Dick Twardzik: Piano Enigma

Reprinted from http://jazzwax.com

Before Bill Evans, there was Dick Twardzik. Not that they played anything alike. Twardzik was a much more percussive pianist who mixed stormy dynamics with cat-like sensitivity, while Evans was a smoldering, graceful swinger. But both musicians were romantics, both were influenced by Bud Powell, both went into a trance when they played piano and both were fatally hooked on narcotics. Twardzik died at age 24 of a heroin overdose in 1955 just as Evans was emerging. Evans, of course, would die in 1980 of a series of ailments following decades of drug abuse.

Twardzik's playing style had hard edges but it also had a soft center. The start of his  improvisations always felt unplanned, as if being tossed into the unknown. But almost immediately after hitting the ground, Twardzik used his initial confusion to steady himself and find his way inside songs, whipping up beautiful, ever-shifting revisions of melodies with a thick cubist approach.

A Bostonian, Twardzik played behind Charlie Parker in 1952 at the Hi-Hat Club and then recorded with Charlie Mariano in 1953, with Allen Eager that same year, Serge Chaloff in 1954 and Chet Baker in 1955. There also were seven trio tracks in 1954 for Pacific Jazz. Hooked on heroin from the time he was a teen, Twardzik (above, at Boston's Stable) was never able to pull loose from his dependency, and little is known about the personal demons that led him to such hopeless addiction. But rather than dwell on the tragedy of Twardzik, let's experience the joy. Here's an audio/slides documentary that Jez Nelson in the U.K. put together:

Here's Part 1...

Here's Part 2...

Here's Part 3...

And here's Part 4...

Used with permission by Marc Myers