Hanna’s Diet Blends Classical, Jazz Flavors

Pianist/composer Roland Hanna, who began his musical life as a classicist but soon found a love for jazz, sees no reason why he should have to prefer one music over the other.

“For the average person, music is separated into categories, but not for me,” he said from his New Jersey home. “To me, music is food, and I don’t have to say ‘These are apples and these are pears.’ I can say ‘This is music and it tastes good,’ or vice versa. Others have to know what they’re eating.”

The musician--who has played with Charles Mingus and Ron Carter (he plays on the latter’s score to the recent Bertrand Tavernier film “A Gathering of Old Men”), the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra and the New York Jazz Quartet--finds nourishment in both genres. “Classical music has always been a driving force for me,” he said, “but jazz is my natural music. It’s the music of my people, it’s the music of my soul.”

Lately Hanna, who appears with bassist Andy Simpkins and drummer Ralph Penland tonight through Sunday at Catalina’s Bar and Grill, has melded his love for the two styles by forming a trio of cello (which the 56-year-old Hanna has played since high school), flute and French horn. The group performs his original music, which includes “everything from Bach to Hanna, from 1685 to 1988,” he quipped.

Working with the instrumentation, which Hanna said is “unique in that nothing much has been written for it,” is “the most satisfying thing I’m doing right now. That seems unfair, seeing I’ve played the piano for 52 years--almost. I love to play piano. I get the most personal satisfaction out of it, but that’s not what I’m after anymore.

“I’m after getting my written music out there so that people understand what my life has been about. When I play the piano, I’m just another guy playing the piano, but when I write this music down and people get involved, they can see there’s something special happening there. That’s why it’s so important. It’s also essential that we try to pull people that play classical music into the area of what we call jazz, make them see that it’s one music.”

Convincing promoters and club owners of the group’s versatility--it has appeared before jazz and chamber audiences--and potential appeal has not been easy. “They don’t know what kind of music’s going to come out,” he said. “When I tell them ‘jazz,’ they don’t believe me, you know (laughter). They almost have to have a drummer and a bass player hitting them over the head to realize there’s jazz in other areas.”

Hanna, whose latest LP is “Romanesque” (Blackhawk), uses his facility for jazz improvisation as a springboard for his composing. “Improvising is a way of getting the adrenaline flowing, to make sure there are new and fresh ideas to be written down,” he said.

Despite his fondness for composition, and for the cello trio, Hanna still feels that performing at the piano is his strongest aspect. “I try to bring to the performance a kind of spiritual dignity that I hope comes across,” he said. “Whether I’m playing the blues or a Rachmaninoff concerto, I want people to see that music is not just entertainment, but it’s a self-contained entity that’s to uplift all of us, one way or another. It’s given to help people through this very difficult life.”

For Hanna, a performance becomes all-consuming. “When I’m playing, I try to get totally immersed, so that I can be as honest and sincere and real as I know how, to give the audience as much of me as I can--spiritually and musically,” he said.

Hanna has had this attitude as long as he can remember, and he said it applies to the most mundane of engagements. “Whether it’s a wedding or a concert, to me the important thing is not the place, not the people who asked you to play, not the kind of music--it’s the fact that you’re playing the music,” he said.

Born in Detroit, Hanna played the classical regimen until, in high school, he met future jazz great--and a major influence--Tommy Flanagan. “I was on one side of the auditorium playing Rachmaninoff Preludes, Tommy was on the other side, playing Bud Powell,” he remembered. “So I got up and went over to him to find out what he was doing and how he was doing it. He sort of made it seem like I could do it too, so I jumped in. That started it.”

Later, Hanna, who graduated from Juilliard School of Music in 1960, came under the spell of jazz players, such as Hank Jones and Art Tatum, and such esteemed classical pianists as Artur Rubinstein and Vladimir Horowitz. The latter had a “poise, a nobility,” Hanna said. “Their interest was in music for music, rather than the money.”

Though Hanna continues to split his focus between pianist engagements and those with the cello trio, he’d rather have his cake and eat it, too. “I play piano a lot, but now I’m so involved in cello playing that what I want to do--more than anything--is to have my trio travel with me, and play both.”