- Roland Hanna
Roland Hanna (
February 10 ,1932 inDetroit, Michigan –November 13 ,2002 inHackensack, New Jersey ) was an American Jazz pianist.Hanna studied classical piano as a boy, but was strongly interested in jazz. This increased after his time in military service.
He studied at
Eastman School of Music andJuilliard School . He worked with several big names, such asBenny Goodman andCharles Mingus , in the 1950s although only briefly in both cases. Then from 1967 to 1974 he was a regular member of the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra. Afterwards he was part of a noted New York Sextet.Roland Hanna was in semi-retirement for most of the 1980s, though he played piano and wrote the song “Seasons” for
Sarah Vaughan ’s 1982 albumCrazy and Mixed Up , and returned to music later in the decade. He is usually referred to as "Sir Roland Hanna" as he was given an honorary knighthood by PresidentWilliam Tubman ofLiberia .Sir Roland Hanna, along with
Jimmy Heath , was a professor of jazz at theAaron Copland School of Music atQueens College (CUNY ) in Flushing, NY.References / External links
* [http://www.rahannamusic.com/ rahannamusic.com]
* [http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/musician.php?id=2974 Sir Roland Hanna at allaboutjazz.com]
*New York Times obituary , [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9902E3DE1430F936A25752C1A9649C8B63 Roland Hanna,...Dies at 70]
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