Hannah Harder is a young saxophonist and composer from the Twin Cities who recently released her debut album as leader, The Greatest of These is Love. Harder connected with Sam Keenan from Minnesota Jazz Tracks to discuss the new record, her path to jazz, and her upcoming release show at MetroNOME Brewery in St. Paul on Wednesday, February 26.
This interview originally aired on Minnesota Jazz Tracks on 2/24/25
READ THE FULL TRANSCRIPT OF THE INTERVIEW BELOW:
Sam Keenan
This is new music from Hannah Harder Quartet off their record, The greatest of These is Love. And Hannah harder is a saxophonist, composer and musician, and she, just last year, graduated from the University of Wisconsin Eau Claire and I caught up with her to ask her about her journey and this new record. I first asked Hannah Harder, what gave her the bravery to go to college for music?
Hannah Harder
Well, you know, I had other options in mind for sure. I wanted to be a journalist for a long time. I was really into, like, writing and speaking and things like that. I did speech, but I chose music because music has been a big part of my life for my whole life, and it’s always just kind of held a very special part of who I am. I remember my saxophone teacher in high school, Scott Johnson. He told me, if there’s anything else you can see yourself doing, do that instead. And like, I thought about it, and I was like, I don’t think I see myself doing anything besides music the rest of my life, like it’s it’s always going to be a very essential part of my life, and I just want to keep exploring that. So that’s why I decided to pursue it professionally.
Sam Keenan
I asked Hannah what inspired her musically as a budding musician.
Hannah Harder
Well, I’ve always grown up in church, and church music has been a huge part of my life. I grew up kind of like non denominational so we played just a lot of worship music. That’s kind of like where I learned to love music and learn to kind of explore what was going on behind like, that’s kind of how I learned, like, about chords, about harmony was through, like, singing on worship team and things like that. I didn’t start getting into jazz, really into, like, high school, but obviously, straight ahead, jazz is, like a huge part of my musical background, classical music, gospel music, r, d, just kind of there’s kind of a lot personally, but I think this is true for other people too. There’s, like a spiritual component of it too. So you kind of learn, especially with improvisation and jazz, you kind of learn how to like channel that in a way, kind of that same feeling you get with worship and, like, improvising with worship stuff. There’s a lot of like parallels there.
Sam Keenan
The Hannah harder quartet is made up of Hannah on saxophone, Patrick Adkins on piano, Graydon Peterson on the bass and Ben Ehrlich on drums. I asked Hannah how that all came together. We’ve
Hannah Harder
We’ve never played as a quartet before, but, like, I’ve played with all these musicians separately in different settings, and they’re all just like musicians that I really look up to. I just love the way they play, and I kind of just like thought of their sounds in mind when I was planning this whole album.
Sam Keenan
Hannah also told me about what inspired the track list for this record.
Hannah Harder
All the originals are tunes that I wrote in my college years. They all kind of have like different inspiration behind them, but I don’t know I wrote a lot when I was in college, and most of it is really bad and we’ll never see the light of day. No, these are all like kind of songs that were very personal and that load when I wrote them, so they like are all inspired by different things. So that’s why it was all compiled. And then the title track, obviously the greatest love, my faith, is a very central part to who I am and the music that I do.
Sam Keenan
I asked Hannah about some specific tracks on the record. The first one is a tune called “Hold Me”
Hannah Harder
That one compositionally, it was kind of inspired by, like, one of my favorite records is John Coltrane’s ballads album. And like, probably one of my favorite records about him, which I feel like is like a little bit of a hot take. You know, it’s like one, I feel like it’s one of, one of those more underage. But anyways, I kind of wanted to channel him in that. And just like a culturing ballad, ask, I mean, these tunes aren’t on that record, but like Central Park West, I feel like, just like, kind of like moving changes that kind of all flow nice together, and then like this, like floaty sacks feel over it. That was the inspiration behind it, compositionally. But. It told me it was kind of like just channeling like a like a relationship feeling.
Sam Keenan
I guess you know another tune on the record, maybe far from relationship feels, is called PMS.
Hannah Harder
Ah.I PMS, oh my gosh. So a lot going on there. It’s kind of inspired, sound wise, like Kenny Garrett again, Coltrane, in terms of, like, composition, but it’s inspired by, like, you know, pre menstrual syndrome, just kind of like all the feelings you get before that, and, you know, all the, like, whenever I play this live, there’s always, like, women just love this song because it channels that. I guess it’s even funnier because I usually am always playing it with a band of men, and it just makes it that much more funny. But anyways, the overall theme is just kind of like, rage, I guess, a little bit, but then it dies down sometimes because, you know, there’s just, like, a lot of representing, of like, different, like, hormones going on and, like, it’s just kind offFunny, I don’t know, but the overall theme is just kind of like, Ah, this sucks. Like, you know, I don’t know.
Sam Keenan
The final tune I got a little insight about from Hannah is called, I don’t know yet.
Hannah Harder
The inspiration behind that one was I wanted to write just like a really hard tune that’s like hard for no reason, like when you’re especially when you’re in school, like music academia, there’s always groups of, like, young cats, I guess that just like to play really hard tunes for the sake of playing hard tunes and, like, showing off, I guess it’s always boys. So I wanted to write a tune like that in an ironic sense, like, Oh, I’m writing this tune with really hard changes that I’m just gonna, like, shred over. And I was gonna call it a different title, but then I changed it to, I don’t know yet, so it’s supposed to kind of poke fun at, just like mostly boys that like shed over tunes, just to try and show off. Anyways, that was behind that one.
Sam Keenan
I couldn’t let Hannah go without asking her about how she gets her tone on the saxophone.
Hannah Harder
I mean, I transcribe a lot, and I listen a lot, and I suppose those are also textbook answers, but I feel like I’m I’m very inspired by singing a lot too. One of my favorite artists ever is Mariah Carey. I love her so much, and Tori Kelly, and like Whitney Houston, and just like, kind of like powerhouse vocalists I love so much, and I feel like I kind of try to translate that into my horn a little bit, so I don’t know that’s what I would say.
Sam Keenan
Finally, I asked Hannah if she had any other thoughts about the record as a whole.
Hannah Harder
Like, my overall message is definitely love. Um, that’s kind of like the main takeaway. Like, you know, I have, like, each team is inspired by different things, but like, overall, I just kind of wanted the message to be, like, reflective of, you know, where it comes from, which is first, Corinthians 13 and like that, above all things, that love is just kind of like the major takeaway,
Sam Keenan
The Greatest of These is Love is the name of the record from Hannah harder quartet. Check out their release show this Wednesday that’s at MetroNOME Brewery, February 26 and thanks to Hannah for talking to me.
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