Look up Roland Hanna in "The Penguin Guide to Jazz," and one of the first things you'll read is that "Bud Powell remains the single most important influence on his playing style, [though] he has also taken careful notice of Tommy Flanagan and Teddy Wilson." That, in a nutshell, is the accepted wisdom among jazz critics about Hanna's music.
But it's not a view Hanna accepts.
"Bud Powell?" he says, slightly incredulous. "No, my individual way of playing is a conglomeration of almost everything that I've ever played. There is no one individual, except myself, that I play like. Because it's a composite of Scarlatti, Scott Joplin, James P. Johnson, Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn -- all of the people I've studied. If I were to give you a list of names, you'd have to wade through about a thousand people."
Hanna understands how such judgments are made. "Most people who write about music are not musicians, or musicologists," he says, over the phone from his Washington home. "The ones who write about jazz are usually aficionados who listen to records. So they [link] anybody who does this, that and the other with anybody who they can associate it with."
That might be fine for musicians who simply try to imitate other players. But when Hanna plays, he doesn't think, "How would Bud Powell have played this?" Instead, he pays more attention to the possibilities offered within the music itself.
"When I'm playing, I'm thinking all the time," he explains. "I'm not just fiddling off the top of my emotions; I'm thinking about what should come next. I'm trying to open myself so that the music can have a logical conclusion, so that music can follow and flow. I'm thinking of form and all those kinds of things that are supposed to make good music.
"Sure, I've taken time to listen to Bud Powell -- just as much as I've listened to Teddy Wilson. Just as much as I've listened to Errol Garner. Just as much as I've listened to some of the young people who are playing today. Even my own students have impressed me and made some kind of an impression or mark on my way of playing. And I've had many, many students -- at least 500.
"So, no. If there were any three people that I wanted to say that I am mostly influenced by, it would be Art Tatum, Artur Rubinstein and Tommy Flanagan. Those three people would be, probably, the biggest pianistic influences on me. After that, I'd have to say Coleman Hawkins, Charlie Parker and possibly somebody I've worked with for the last 25 years, Frank Wess. All of those people have influenced me certain ways."
But even then, that influence rarely works in the straight-forward way jazz critics imagine.
"If I'm studying Bizet one moment, I may take some ideas from; I may turn right around and work with something from Debussy or something from Chopin or something from Brahms," says Hanna. "They may have one link, and that link is that they're all searching for some very special truth in the music, and that's the same thing I'm looking for. So I borrow this, and I borrow that, and I put it together, and it comes out Roland Hanna."
Piano solos
To hear excerpts from the Roland Hanna album "Duke Ellington Piano Solos," call Sundial, The Sun's telephone information service, at (410) 783-1800. In Anne Arundel County, call 268-7736; in Harford County, 836-5028; in Carroll County, 848-0338. Using a touch-tone phone, punch in the four-digit code 6149 after you hear the greeting.
Roland Hanna
What: Chamber Jazz Society Concert
When: Sunday, 3 p.m.
Where: Park School, Meyerhoff Auditorium
Tickets: $20
Call: (410) 339-4153