Theodore Hansen, PhD

​

​

My friend Ted Hansen

 

Trying to take a few minutes to remember Dr. Theodore Hansen is an impossible task. He was one of those great men and teachers that if you knew him, he changed your life and if you knew others who didn’t know him, you wished they did. He passed recently in Greenville, Texas, at 83 years young. His brief bio would tell you he was a versatile piano player, humanities, and music teacher in Colorado, Arizona, Missouri, and Texas. He was still teaching a full course load this past year.

 

My name is Russ Capri—for the past 50 years, I have been a professional trumpeter and for the bulk of my adult life I have been privileged to be a music teacher and educator to other professionals, private students, and many students throughout Arizona’s public school system, working for various school districts, and at several institutions of post-secondary education as well. I first met Ted in the late 1960’s when I was an elementary school student myself, in Phoenix. Simply put, Ted was one of the most influential and important men I ever met, the kind of friend and teacher that helps makes you who you are. Ted was at the top of that list for me. And for so many others I know as well.

 

More than a teacher to me, though, Ted and I became friends.

 

As I mentioned, my history with Ted goes back a very long time.

 

By co-incidence, when I first met Ted, he and his family lived on the same street as my family, but we did not know each other yet. Ted and his wife Roberta (Bobbie) used to take walks around the block in the early evenings and I was often practicing my trumpet at that time.   The Hansens heard me practicing on a regular basis while walking. Ted knocked on our door one night, my father answered, and Ted inquired about the trumpet playing. When he found out that I was still in grade school, he told my father that I had a future as a trumpeter professionally and even more importantly, that I should use my talent to obtain a music scholarship to pay for my college education in future years. I was only twelve or thirteen years old and he took the time to knock on a stranger’s door to dispense sage advice. Career advice. Life changing advice. Little did we know that in four or five short years, when I was an undergraduate at Arizona State University, I would be performing two solo pieces that Ted composed and dedicated to me and that he accompanied me on piano during his time at Arizona State University and at his Doctoral Recital at the University of Arizona. Configuration for Trumpet and Piano (1973) and Cavatina for Flugelhorn and Piano (1976). Bobbie mentioned to me that the trumpet piece is one of the most performed pieces, of the hundreds, that Ted wrote and published during his life. I have always felt so honored by Ted having written those pieces for me and to rehearse them with him over and over and be able to pick his brain about them was, frankly, amazing. A once in a life opportunity. A once in a lifetime lesson. A once in a lifetime friendship I am as able to recall as when we first started, some forty seven years ago.

 

To watch Ted work with students at a jazz band festival was anybody’s fortune, be you other judges, teachers, or players. He was just great at that. He was a master performer, teacher, and a master clinician but as a pianist, Ted could play anything and everything. And anything and everything well.

 

Ted was a life member of the American Federation of Musicians, Tulsa, Oklahoma, AFM local 94. His expertise was vast, traversing classical, commercial, and jazz, not to mention teaching his Music and Humanities courses and all the arts. He had an amazing breadth and scope of knowledge. Perhaps his greatest gift as a teacher was to make learning and practice interesting and fun. Yes, Virginia, there is fun in teaching, as Ted would say. Oh, the humor, the bad jokes, the inside jokes. That was Ted’s forte’. He reveled in the groans that followed his jokes and one-liners.

 

I feel privileged and honored to have known Ted and been his friend for well over forty five years. Ted took the time when I first met him in college while he was teaching a music theory class that I was enrolled in to advise me, challenge me, nurture me, and feature my performing abilities. He would have me bring in my instruments and perform on Bach Chorales, whatever he could do to get and keep me engaged in learning. Sometimes it was a Maynard Ferguson tune. Can you imagine...in a theory class? But that was Ted, he could and would find fun in teaching and learning and elicit and communicate the theory in any and all of it.

 

Ted served his country in the United States Navy where he became an electrician. He served in the Navy for four years on active duty at sea and Inactive duty for another four years. He couldn’t wait to complete his service so he could get back to his music and piano playing. He explained it to me like this once: “If you can find something to do in life other than the music business and teaching that you love and enjoy and can make money at, then do it. If you can’t find that and you can’t live without music and teaching, then those are the fields you should pursue, even though there’s no money in either of them.” He shared that advice with me during one of our long talks in his office about life, music, education, and show business.

 

When Ted began teaching at Arizona State University in 1967, he became one of the founders of the ASU jazz program and taught a large jazz ensemble class called a “big band.” There was no big band course offered, so he took the initiative to start one from the ground up. Since there was no budget, he wrote most of the arrangements himself and rehearsed the band. At that time, jazz in school was generally frowned upon, so this was no small feat. Jazz Band was not in the curriculum, so he started from exactly zero. I attended these concerts often, and this was a great band. He helped pioneer a jazz program at ASU which is booming today. Another great sign of a great friend and teacher: putting your mark on the edifice of time, and to a time you will not—but others—surely will see. Ted made that mark.

 

Ted advised me about teaching, the music business and life, which made his example and friendship all the more important; and his passing all the more sad today. But we have his eternal memories and teachings and examples—the greatest gifts great friends and teachers can give. And to the extent those who were fortunate enough to know him, he made their lives, and all they interacted with, so much better. His life, like all great lives, are durable well and way beyond their physical component on our earth—they just make our time here better. As Dr. Ted Hansen did. I am very thankful for the gift of his friendship and mentorship. As they say in so many of our traditions: may his memory continue to be a blessing. Thank you teacher. Thank you friend. Thank you Ted.

 

Russ Capri

Carefree, Arizona