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Don't feel out of the loop if you've never heard the name before. Nobody on the big band I played earlier this week heard of him either.
I just finished, ""Bouncin' With Bartok" The Incomplete Works of Richard Twardzik by Jack Chambers.
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Twardzik was a jazz pianist who only released one half of an album under his own name! He died of an OD of heroin at the age of 24 on Oct.21, 1955.
Even someone such as I, who have read every possible book on jazz of that period that I could find in every library in NYC and LI, had just read the name in passing somewhere, but I never heard him on any record, because they were all out of print until the 'great jazz CD craze', when they re-issued anything record companies had in their vaults.
The book was written in 2008, and went OOP in record time, because RT was still a relative unknown
And yet the author was able to get over 300 pages of info on RT's short life, by researching RT for many years.
Don't think you're gonna go out and find this book on Amazon and pick it up. There are two copies available, and they start at $387, so just don't even try it.
So what's all the fuss about RT?
He was a child prodigy, whose first words were "nice music" when he was listening to his parents' music in his crib.
At an early age, he was giving classical concerts and winning prizes left and right, but when he heard Boogie Woogie, he went nuts about it.
That led to getting involved with the local jazz artists of Boston, including his best friend, Serge Chaloff, whose mother Madame Chaloff was his teacher for many years.
Madame Chaloff taught the 'Russian Style" of playing, and pianists like Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett, Steve Kuhn, Bill Evans, Leonard Bernstein, George Shearing, George Wein,Toshiko Akiyoshi, Herbie Hancock, Mulgrew Miller, and any jazz or classical pianist that could find some way of showing her that they were deserving of her tutelage. Even jazz guitarist Peter Sprague did!
The fact that he studied with Chaloff at such an early age, and for so long, hinted me that RT might be worth looking into.
There's plenty of him on You Tube now, so I was surprised to hear a pianist who was so little known was recorded with heavyweights like Charlie Parker, Chet Baker, Serge Chaloff, Charlie Mariano, Herb Pomeroy, and lars Gullin when he had such a short life, and was virtually unknown outside of Boston, his hometown. I can only think of Booker Little who had such a short life; Clifford Brown and Charlie Christian made it past 25, so they don't count...
His playing doesn't sound much like anyone except Bud Powell, but he had influences from composers like Debussy and Bartok, which he wasn't afraid to show.
Anyway, I used my brother's connections with Columbia University to get a copy of the book, and it's a good book, but how much can you write about a guy who barely made it to 24, and was barely known outside Boston?
Fortunately ( I think...) there's a lot on the two dope fiends he played with the most (three counting Bird), Serge Chaloff, and the "Divil" himself, Chet Baker.
SC got everyone he knew into junk on the Woody Herman Band, and Herman knew he had to ire SC when he turned around to face the band at one concert, and they were all asleep!
He fired SC right after that, and SC told Woody to look outside the window, and tell him what he saw.
Woody said, "What? It's a river with some paper in it."
SC said, "That paper is the entire Baritone sax book- now you can't fire me!"
SC had the book memorized, and it would be impossible to get a new guy with no book.
So that's what type of guy SC was, and there are many stories in the book worse than that.
Chet Baker is even worse than that, because the author believes it was CB who was responsible for RT's OD on the European tour he did with Baker.
CB continually lies about everything having to do with the OD, including any knowledge of RT's involvement with narcotics (the heroin in Europe was much purer than the heroin in the US, and RT had built up no tolerance to it), even though RT had OD'd twice during the tour, both times on the stand.
CB lied about his involvement with the drug, even though there was plenty of evidence that he was using well before the tour.
And then CB couldn't account for his time before RT's blue body was discovered four hours after RT OD'd in RT's hotel room.
You would think that CB would cancel the tour after his pianist died, but CB played the gig the next day after RT OD'd with a sub.
He just came out to the audience and said, "RT won't be playing tonight, because he died yesterday" , and then began the concert.Last edited by sgcim; 07-14-2023 at 05:42 PM.
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07-12-2023 07:03 PM
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Good post my man.
I have the Twarzdick 1/2 lp on Pacific Jazz and am aware of all of the above being a big fan of him, Chaloff and Baker (their music not their personalities/shenanigans) there's a bunch of Chaloff stories from back in the day and also great never before seen info/photos in the Mosaic Chaloff box set.
I have a 1950 live in Boston cd of Chaloff recorded after he left Woody and was playing around Boston. There's audio of him on the mic in the club and he's so obviously loaded but it's cool to hear him really stretch out as opposed to records. I think at one time I bought just about everything he ever recorded (and not quite all of Bakers output but most I think) his last recording, a reunion of the 4 Brothers when he was having severe spinal issues is less than stellar, he looks terrible and gaunt in photos from the session and died shortly after.
But if anyone reading this thread hasn't heard of Twadzick and Chaloff do yourself a favor and explore their music.
Serge's classic lps Blue Serge and Boston Blow Up on Capitol are good starting points
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I should have known the hippest JAZZ cat on the forum would have heard of RT and even has the 1/2 LP that he shares with one of his champions, Russ Freeman!!!!! Even the pianist I played with this week never heard of him!
Originally Posted by wintermoon
You ain't kidding when you use the term shenanigans; these guys were such bleep-ups they probably ruined a lot of musicians' lives.
Just the fact that Chet chose to take a 20 year-old drummer whom everyone thought sucked, and was also a worse junkie than CB and RT, on the European Tour, spoke volumes about Chet's character as a human being. The European critics knew what was going on, but were afraid to hurt the guy's career, which ended as soon as even Chet got sick of him. Littman was last reported pumping gas back in '94, but I have no idea what he did when self-serve came out...LOL
Serge had to play that Four Brothers reunion album from a wheelchair. He was playing golf one day, and his legs were paralyzed out of nowhere.
It turned out that he had a huge tumor pressing against his spine. It's sad that that had to happen after he turned his life around, and was reportedly playing better than ever.
He had actually turned anti-drug, and was part of a group that was trying to discourage drug use, especially by musicians.
Fortunately, Jimmy Bond was the bass player on the European tour, and was man enough to look out for Twardzic as much as he could after Twardzic had OD'd twice, but how are you going to watch someone 24/7?Last edited by sgcim; 07-13-2023 at 01:13 AM.
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Originally Posted by sgcim
yeah, Dick was so obscure we both misspelled his name including me twice and spell check obviously didn't help
Last edited by wintermoon; 07-12-2023 at 11:38 PM.
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I know him from the few Chet biographies I've read. Chet absolutely loved him.
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Yeah, I corrected mine. The music is confusing enough. Originally Posted by wintermoon
yeah, Dick was so obscure we both misspelled his name including me twice and spell check obviously didn't help
I spent a few hours listening to the studio album made for Barclay in Paris, Volume 1.
We're listening to three different types of music when we're hearing Twardzic play.
The first is the music of Bob Zeiff, which uses some phrases of jazz, but isn't in the song forms that jazz uses. Zeiff was a 20th Century music classical composer, who was constantly being turned down by people like Bethlehem records because his music was so weird. He was even supposed to write the music for some well known film, but got turned down for that, too.
He was Twardzic's music teacher, and that's how his six songs from the studio album made for Barclay in Paris, Volume 1.got on there.
When Baker was looking for a pianist to go on the European tour, he first asked the pianist he was using in the States, Russ Freeman, but Russ looked at Chet's eyes, and he could tell he was on narcotics, so he turned it down.
Then he went to John Williams, a straight ahead player on the East Coast who played on some Jimmy Raney and Stan Getz, Zoot and Al albums.
So Williams went to hear them play at a club, and Peter Littman was on drums, and he was terrible. Williams asked around about Littman, and everyone said he was a lost-cause junkie, so Williams said he'd only do the gig if Littman wasn't doing it.
Chet said "Fine, use whatever drummer you want to use.
A month went by, and he didn't hear from Chet, so figured it wasn't happening.
Then he gets a call from Chet asking him to come to a rehearsal in Yonkers.
When he gets there, Littman is setting up his set!
Chet goes into his junkie's apology, but Williams drives back to Manhattan without even playing with them.
Russ Freeman thinks Twardzik would be perfect for the job, and Chet hires him on the spot, but Twardzic says he doesn't want to play "My Funny Valentine" all night, and so Chet tells him to bring his own music, and Twardzic winds up bringing six Zieff songs, along with some of his own tunes..
Two bass players turn down the job, so Chet hires Jimmy Bond, a bass player from Philly, who just graduated Julliard
Chet flies to Europe, and the rhythm section has to take a ship.
So the second type of music is Twardzic's which is similar to Zieff's, but a little Monkish, without the banging.
The third type of music they play are standards.
I guess Twardzic's playing is similar to Monk's without the banging, but it's much more theoretical-based than Monk.
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Lest we forget:
Frank Teschemacher
25, car crash (March 1, 1932)
Scott LaFaro
25, car crash (July 6, 1961)
Jimmy Blanton
23, tuberculosis (July 30, 1942)
Richie Powell
24, car crash (June 26, 1956, with Clifford Brown)
Sonny Berman
21, drug overdose (January 16, 1947)
From a list of early jazz deaths on Rate Your Music
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This is the under 25 club. Blanton, Powell and Berman count; the others are in our 25-30 club. Originally Posted by Litterick
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Not to get too far from sgcim's orig post about Dickie T, but this is a cool video I believe of Woodys 2nd Herd and I think the only footage of Chaloff that exists. w/out checking how many members shown can you name? not a very tough question but seeing as this is a jazz guitar forum (though sometimes I wonder about that) shame on you if you don't at least get the guitarist
https://youtube.com/watch?v=tMN7zk07cdE&feature=share9
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This video could be pixelated more I think Originally Posted by wintermoon
. Left of Woody in the front must be Stan Getz.
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Four brothers: Serge Chaloff with Zoot Sims, Al Cohn (replacing Herbie Steward) and Stan Getz.
Shorty Rogers, trumpet.
Jimmy Raney, guitar.
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no, you didnt. you just invented a new spelling Originally Posted by sgcim
bird with twardzik:
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Originally Posted by wintermoon
i think i got eight
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Wow, what a find! That was posted by the great Joan Chamorro who's done more for jazz than 4,000 WMs. Originally Posted by wintermoon
You can see how 'relaxed' Serge is.
I think that's the only time I've ever seen someone actually laughing before he takes a solo. He sounds great on that short dolo, much more of a full sound than Pepper and Mulligan.
You can't hear a note of the trombonist's solo! Someone screwed up in the tech dept.
Raney looks like he's in another world.
Imagine having a band like that..Woody was so peed at Serge that he actually unzipped his fly in a crowded club, and took a pee on Serge;s leg!
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I was waiting for you to get in on this thread, Holger. The video you posted with Bird and DT was not playable here, but Bird loved the way DT played, and wouldn't use any his regular pianists when he played Boston; only DT. I've heard some of the Bird stuff already. Originally Posted by djg
no, you didnt. you just invented a new spelling
bird with twardzik:
DT was playing like Bud when he sat in at jazz clubs at the age of fourteen! He was the top pianist in Boston before he was 20. Steve Kuhn idolized him, and caught him every time he played at the Stables and Hi-Hat
He went way beyond Bud on the Baker stuff.
I'll try one more time at the spelling; there's something about a name with the letters T,W,Z and K that keeps me getting it wrong, but at least it was better than when we were calling him Twarzdick!!!
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I wish you guys could hear this live cd I have Serge Chaloff Boston 1950.
Cool catching him blowing multiple choruses in a club and the interview by Symphony Sid Torin is a gas, Serge is cracking jokes and laughing through the whole thing!
Then when Sid is announcing upcoming artists he says "be sure to catch Earl Bostich" then you can hear Serge whisper "Bostic" Sid says "what?" Serge repeats himself. Then Sid says "oh I don't know I just read what they write for me"
What a SQUARE!
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Originally Posted by wintermoon
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Yeah, Symphony Sid is taken apart in the Twardzik book. Originally Posted by wintermoon
He was in Boston back in the 50s, but then he moved to WEVD in NYC. He had a request show, so I thought he was just playing jazz, because we all played Jumpin' With Symphony Sid" back then.
I called him up and requested Tal Farlow, because Tal's records were impossible to find when I was a kid.
He says, "Righteeo!" and hangs up.
So I'm sitting by my little radio, waiting for him to play Tal, and all he keeps playing is Latin music.
It seemed like hours, and he was about to go off the air when he says, "And we've got a request to play Larry Harlow!" and he plays a Latin big band. That's what he thought I said!
Apparently he stopped playing jazz, and had a Latin music show.
What's the name of that live Serge Chaloff record?
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"Serge Chaloff Boston 1950" Originally Posted by sgcim
I'm on a gig now but I'll get you the cd label when I get home.
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well I was wrong about it being Symphony Sid announcing/interviewing Serge, it's some guy named Carl Henry but he sounds just like Sid. But then again those square announcers from then all sound the same, except Birdland announcer Pee Wee Marquette of course....
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Yeah, but Pee Wee wouldn't even announce your name unless you gave him a tip. Originally Posted by wintermoon
well I was wrong about it being Symphony Sid announcing/interviewing Serge, it's some guy named Carl Henry but he sounds just like Sid. But then again those square announcers from then all sound the same, except Birdland announcer Pee Wee Marquette of course....
BTW, I heard you can get a copy of the Twardzik book if you write the author himself. He's got extra copies at his home that he'll sell you for price.
If you try to get it elsewhere, like Amazon, you'll have to pay over $100. As I said before, one guy wanted $387 for it.
Even the book written about Serge is at least $97 on Amazon. I can get it from the Columbia U. library.
His tone production, ideas and phrasing make him more listenable than Pepper Adams and all his clones, who are,
IMHO, unlistenable after a while.
, I tried to listen to one of their albums once, and the endless barrage of 16th notes in the lower register was unbearable after a while, and I had to take it off before I went nuts! Serge just sounds like a tenor player with the ability to play lower notes when he wanted to.
Mulligan was great, but he couldn't burn like Serge could.
His mother, Madame Chaloff, taught pianists to play like they were horn players; breathing from the diaphragm, and playing phrases with their breath, like horn players
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Kenny Werner studied with her, and when he played a concert with us, I'll never forget when he played a solo in the high register, singing along with it. It actually sounded like a flute, because he breathed like a flute player.
The SC Boston 1950 CD is in the mail.
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now you got me on a full blown Serge kick again, I've been reading about the Chaloff family alot lately and listened to his 2 comeback Capitol lps Boston Blow Up and Blue Serge again today cooking breakfast just like I used to listen to records before my weekly afternoon steady on Sundays for 10 yrs.
I need to get back to a record or two a week before the next guy that owns my collection does it for me...
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