“Salon followers have likely gotten used to the reliably great singing of Alex’s good buddy, Doug Bowles, in their tandem streamed concerts.  But what happens when circumstances dictate Doug take a month or two off of these endorphin-enhancing entertainments? 

Wayulllllll…..

You get an hour’s worth of Alex’s solo piano antics.  Hassanized for your protection!

A real mix this time ’round, with ragtime (Joseph Lamb & James Scott), novelty piano (the extraordinary compositions of Englishman, Billy Mayerl), film music (Korngold’s SEA HAWK), unjustifiably obscure Harold Arlen melodies, a song written for an exhibit at the 1940 NY World’s Fair, Cole Porter, Arthur Schwartz, etceteraetceteraetcetera! 

Sooooo, please join us on the 25th, 7:30PM Eastern, at ’emersonavenuesalons.com’.  Alex promises to bring all ten fingers.  He’ll need ’em!”

Biography

Alex Hassan has been in total immersion 1920s/30s Tin Pan Alley Popular Piano Styles therapy for over 40 years.  A pupil of a pupil of a pupil of a pupil of Franz Liszt (well…it SOUNDS impressive?!), he has been a torchbearer for the melodies of between-the-wars Broadway and Hollywood (and European equivalents), devoting himself more specifically to collecting and resurrecting the great “late Romantic with a beat” popular songs that really never had a chance.

His archival collection of [mostly] popular piano solo and vocal sheet music numbers around 45,000 titles, entirely 1920s/30s. It is a tribute to those heady musical times that there is still so much left to find.

Alex has performed internationally at such venues as England’s Aldeburgh Festival,  Husum (2007 & 2015–“Piano Rarities Festival”), Washington DC’s Kennedy Center, the Coolidge Auditorium (Library of Congress), various Manhattan/Baltimore/Washington night spots, and national ragtime festivals.  He has recorded prolifically for England’s SHELLWOOD PRODUCTIONS,  Los Angeleno label OPERETTA ARCHIVES, and Pennsylvania’s STOMP OFF, and has produced/annotated several reissues of the virtuoso popular pianists of the 78RPM period, for both Shellwood and the Pittsburgh company, RIVERMONT (for which he has also recorded, along with two brilliant singing friends).