions, always at precisely the right moment."

Smith, an Englishman who came to the United States in the 1950s, went from an early job demonstrating sheet music at New York's Macy's department store to stints with the Johnny Carson Show ensemble and Benny Goodman sextets. With an affinity for Big Band, classical and samba, he's played on several movie and television soundtracks and performed on numerous public television broadcasts.

Having played the piano since he was three, Bill Charlap has shared stages with both Hyman and Smith. Charlap has quickly made an impressive name for himself in the jazz world, working with Tony Bennett, Gerry Mulligan, Benny Carter, Red Mitchell and several others.

"Bill should be recognized, even at his young age, as one of the real masters of the piano," said bassist Steve Gilmore, who played with Charlap in 1993, when the pianist was just 27.

Mulligan tapped the pianist for a two-year stint with his Gerry Mulligan Quartet and he has also played with the Phil Woods Quartet. Charlap, who now has his own trio, has performed throughout Europe, Australia and Japan and has played many of the world's major jazz festivals.

Ted Rosenthal first achieved international recognition by winning first prize in the 2 ^nd annual Thelonius Monk International Jazz Piano Competition. Since then, he has performed with many jazz greats, including Mulligan, Woods, Art Farmer, Bob Brookmeyer and Jon Faddis.

A faculty member at the Manhattan School of Music and The New School University, Rosenthal has released nine albums as a leader, all of them featuring original compositions and his trademark jazz "derangements" of standards.

"Rosenthal is a pianist of rarest skill, weaving rapid single note lines that span out into rich chordal patterns, parallel octaves and hints of the blues," critic Leonard Feather wrote in The Los Angeles Times.

While the Quick Center's 2004-05 Jazz Tribute Project concludes with the piano concert, Director of Programming Deborah Sommers said audiences haven't heard the last of jazz at the Quick.

"The events were well attended and the Quick Center is planning more jazz events next season to keep the momentum going," she said.

Tickets are $30. For tickets, call the Quick Center box office at (203) 254-4010 or 1-877-ARTS-396. For more information, visit www.quickcenter.com.

Posted On: 04-10-2005 10:04 AM

Volume: 37 Number: 228