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Apres Un Reve cover

"From an early age," the late pianist Roland Hanna once said, "my interest lay in how music made me feel, not whether it was jazz or classical or whatever." Hanna exemplified that sentiment on 40-plus solo, duo and trio recordings for various small labels between 1973 and 2002, never more vividly than these [recordings], made during the final year of his life.

--Ted Panken
Downbeat

Sir Roland Hanna in Japan, October 2002


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| Apres Un Rev | Colors from a Giant's Kit | Dream | Everything I Love | I've Got a Right to Sing The Blues |
|
Last Concert | Milano, Paris, New York: Finding John Lewis | One More - Music of Thad Jones |
|
Tributaries: Reflections on Tommy Flanagan |


Apres Un Reve
Apres Un Reve cover

Over a crisp calypso beat from collaborators Ron Carter and Grady Tate, Hanna opens Apres Un Reve (Venus 53-45, ), with a composition by pianist Arthur Rubinstein. With a minimum of fuss and affect, he proceeds to ruminate upon the beautiful melodies of Mahler, Dvorak, Borodin, Mozart, Faure, Schubert and Chopin with enviable lucidity and control of touch at tempos swinging and rubato, propelled by Carter's perfect note choices. The touch is light, the content isn't. It's Hanna's final work, capping a career devoted to the rejection of cant and to the principle of deploying all 88 notes on the piano in the process of self expression.

--Ted Panken
Downbeat

Track Listings:
1. Serenade
2. Après Un Rêve
3. This Is My Beloved
4. Prelude
5. Like Grains of Sand
6. Melody in F
7. Elvira Madigan
8. Going Home
9. Based on Gustav

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Colors from a Giant's Kit - Sir Roland Hanna
Colors from a Giant's Kit cover

Colors from a Giant's Kit (IPO 1020) A brilliant set of solo performances by the late Sir Roland Hanna, one of the great masters of solo jazz piano of the 20th century, recorded at the Performing Arts Center in Purchase, NY on a Boesendorfer Imperial piano.

This is thrilling stuff, make no mistake. Hard though it seems to hold the late Sir Roland Hanna in higher regard than he already is, these performances can only enhance his legacy.

—Downbeat

A miraculous issue of previously unreleased material.

 – Jazz Hot (France)

Track Listings
1. Colors from a Giant's Kit
2. A Story, Often Told But Seldom Heard
3. Robbin's Nest
4. My Romance
5. Blues
6. Cello
7. Moment's Notice
8. Lush Life
9. Century Rag
10. Naima
11. Chelsea Bridge
12. In a Mellow Tone
13. Cherokee
14. Natalie Rosanne – Beautiful Baby Girl

Dream
Dream cover

Dream (Venus Records TKCV-35094). Roland Hanna, Piano; Eddie Locke, drums; Paul West, bass. Venus Records, Inc. Tokyo, Japan. Recorded at “The Studio,” New York, February 1, 2001. Produced by Tetsuo Hara and Todd Barkan.

Track Listings
1. When I Grow Too Old to Dream
2. Street of Dreams
3. You Stepped Out of a Dream
4. Day Dream
5. This Time the Dream's on Me
6. Skylark
7. I Hear a Rhapsody
8. Dream
9. So in Love
10. Dream Dancing
11. Sleepin' Bee
12. You Do Something to Me

Everything I Love

Everything I Love cover

Few improvising pianists could match the vast stylistic range, overwhelming technique and capacious imagination that Hanna displays on Everything I Love (IPO 1002, 72.29, ) documenting 13 performances from a marathon solo session of almost 40 tunes, most executed in one take. Avoiding cliche, Hanna imprints his personality on 10 American Songbook chestnuts, a neoclassical original, a reconfigured "All Blues," and an elegant blues built on motifs associated with Milt Jackson. Navigating the repertoire with a free attitude, the pianist crafts a series of spontaneous arrangements, creating resonant textures in the service of constant melodic development, shifting between the blues, stride, bebop, the classics and French impressionism to fashion a holistic narrative.

--Ted Panken
Downbeat

One of only four 2003 releases to receive DownBeat's rare five star designation, "Everything I Love" is one of the finest jazz solo piano albums ever recorded. Many connoisseurs believe that Roland Hanna was the greatest jazz piano soloist since Art Tatum, and the playing on this album is unsurpassed in its inventiveness, beauty and style.

Where Y'at, New Orleans entertainment monthly

Track Listings
1. Comedy Tonight
2. Bags A Tribute
3. Lullaby of the Leaves
4. I Hear a Rhapsody
5. You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To
6. Send in the Clowns
7. In The Blue of the Evening
8. All Blues
9. Comes Autumn
10. Embraceable You
11. How Deep Is the Ocean
12. Alone Together
13. Everything I Love

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Everything I Love
I Got a Right to Sing The Blues cover

Accompanying Carrie Smith through the 12 choice selections on I've Got a Right to Sing The Blues: The Songs of Harold Arlen (IPO 1003 60.09, ) Hanna is similarly open and free of inhibition, listening deeply, anticipating the diva's every note and placing a complimentary sound to it. Smith's husky, lived-in voice, impeccable timing and soulful delivery, impassioned and reflective, impart weight and authority to her readings of the lyrics of Yip Harberg ("Happiness is A Thing Called Joe"), Ted Koehler (the title track and "Let's Fall in Love") and Johnny Mercer ("Accentuate the Positive," "That Old Black Magic"); Hanna's signifying solos in response to the songbird's call are pithy, idiomatic and masterful.

--Ted Panken
Downbeat

Track Listings
1. Accentuate The Positive
2. When The Sun Comes Out
3. Happiness Is A Thing Called Joe
4. I'll Wind
5. I've Got The World On A String
6. Let's Fall In Love
7. I Gotta Right To Sing The Blues
8. Blues In The Night
9. Stormy Weather
10. It's Only A Paper Moon
11. That Old Black Magic
12. Over The Rainbow


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