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Sunday August 14, 2022
Emerson Avenue Salonlines Proudly Presents
a Live YouTube Broadcast
– A “hybrid” concert –
Alex Hassan
“…AND THEN THERE WAS ONE…”
Fellow Emersonians!
What with our hostess’s birthday coming right up, we had some sprightly ideas about something of a Party Salon atmosphere this Sunday night, Aug. 14th. Pianna playin’, singing, maybe even a special guest instrumentalist.
Hmmmmmm….
An Agatha Christie plot line, at this point, might very well serve as a template for the occasion: various musician friends who might’ve joined in on the festivities are either recovering from Greek Letters, waaaay too busy to commit, or are vacationing south of the border. That leaves us with one of our favorite, long term anchors of Emerson Avenue Salons, a syncopatin’ fella and veteran pianoodler, Alex. He most certainly has the repertoire to promptly morph from accompanist to solo pianist, what with some 50,000 pieces of Jazz Age sheet music from which to choose. Look for virtuoso syncopated delights by Joseph Lamb and Billy Mayerl, along with veritably orchestral-sounding fantasies on Harry Warren melodies, as well as one of the greatest of all musicals, Meredith Willson’s THE MUSIC MAN. It’s kinda late for Alex’s usual 20s-30s focus, but Oh-Those-Toons, as we anticipate he’ll describe the score.
So join us Sunday night, 7:30PM Eastern and have a listen to a few more wonders of the late-Romantic WITH A BEAT!
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).
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