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Sunday October 16, 2022
Emerson Avenue Salonlines Proudly Presents
a Live YouTube Broadcast
– A “hybrid” concert –
Alex Hassan
piano
This’ll Make You Whistle!
Prepare thine selves for an hour of syncopation and melody, as our default-setting retro popular piano purveyor, Alex Hassan , finds himself at our freshly tuned Emerson Avenue Kawai grand, for another of his solo performances that go by way-too-quickly. As always, should you be able to view the concert live, there’ll be a Zoom session immediately following. Be there, or be rectangular (??)–! The concert will be, as always, archived and viewable the next day.
The program’s title is that of a very tuneful UK musical of the 30s, a joyous medley of which Alex will perform, possibly for the first time in decades anywhere. In addition, there’ll be a whistle-able medley-fantasy from the famed post-war Broadway musical, BELLS ARE RINGING (Jule Styne). Amongst other confections, piano novelties from early 30s Germany (Lothar Perl), fully notated American piano rolls (incl. “It Had to Be You”, arr. Ferde Grofe), a delightful swing-era solo by Mel Powell (jazz pianist who turned to avant garde later in his career), and a stunning rediscovery, the Gershwinesque 1938 American composition, “Espanharlem”. As always, Alex will give historical details and perspective on all titles.
Hope to “see” y’all at the appointed time! No football excuses allowed…
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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