"Tribute to Eddie Higgins"
featuring Dick Hyman
Eddie Higgins : 1932-2009
"When Eddie Higgins sat down at the piano, savvy listeners expected something close to perfection..."
"When he played at the London House, a lot of times the main act did not want to follow him -- or shouldn't have," said former Chicago pianist Judy Roberts, who took over Mr. Higgins' spot at the London House in 1969...
Howard Reich, Tribune critic
Full story: The Tribune
We will miss his precision and his wonderful personality!
Gold Coast Jazz Society
Born and raised in New England, Eddie (Haydn) Higgins started his professional career in Chicago, while studying at the Northwestern University Music School. For twenty years Eddie worked at some of Chicago's best known jazz clubs, including the Brass Rail, Preview Lounge, Blue Note, Cloister Inn and Jazz Ltd. His longest and most memorable job was at the London House, where he led the house trio for twelve years, playing opposite the biggest jazz stars of the 50's and 60's, including Stan Getz, Oscar Peterson, Dizzy Gillespie, Errol Garner, George Shearing, Cannonball Adderley, Bill Evans and many others.
During his stay in Chicago, Eddie recorded a number of albums under his auspices and many more as a sideman with a wide variety of musicians, ranging in style from Coleman Hawkins to Wayne Shorter, Don Goldie to Freddie Hubbard, Jack Teagarden to Al Grey. Eddie's versatility is well-known: he has backed singers, done studio work as both pianist and arranger and worked in every jazz medium from Dixieland to Modern Jazz.
In 1970, Eddie moved to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida and began spending winters in Florida and summers on Cape Cod, where he plays local clubs and enjoys sailing and tennis. Since the early 1980's, Eddie has traveled widely on the jazz festival circuit and has performed frequently in Europe and Japan. His releases on the Japanese "Venus" label have earned him number one in jazz sales on more than one album. In 1988, Eddie and jazz singer/pianist/artist Meredith d'Ambrosio were married and have become a popular team at clubs and festivals, as well as recording for Sunnyside Records.
In recent years, Eddie's recording activity has become even more prolific and attention to his play has grown to be more widely recognized. He has received praise from such as Nat Hentoff and Gary Giddons. Attempts to describe his style are exemplified by the following:
"....Higgins' style is relaxed and swinging, with an easy delicacy about it that reminds one of Hank Jones or Bill Evans." Herb Nolan, Down Beat
"....Brilliant, fully developed piano sets....plays piano with a master's touch....a dazzling dynamic range." Sam Lesner, Chicago Daily News
"....Hearing this piano for the first time, you would say 'good taste and a sensitive touch.' Like Hank Jones and the late Nat 'King' Cole, he's an orderly player whether romping with the blues or delineating a tender waltz." Owen Cordle, Raleigh News And Observer
To these tributes, I would add that Eddie's play can be extraordinarily moving. Listen to his treatment of Brazilian themes on "Speaking of Jobim" and solo work on the album "Time On My Hands," the latter which achieves an almost unparalleled marriage of style, composition and audio fidelity. You would think it was being played in a cathedral.
DICK HYMAN
Throughout a busy musical career that got underway in the early '50s, Dick Hyman has functioned as pianist, organist, arranger, music director, and composer. His versatility in all of these areas has resulted in film scores, orchestral compositions, concert appearances and well over 100 albums recorded under his own name. While developing a masterful facility for improvisation in his own piano style, Mr. Hyman has also investigated ragtime and the earliest periods of jazz and has researched and recorded the piano music of Scott Joplin, Jelly Roll Morton, James P. Johnson, Zez Confrey, Eubie Blake and Fats Waller, which he often features in his frequent recitals. Other solo recordings include the music of Irving Berlin, Harold Arlen, Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Richard Rodgers and Duke Ellington. Some of his recordings with combos are From The Age Of Swing, Swing Is Here, Cheek To Cheek, and If Bix Played Gershwin, plus numerous duet albums with Ruby Braff, Ralph Sutton and others. In a different vein, Mr. Hyman was one of the first to record on the Moog synthesizer, and his 'Minotaur' landed on the Billboard charts.
Mr. Hyman's concert compositions for orchestra include his Piano Concerto, Ragtime Fantasy, The Longest Blues in the World, and From Chama to Cumbres by Steam, a work for orchestra, jazz combo, and prerecorded railroad sounds. A cantata based on the autobiography of Mark Twain was premiered with the choral group, Gloria Musicae, in Sarasota. In a growing catalogue of chamber music compositions, his most recent pieces are Dances and Diversions for the Kinor String Quartet, and Parable for a Parrot, a trio for the Palisades Virtuosi. Earlier compositions include a violin/piano sonata, a quintet for piano and strings, and a sextet for clarinet, piano and strings. Mr. Hyman has been heard in duo-piano performances with Derek Smith, in Three-Piano Crossover with Marian McPartland and the late Ruth Laredo, and in pops concerts under the direction of Doc Severinsen. In 2004, after serving as artistic director for the acclaimed Jazz in July series at New York's 92nd Street Y for twenty years, he stepped down, as he has from a similar role in the annual Oregon Festival of American Music. He continues his Jazz Piano at the Y series in New York.
In addition to his activities in the jazz and concert worlds, Mr. Hyman has had a prolific career in New York as a studio musician and won seven Most Valuable Player Awards from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. He acted as music director for such television programs as Benny Goodman's final appearance (on PBS) and for In Performance at the White House. He received an Emmy for his original score for Sunshine's on the Way, a daytime drama, and another for musical direction of a PBS Special on Eubie Blake. He is a member of the Jazz Hall of Fame of the Rutgers Institute of Jazz Studies and the New Jersey Jazz Society.
In years past, Dick Hyman was music director for Arthur Godfrey and orchestrator of the hit musical Sugar Babies. He has served as composer/arranger/conductor/pianist for the Woody Allen films Zelig, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Broadway Danny Rose, Stardust Memories, Hannah and Her Sisters, Radio Days, Bullets Over Broadway, Mighty Aphrodite, Everyone Says 'I Love You', Sweet and Lowdown, The Curse Of The Jade Scorpion and Melinda and Melinda. Other scores have included Moonstruck, Scott Joplin, King of Ragtime, The Lemon Sisters, and Alan and Naomi. His music has also been heard in The Mask, Billy Bathgate, Two Weeks Notice, and other films. He has been music director of the production The Movie Music of Woody Allen, which premiered at the Hollywood Bowl.
In the dance field, Mr. Hyman composed and performed the score for the Cleveland/San Jose Ballet Company's Piano Man, and Twyla Tharp's The Bum's Rush for the American Ballet Theater. He was also the pianist/conductor/arranger in Ms.Tharp's Eight Jelly Rolls, Baker's Dozen, and The Bix Pieces and similarly arranged and performed for Miles Davis: Porgy and Bess, a choreographed production of The Dance Theater of Dallas. A recent premier, a dance based on Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer, was presented by the John G. Shedd Institute of Eugene, Oregon, and danced by the Eugene Ballet Company.
Dick Hyman's 100 Years Of Jazz Piano, an encyclopedic CD-ROM, soon to be available in a set of audio CDs, is based on his frequent recital-lecture. New recordings include three duo-piano albums with Ray Kennedy, Bernd Lhotzky, and Chris Hopkins; a trumpet/piano duet album with Randy Sandke; and Lost Songs of 1936 with Bucky Pizzarelli and Jay Leonhart.
Dick Hyman is a Yamaha artist and endorses all of their keyboard products.
Contact Info
Dick Hyman Music, Inc.
617 Menendez Street
Venice, FL 34285
PH: (941) 485-9506
FAX: (941) 488-1824
Email: dickhymanmusic@comcast.net
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