The Paul Hanson 2007 New Bassoon Album Blog

A Big Life Change

Paul Hanson — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 01:39:53 GMT

Hello everyone. There sure hasn't been much going on here lately-sorry about that. Now I have some
news. In March 2008 the album FROLIC IN THE LAND OF PLENTY will be released on Abstract Logix Records
www.abstractlogix.com. I'll have some album art at the bottom of this entry from that upcoming release.
Even bigger than that-I've been contracted to perform in a new Cirque Du Soleil show in Tokyo, Japan
starting next spring and going til at least August 2010. The whole family will be out there-the conditions are
great and I'll be part of the creation process before we start. I'll try to get involved in the Tokyo music
scene when I'm not performing with Cirque-we'll see how that goes. On the one hand-I will miss playing with
all my compadres here in the States-on the other-this is too big an opportunity to pass up. Playing bassoon
and doing something new with Cirque will be really fascinating. Thanks again for your time-there's a new
snippet from the title track of this album for you to enjoy at the bottom of this entry. Here's some artwork from the new album. Ciao!

Finally-a YouTube video

Paul Hanson — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 09:35:55 GMT

Hi everyone-I just took the plunge and am waiting for my video to show up on the search features of YouTube (which
seem to be a little slow). Click on THIS to see a very low-tech video of me in my practice room playing some Bird.

My new group with Steve Erquiaga

Paul Hanson — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 12:01:04 GMT

Hello-I have a great new group with Steve Erquiaga (guitarist with Joe Henderson, Andy Narell, Bobby McFerrin)-it's just
me and him playing jazz from around the globe. It's music pared down to the pure essence-just us two conversing in music conversation. Going from the "maximalist" approach from FROLIC to this bassoon-nylon string guitar group is really great fun. Check us out by clicking on HERE -there's samples for listening as well as a gig calendar. Thanks!

FOR DOWNLOADS and the ALBUM SITE

Paul Hanson — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 11:54:35 GMT

FOR PAUL HANSON/STEVE ERQUIAGA DUO-click on THIS
OR DOWNLOADS-click on THIS
FOR the FROLIC SITE-click on THIS

Changes in the release schedule for FROLIC IN THE LAND OF PLENTY

Paul Hanson — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 11:06:46 GMT

I would think that most of you who read this are saying "well, why in heck isn't Paul's album out yet?"
Well-I'll tell you. I'm very sorry for this but I decided to release my record with a record label rather than
putting it out myself. Haroun-the master mixer who has been juggling three and four projects all year in addition
to my project-has been hired to do a 'real job' in the big city where he will be paid finally what he is worth or close.

As this has put some time constraints on what he can mix for FROLIC, I've decided that while Haroun is mixing half
the album- Joel Hamilton is mixing the other half in Brooklyn. After figuring this out and realizing that my way-gone release date of June just wouldn't be salvaged as we enter September-I thought that perhaps there's a cool label that would release the record and do some of the promotional stuff for the release that I just am not good at. I play music-I'm not such a good self-promoter. It's hard to call someone up and have to say "Yes!! I'M GREAT!! YOU WANT ME!! I'M BADASS!!" It just doesn't sound good. So- Abstract Logix will release the album on their own label. Check out the link and you'll see (if you don't know them already) what this label is about. The album is tentatively scheduled for a March 2008 release.

I know that March is a LONG ways away. What I can tell you (to make it just a little better) is that I've started a completely different project with nylon-stringed guitarist Steve Erquiaga (Andy Narell, Joe Henderson, Bobby McFerrin). There will be soon a site for this group complete with music snippets and possibly some video in the coming months. It is such a pleasure working with Steve-we really compliment each other. I'll keep you posted very soon on this new exciting group! Bye now.

Paul Hanson on iTunes

Paul Hanson — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 10:28:48 GMT

Hello everyone. I just found out that indeed my music is finally on iTunes. In case you haven't heard the
record VOODOO SUITE (or just have lost your copy)-you can get most of it on iTunes by going
to the iTunes "store" section and entering "Paul Hanson". There are 6 tunes from VOODOO SUITE on there.
Also there are some very interesting rock-jam band stuff (very electric) from a live album by "Jeff Sipe,
Paul Hanson, Jonas Hellborg" on there as well. That was from my days in a "power trio" with Jonas and Jeff.
Also there's a 11-year old track from Enrique Coria that I play on as well called "Milonga del Angel".
Ciao!

Great reeds and the good times they bring

Paul Hanson — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 09:00:05 GMT

I don't usually go nuts over any product and I certainly don't ever write about it on my website or blogs. I don't write adds. However-I just have to say something about the reeds I just have started to use. It's only because of the
remarkable success rate I've had with them that brings me to talk about them at all.

At the IDRS convention this June-I always play in the Moosmann booth as I am a Moosmann bassoon artist and
Justin and Bernd have done a lot for me. As I was playing in the booth-Justin said "here, try this." I played it and
I'm still playing that reed; not only that, it sounded really great in all registers and I mean all registers. Most reeds
that I have tried really are limited in the far upper reaches of the bassoon's range-not this reed which is called
the Miller "Select Reserve" Professional Bassoon reed. And to top it off-this reed sounds full, big and rich all through
the lower registers as well AND it plays in tune. What was even better was getting 3 reeds the other
day from Justin to add to the 2 I got back in June. For bassoon players-when you have about 4 new reeds that you are about ready to try-you know you're lucky if 2 of them work well. A 50% success rate is really a very good rate I wish I
could say I've had throughout my life with reeds (in reality it's been about 1 out of 4). So-when ALL 4 of the reeds
sound really great without any alteration with sandpaper or any other adjustments-that is stupendous. Apparently this
reed is made on machines that ensure extremely exact replications of a very successful shape and design. Seriously-for
all you bassoon players out there-when's the last time you could buy a few reeds and EXPECT them all to really play?
The sound for me is very rich, not shrill, not buzzy, but full, great sound. For the link to the Miller Marketing site-
click HERE. Cheerio! The album is being mixed right now by the way.

Yes-I'm still alive-we start the FINAL mix tomorrow

Paul Hanson — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 23:29:05 GMT

Hello-I've been away from here too long. I've been a pretty lame blogster as I never put anything in this thing.
So what's going on? First-I really appreciate you all for reading this-I just don't have too much new to add and
I don't like to add mere trivial stuff. Like-"well, I did my laundry today and tried some new reeds!" I mean-that's not
worth writing about. What is worth writing about is that we start mixing for the last time tomorrow. No more recording-we've picked the tunes and all the parts are together. I redid some things I needed to redo-and we also were able to add a tune I was afraid we wouldn't be able to use. I'm just glad to have come to this point where there's
nothing more that needs to be added. Some of the reasons we've not done anything relate to Haroun having knee surgery and our busy schedules outside of music. Now-we should be able to get this done soon.

I did a really fun session today for Eric Levy who was acting as producer. He's producing an album for a guitarist-composer named Ronnie Ray Padilla. Also on this recording were Mic Gillette (trumpet), George Brooks (tenor sax), Billy Johnson (drums), Kai Eckhardt (bass) and Eric on keys. Of course we didnt all meet and play together (I guess that's Old School)-I came in on an overdub session. Lots of fun.

Thank you Hickey's Music-here comes the IDRS 2007 at Ithaca

Paul Hanson — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 22:59:00 GMT

Hello again everyone. I wish I could add hypertext to my main jazzbassoon.com site but I can't do it-don't know how.
If I could do that then I'd have a link working like this: http://www.hickeys.com/ .
Hickey's is a music store in Ithaca that seems to have it all. They are supplying me with an amplifier so I don't have
to lug my 75-pound amp on the plane. Their owner, David Zimet, is a bassoonist and will be there at the convention so
go visit him either in Ithaca proper or at his booth at the IDRS. They were very helpful to me and from what I see they are a pretty darn complete music store.

Well-the pre-release will be available at IDRS 2007 AND at Forrests Music after the convention. We had some last-minute crisises but all's well that ends well. This pre-release is 4 completed tunes from the upcoming full-length album AND a bonus track of J.S. Bach's Cello Suite #4-the Sarabande and Gigue. The Bach won't be available on the full-length one-so if you want to hear me play some traditional classical music this is your chance! The other four tunes sound really, really good. I'm looking forward to getting it out there. This album is something I love but I'm getting impatient to get the whole enchilada DONE. I feel like a parent of a high school graduate-it's time to get out of the house and on your own, music!

The package is delivered

Paul Hanson — Fri, 25 May 2007 16:32:00 GMT

..to the manufacturer. The pre-release album has been given to the people who will print the cover and mass-produce
the CD. It took mixing and mastering til dawn on 2 nights plus a 3AM visit to the cover artist to get this done. The five
tunes (4 album cuts plus a bonus track of J.S. Bach are a first version of what will be on the full-length CD. For those who are interested in this kind of thing-the full-length CD will feature some diferences-even possibly in the tunes that are on this first album. We are sure we will reflect on the first release and ways we'd like to update the music by the time the full-length CD is ready. Expect the pre-release teaser CD out and available the second weekend in June. Forrests Music will have this CD probably by June 11th if not a week later. The price will be $10-AND you will get a coupon redeemable for $2 off your purchase of the full-length release of FROLIC IN THE LAND OF PLENTY.

By the way-there's a eensy-weensy sample from the CD that's on the podcast page-check it out here. This is a tune that has never been on my site yet called Subtle Demons.

Getting really close

Paul Hanson — Wed, 23 May 2007 15:38:00 GMT

It is Wednesday May 23rd at 4:40PM. Haroun is mixing the last tune of the pre-release album-the "teaser" to
FROLIC IN THE LAND OF PLENTY. Boy-the next time I do a record I will do a solo or duo record! There's one tune on here that had something like 17(!) bassoon tracks. It sounds great-but it is a huge task to mix. Other tracks we have are thankfully less complicated and are mixing much easier. Tomorrow's the day we go to deliver the goods to the factory-then we will be done for just a little while until we finish the whole shebang. Haroun has put his life on the line mixing this stuff and Matt (our graphic artist) has worked really hard-both guys did a lot with an incredibly busy schedule to deal with.

On another note (and I'd like feedback from other bassoonists if possible): I'm really beginning to like Leitzinger bocals.
For some reason my reeds are just not speaking correctly up high on my Heckel 1 bocal. I can't remember the exact
model of my Leitzinger-but it's just a really flexible and free-blowing bocal to play. I'm doing some gigs coming up with DAVKA and I think I'll use it over the Heckel. For me that's a huge change as I've been using this Heckel bocal for about 10 years-at least. Let me know about your experiences with Leitzinger bocals.
Ciao!

News about the Pre-Release for "FROLIC IN THE LAND OF PLENTY"

Paul Hanson — Tue, 15 May 2007 14:10:00 GMT

Hello all. I'm writing this as we are just about 9 days away from the deadline for everything to be done. Since we're pushing so hard to do this on time-I've rethought the release date and pushed it back awhile til this summer. Does this mean that there will be no hard-copy album available in June? No-we are launching June 12th a 'Pre-Release' copy of the album. It will be 5 tracks from the album and 1 track that will only appear on this pre-release copy. That one track will be a couple of movements from J.S. Bach's Cello Suite #4 in Eb. Since I am performing at the 2007 IDRS convention in Ithaca, NY the week of June 11-17th-this pre-release copy will be sold there as a Convention Editon CD. After the convention-it will be available at Forrests Music-www.forrestsmusic.com- for the ridiculously low price of $10. Also-when you purchase the CD from them-you will get a coupon redeemable for $2 off the price of the full-length CD which will come out later this summer. Forrests Music has been a huge supporter of my career and has supplied tens of thousands of double reed players the world over with the best in double reed products and services. So-if you want to get a head start on this new album-you can do so and get a bonus track of one of my only recordings playing classical music. Thanks again!

The artwork is coming along-it will be a combination of stormy imagery with a carefree twist. To keep the surprise-that's all I can say.

Mo' Music

Paul Hanson — Fri, 11 May 2007 10:02:18 GMT

Hello out there. Just to let you know-there's a new clip up from a tune called EMERALD MILE. Go to
feed.jazzbassoon.com to check it out. We're racing to mix this album in two weeks and master it, get the artwork done(whew!)-that's what we're doing.

Finally! Some new music for this album is up

Paul Hanson — Sun, 06 May 2007 02:51:00 GMT

Things have been a little hectic around here. Working in different platforms in different studios-I haven't had much
access to the recording we just did with Dennis Chambers. But I put up just a bit from Dark Soul that was recorded.

Go to http://feed.jazzbassoon.com for the Dark Soul Update.

Also-Tracy Silverman's violin playing graces this track-he wasn't there in person but he was in spirit when he lent us a few lines of great fiddle playing. You will hear more from him later. Right now it's a race against time to meet the deadline for this album. It will be available online as well-iTunes, Napster and a bunch of other outfits. We're working on artwork and-oh yes- we have a title for this album. It will be called FROLIC IN THE LAND OF PLENTY. I'll explain more later on that but it basically is about living life to the fullest in times of tension. Something like that.

Here's a picture from the session. The cornfield in the background is just a painting. Dennis is the guy near the middle with the hand on his shirt. Haroun is the guy on the left end and Eric Levy is on the right end-Vic is next to Dennis and the other guy (besides me) is Skyler-our trusty assistant.

Recording with Dennis Chambers, Victor Little and Eric Levy-and don't forget Haroun producing

Paul Hanson — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 01:05:01 GMT

What a day we had on Thursday. I'm still recovering. We had the pleasure of working with the baddest drummer on the planet and one of the nicest guys in the world. And incredibly professional. His drum roadie put it best: "Dennis just lovesto play the drums." And that is true-he is about the music and his instrument. We got there about 11AM and had his drums set up. After the usual tones and everyone getting ready (and coffee and sandwich breaks) we hit about 2:30 and by 3:15 had Emerald Mile nailed. Once I get some audio from that session-I'll put a little bit on the podcast page so you all can get a little preview of the explosiveness and the groove from that tune now that Dennis has graced it. Ridiculous-but with taste, musicality, feel, power-just amazing. We hit Scrool next-got that done about 5:30 and then went and had dinner. We polished off all the tunes by about 9:30. We did about one or two takes on each-once everyone was cool with their parts.
We did Subtle Demons-the oldest tune on this record (originally bassoons for this were recorded in 2004)-and I knew it was going to be amazing. And it was. Dennis is one guy who is very comfortable being himself-no airs, no put-ons, great sense of humor, easy to work with. It never felt like his way or the highway-his first and foremost concern is the good of the music. Boy-what fun. We recorded at Prairie Sun Recording-what a great sound they get there. Their website is
http://www.prairiesun.com/

Some new live recordings

Paul Hanson — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 23:51:31 GMT

Hi everyone. Along the way to recording this album I thought about putting some music up that won't make this record
-just to document it and also to let everyone hear some live stuff. Playing live is a completely different animal from this particular album-it is from any 'recording' in a studio. When you have a live audience different things happen.
So I'm putting on my blog page 2 live tracks from the University of Wisconsin gig on March 26th. You know the link for the music page-http://feed.jazzbassoon.com/ -check it out. They both have some flaws (my reeds choking up in the 85-degree heat on YES OR NO for example) but it's music as it happened and I think it is part of the process of doing this record.
It's all happening around the same time. My good friend-bassist Victor Little (all over my new record) will have a field day with these tracks because of all my triplet figures. (It's called the "duddley-uh, duddley-uh, duddley-uh syndrome!) Yeah-OK-there's a lot of notes in these tracks. Just warning you-but in a good way.

Back from Oklahoma

Paul Hanson — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 22:46:12 GMT

I had a great time last week in Oklahoma at the Northeastern State University of Oklahoma. I was a guest of
the NSU Jazz Lab big band and its director of jazz studies, Arthur White. I was not expecting to find such a great program for jazz there at all but this facility really has a lot going for it. For example-they have a WHOLE building dedicated to jazz. The building is constructed like a club; there's a stage, good sound system and table and chairs like a club but no liquor. They can record concerts there since they have a studio console upstairs along with an isolation booth and offices for Arthur and Shane Ohlson-who was the person who picked me up at the airport. Shane is a pianist and the Jazz Lab Facilities Supervisor. Arthur had his band cracking and we had a great time. I wish someone would send me some pictures if they have any from that event! Arthur arranged one of my tunes from VOODOO SUITE for the concert-it was the tune Rite of Scorpio. That's a first-and a really good arrangement too. Seeing this support from the audience for this type of quality program is good news. While there we were talking about how jazz has become almost an academic music. What I mean is that right now-jazz in college and in other educational forums has never been stronger. There's so much going on in school these days for jazz. When you get out of school, however-there seems to be a huge dropoff in terms of opportunity. There's never been so much jazz in the academic world and there's never been so little in the commercial world. Maybe that's too simplistic but I believe it's somewhat true. You have to have an education to really understand jazz at some level. I've always felt that taking the music out of the everyday collective experience isn't good for the music but maybe we are really now talking about a new form of classical music. It's an interesting time in that regard. There's so much incredible music and so many great players-it seems that the opportunity is a lot less.

That's enough shpiel from me today. In about a day and a half-I'm in the studio with Victor Little, Eric Levy and drummer Dennis Chambers. I'll have more after that-and more images.

By the way-here's a link to the NSU Jazz Lab band site. Check out the links and the history.

http://www.nsuok.edu/jazzlab/history.html

Pictures from Wisconsin

Paul Hanson — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 22:17:28 GMT

Here are some concert shots from Wisconsin. Dave Wells-a bassoon doctoral candidate there-took these. You can also see them in the recent comments from the last entry.

A little avant-garde-but nice colors. Excuse me for looking like I'm going to explode. I guess it was an intense moment.

Wisconsin: Crazy from the Heat

Paul Hanson — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 23:12:00 GMT

Just want to let you all know that I had a great time in Wisconsin the last few days. When I got there on Sunday-it was
about 78 degrees out. It felt like summer but looked like winter as the trees were all bare and there's still a lot of brown around. A few packs of rapidly melting snow. I stayed at the lovely Best Western-but not the one downtown near the school-the other one 6 miles away from school near a bunch of strip malls and the freeway. A 20 buck ride into school.
Oh well. I walked around the area when I had time and found a nice steakhouse/all you can eat complete with free frosties and a huge salad bar. There's a lot of food and beer consumed in Wisconsin. The students were just fantastic-I should have taken my camera and showed some pictures on here. I'll be sure to do that for my next trip to Oklahoma.
The concert was really fun-we had kind of a scary moment when our drummer-a student from U of Wis who hadn't even
know he was going to play with me until three days before the gig-got up in the middle of the first set and said "I've got
to take a break." He left the stage having a diabetic emergency. Combining the fact that we were playing really intense was that the heat and humidity onstage felt like Florida in the summer. There was no air conditioning being late March and basically still being winter in Wisconsin. So I just did a solo piece-moved the program around some and we were fine-our drummer got some orange juice and was OK. The bassoon professor at Wisconsin, Marc Vallon, was a great host and one of the most open-minded bassoon professors I've ever encountered at a university I've visited as a clinician/performer. He plays also the baroque bassoon and the french system bassoon-he is French and has taught at the Paris Conservatoire. It was a very successful visit! If I get some pictures or links I'll share them with you.
OH Yeah-about the album-I will be recording with Haroun this week-getting some of the guitar on there and some other
bassoon tidbits.

Crazy Week and now here I am in Wisconsin

Paul Hanson — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 18:59:00 GMT

I had a crazy week being both a musician working on this record and a housing provider taking care of problems (plumbing) at our rental. And my kids are basically a barrel of monkeys. That's part of the reason I had to come all the way to Wisconsin to put more in this blog. The other reason I had to come here is I'm playing a concert and giving a masterclass at the University of Wis.
I've been studying the music that I recently recorded and the more produced stuff I've been working on. To me it's still
all music but the recording last week was more about live jazz-and the music I've been working on over the last 3 years is a bit more... compositional fusion, if it were. I really, really hate the word fusion because that often says "all chops, no compositional finess". This music will not be note-fests. But I still can't think of another word to describe it. The only thingI guess I could call it is nu-jazz. (Thanks to MySpace).
Speaking of that word fusion-guess who we are scheduled to have play drums on Dark Webmix and 3 other tunes:
Dennis Chambers. The Dennis Chambers of Funkadelic, John Scofield, the Brecker Brothers and Santana (and a million others). We're a little less than a month till we do some sessions with him. I'm so honored to have him come all the way out and play on this music! This will be exciting.
I'm going to try to post a picture from the Cirque Du Soleil gig I did. This also took time from this album. I'm on the far
left-we are all holding score cards as we judge a guest from the audience.