(Richard Twardzik - another in a seemingly endless list of tragic might have been's)

A gifted, rare talent that bursts on the scene, stands at the threshold of a brilliant career, is found dead in a hotel room the result of a Heroin overdose.

You can attach that paragraph to any one of a thousand artists who have appeared and vanished over the years in exactly the same way.

And so it was also the tragic story of Richard Twardzik, a phenomenally talented pianist who stood at the brink of revolutionizing the Jazz piano, left the scene after a few sessions, almost an albums worth of material, some unissued tracks, a few bootlegs and nothing else. Just a lot of shaken heads and shrugged shoulders and the endless questions of why those kinds of things happen all too frequently.

Although Twardzik has been gone 56 years, his popularity hasn't diminished and in fact has increased with each generation that discovers him.

So here's another chance, if you haven't already, to check out a truly astounding talent that went all too quickly.

From the session of December 1954, here is Twardzik with a trio comprising of Carson Smith on bass and Peter Littman on drums playing a Twardzik original "A Crutch For The Crab".