If You Were Mine. Hassan has arranged all three medleys brilliantly, including pianistic tricks not in the original music, but always keeping the melody to the fore. In The Sky is phenomenal. All this is music of great melodic charm, harmonic sophistication and stunning virtuosity, played with great warmth and considerable swing by a virtuoso pianist who never misses a beat of fluffs a note. Although he doesn't admit to it, I suspect that Alex Hassan is well acquainted with the work of the great Harlem stride pianists.
Audio quality is outstanding, playing time highly commendable.
A thoroughly enjoyable album. There wasn't much novelty piano to be heard on the circuit these past few years until Tony Caramia came along. After all, it was devilishly difficult to play and much of it wasn't even ragtime. Caramia helped us to refocus on novelty tunes and their composers and, along with Matthew Davidson, brought this music into the realm of digital recordings. And each time I heard him in concert or as a lecturer, I noted that he would make reverent reference pieces of novelty sheet music.