By the time he was 23, pianist Dick Hyman had gigged with Charlie Parker, Lester Young and Benny Goodman. Stop a moment and let that sink in. How many jazzmen on the scene today could make an equivalent claim? He’s 73 now, so he’s been at that level, the level it would take to play with those three diverse jazz geniuses, for 50 years.

Articles about Hyman inevitably allude to his incredible, uniquely exhaustive resume. A New Yorker by birth, he’s been at the center of the music world pract...