Taking Off: Sarah Hanahan

You always remember your first. Sure, that’s a cliché in love but less so when it comes to your first record as a leader. No matter where a musician may travel along the path of their career, that debut is a crucial milestone.

Alto saxophonist Sarah Hanahan has just put out her debut, Among Giants, on the Jazz at Lincoln Center house label Blue Engine. It has a lofty title whose promise is fulfilled by the music. Hanahan, only 27, is deeply knowledgeable of and respectful towards the musicians that preceded her. Their fingerprints are all over the album and Among Giants thus becomes both a document of Hanahan’s history while also pointing straightahead to her future.

Part of that history is the saxophonists she cites as influences: Charlie Parker first and foremost, and John Coltrane. Then, as she was preparing to audition for the Jackie McLean Institute of Jazz at the Hartt School of Music, she got into its founder.

“A teacher I had in Massachusetts gave me a copy of McLean's record 4, 5 and 6 and the first song on it is [standard] ‘Sentimental Journey’,” Hanahan recalls. “I remember vividly because I had a Ford car and it had a CD player, and I just would play ‘Sentimental Journey’ over and over. I was blown away. I don’t even remember the rest of the CD because I just remember playing that one track.”

Another touchstone was Kenny Garrett: “He was such an influence on me because he was stretching a song for like 45 minutes. It was just unbelievable, his energy. You could feel it and the band was so strong.
I had never heard anything like that.”

Garrett’s 1997 album Songbook would play a big role on Among Giants 26-plus years later when Hanahan would tap two of its participants in bassist Nat Reeves and drummer Jeff 'Tain' Watts.

“I met Nat Reeves when I was 18 and going to Hartt,” says Hanahan. “He played with all my favorite saxophone players: Sonny Stitt, Jackie McLean, Kenny Garrett, Pharoah Sanders. He’s really my true mentor. He would bring me up on stages with people I wasn’t ready to play with.

It really pushed me and helped me to see how to play not in the classroom but on the bandstand, just be ready for anything because anything could happen.”

Watts she knew from afar and it had been a dream to reunite the Songbook rhythm section after many years. Its pianist Kenny Kirkland passed away in 1998 so the band is completed by pianist Marc Cary (plus percussionist Bobby Allende on half the date). When she first moved to New York, Hanahan would attend Cary’s Harlem Sessions at Smoke.

“He was the only one who was playing any Jackie tunes,” she says. “He didn’t know me at first but then one time he was playing kind of an obscure Jackie tune and I knew it and I just popped up on the stage. We formed such a beautiful relationship after that first meeting.”

Another important contributor to the album is producer (and Hanahan’s former instructor at Hartt), Abraham Burton, of whom Hanahan says, “he kept me on track. We had spoken for months about how to conceptualise the record and how to go in and get the job done in a certain way because you can’t play it like it’s a live show. We want to be really precise and reach the vibe but, you know, come in and get out.”

The album is evenly split between original compositions and varied covers and is organised with an intention often lacking these days, even from established artists. Coltrane’s ‘Welcome’ is just that: “I like to open all my shows with it. We welcome the people and welcome the spirits.”

Hanahan’s ‘Resonance’ also fêtes the saxophonist and she says, “I just love the energy that those guys brought to that song. We just hit super hard.”

Burt Bacharach’s ‘A House Is Not a Home’ is a tribute to McLean, specifically the version from his 1988 album Dynasty and how Hanahan felt it “really inspired me to know melodies.” ‘NATO’ was written for Reeves and references his nickname while ‘Honey’ is a love song to Hanahan’s partner. Hoagy Carmichael’s ‘Stardust’ and Ferde Grofé’s ‘On The Trail’ are classics Hanahan included both to celebrate the Great American Songbook and earlier generations of players who explored it deeply.

Hanahan finishes with ‘We Bop!’, a song she wrote, “to just keep the party going, a great song to just make people feel good.”

In its energy, focus and interplay, Among Giants recalls the great mid-1960s Impulse! dates. When this author offered that assessment to Hanahan, she replied, “That’s my shit. You know what I mean? That’s my absolute shit. So that’s a huge compliment because that’s really the music I love.”

This article originally appeared in the September 2024 issue of Jazzwise. Whether you want to enjoy Jazzwise online, explore our Reviews Database or our huge archive of issues, or simply receive the magazine through your door every month, we've got the perfect subscription for you. Find out more at magsubscriptions.com