The American Jazz pianist, composer, bandleader and teacher Sir. Roland Hanna was born Roland Pembrooke Hanna on the 10th February 1932 in Detroit, Michigan, USA. In a long and successful career, his contribution to the jazz scene, notably be-bop, avant-garde, jazz fusion and chamber and orchestral music is without doubt considerable. He began studying classical piano from the age of 11, but became very interested in the jazz music scene, being introduced by his friend, the great pianist Tommy Flanagan. After completing his military service from 1950 to 1952, he studied music at the Eastman School of music in 1953, in Detroit before moving to New York in 1955, enrolling at the Juilliard School. His professional career really began working with the likes of Benny Goodman and Charles Mingus in the 1950s and eventually graduating in 1960. Between 1963 and 1966, Roland led his own trio, and after this he joined up with the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra from 1966 to 1974 as a regular member, and he toured the Soviet Union with this outfit in 1972. For most of the 1970s Hanna was a member of the New York Jazz Quartet. In 1982, he wrote the tune Seasons on Sarah Vaughans album Crazy and Mixed Up. By the late 1980s and early 1990s Hanna was a member of the Lincoln Centre Jazz Orchestra and The Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra. Around the same period, he also wrote several chamber and orchestral music pieces, as well as a ballet. The Sir in Sir Roland Hanna, came about when Roland was given an honorary knighthood by President William Tubman of Liberia in 1970. Hanna was a professor of jazz at the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College (CUNY), in Flushing, New York and taught at several other music schools. In his main recordings and performances, he was highly skilled on the piano, electric piano and cello.
