Who is Hanan?
Hanan was born to play music. He also knew it very early and never stopped or looked back. From taking his dad's guitar at the age of four to playing jam sessions at The Blue Note NYC at age 15 and being one of the most "in demand" session players at age 19, he took giant steps.
"I had a lot of time but not many friends after we moved to New Jersey from Israel. I was 13 and I was the new kid." Time that he would spend playing guitar, keys, drums and whatever other instrument would come his way. At 19, recommended by icons such as George Benson and Preston Glass, he enrolled in SUNY Purchase Conservatory and finished youngest of his class. Onwards to becoming first engineer at some of the top studios in the city where he was often performing double duties as engineer and musician as well as performing live with many. Recording and performing with the likes of Leela James, Gladys Knight, Kanye West, DMX, Floetry, Wyclef Jean, BB King, Roy Hargrove, Talib Kweli, Stanley Clarke and The Funk Brothers molded him more and more and gave valuable lessons and insight to continue his path.
An impromptu meeting at Montreux Jazz Festival where he had just walked off stage from a jam session with BB King, John McLaughlin and others would lead to him starting work on his own music. “My future manager asked me if I wrote my own music. I said yes. Her inquiry on whether I could send her something resulted in me telling her that it was all in my head. She put me on a regimen of demo'ing one track per week and four months later I found myself on a plane to Berlin, Germany where we would begin work on my album".
Hanan would regularly "escape from the studio" to play small club gigs in Germany and also performed at the iTunes LIVE Berlin festival as the only unsigned act. "I had no idea what would happen. I walked out there to a sold-out house and they even asked me back for an encore. The best feeling in the world, believe me!"
With the album finished and mix-guru Bob Clearmountain currently working ..ing the tracks, Hanan is looking forward to the future. "I want nothing else than play. I feel withdrawal if I cannot play or sing for a day. Being able to reach people with my music is what I have been waiting for all my life."
People: get ready.
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