Album Notes

"Not too often, musicians come along and invent their own instrument. Maybe they literally bolt together an entirely new vehicle, or carve a new slope to play on. More marvelous is when someone takes an instrument you thought you knew and tilts it just so, dazzling us with new reflections. Those folks are rare: Django Reinhardt, Lester Young, Bobby McFerrin, Edgar Meyer, Paul Hanson

All the adjectives are true. Paul plays physically impossible stuff on perhaps the weirdest instrument of the Weird Jazz Instrument Club. Playing at the very highest level. Surpassing most anyone's conception and ability on one of the most unforgiving instruments ever. Think of playing Paganini on the ocarina, or winning the Kentucky Derby on a camel."

Darol Anger, co-founder of the Turtle Island String Quartet.

Paul Hanson-jazz bassoonist who has performed and/or recorded with Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, Wayne Shorter, Peter Erskine, Billy Higgins, Boz Scaggs, Dewey Redman, Don Cherry, The Temptations, Anger-Marshall band, Oaktown Irawo, the Klezmorim, Ray Charles, and others. See www.jazzbassoon.com for more about Paul Hanson