Terry Hanson and his father Charles loved jazz music, and that passion has resulted in donations of their family’s piano, large CD collection, electric keyboard, many books of sheet music and Terry’s drum kit to Black Hawk College’s Art, Design and Performing Arts department.
In February 2025, six months before passing away at the age of 97, Chuck Hanson donated a six-foot Yamaha G3 piano to the college, where Terry studied music in the ‘70s and later taught for 23 years. He’s been an in-demand drummer and teacher in the QC for far longer.
“There was no plan anywhere. Dad said one day, what do you think? And next thing I know, it's here. Next thing I know, I'm donating stuff. Next thing I know, I'm walking the halls again,” Terry, 71, said Thursday, Dec. 3 in the reception area of Building 1 at the Moline campus, where the piano currently sits. “And this is so surreal. This is like, wow. I spent a lot of time walking these halls. And it's the feeling here is still, still very surreal and very cool.”
“My dad wanted his piano to go to a place where it would get played and taken care of,” Terry said. “That was very important to him. I said, ‘I think BHC would be a great place.’ ”
For Terry, the love of playing music began from his father Chuck (who not only played piano, but also drums in junior high and high school in Rock Island), with a red sparkle snare drum from the JCPenney catalog. At age 11, he received it as a Christmas present from his father, a big jazz fan from the golden era of ‘40s big band music.
“I think he liked jazz from the get go. And I think mom did, too,” Terry said, noting his dad amassed a collection of 1,500 albums and about 1,500 CDs. “He was a fanatic jazz guy. And when we were growing up, we got to see Buddy Rich and Maynard Ferguson and Stan Kenton and Woody Herman and all those guys.”
This year, Chuck donated a stack of “fake books” (a collection of lead sheets for musicians) for the BHC music department’s library.
“Chuck was a huge jazz fan. He gave me his jazz CD collection – thousands of CDs,” said Corey Kendrick, assistant professor of music and a jazz pianist.
Chuck’s obituary (he died at home July 6, 2025) even mentioned his love of music. “He was a jazz aficionado, spending much time listening to jazz, collecting albums, as well as tickling the keyboards at home,” it said.
He was known in the Quad Cities for his passion for magic and was a member of the Quad Cities Magic Club for over 80 years. He also was an avid fisherman, winning many awards on his annual trips with his “Orioles” fishing buddies.
Chuck and his wife, Jean (who died in 2024), and their four children played a variety of instruments. The grand piano he donated to the college was made in 1969 and served as the Hanson family piano for decades. The family also donated Chuck’s Roland FP-7F keyboard.
It’s becoming hard to step into the music department and not encounter something that used to belong to the Hanson family.
“The generosity of the Hanson family is truly inspiring,” Kendrick said. “Terry helped a generation of BHC students as a teacher and now these gifts will empower yet another generation of musicians to meet their goals,” he said.
At the Hanson family home, Terry played jazz with his brother Chuck (who died eight years ago) on bass, uncle Bob on sax, and father on the keys. “Of course, we'd only play a few tunes that everybody knew. And dad's favorite key was C,” he recalled.
Terry admitted that becoming a musician for a living “is not the smartest thing to do because it's, you know, it's not the smartest thing to do. And I think, he encouraged me, but he didn't push it to where, you know, you should be out playing gigs at 16,” he said, noting during high school in Moline (from which he graduated in 1973), he got his first gigs in Cedar Falls.
That one drum at a long-ago Christmas (added to over the years into a full set) started him on a path to being a full-time, respected musician.
“I don’t think at the time Dad or I realized it would be the start of an amazing musical journey for me,” Terry said.
After graduating from Moline High School, he took a summer course at the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston. “That summer it was crazy. It was great,” Hanson said. “You were in school probably six hours a day and then you did everything.”
He returned to the Quad Cities, played in a band and worked a few non-music jobs.
But something was missing. So, he enrolled at Black Hawk College, mainly taking music classes from 1975-78.
“The teaching staff was amazing, and I learned a lot in a short time,” he said. After three years at BHC, Terry didn’t earn a degree but did a lot, active with jazz band, stage band, and jazz choir.
“I had all the great teachers. I mean, every teacher that was here at that time, I look back at it going, wow, what I had, I learned quite a bit,” he said.
“Once I went to Berklee, then I came back and I came here (BHC) and then I started gigging and hustling and being on the phone all the time and then pretty soon I'm in this band and I'm doing that band, and all of a sudden I'm touring,” Terry said. “I toured 30 countries.”
Touring the world
After working briefly at John Deere Harvester Works, Hanson met a musician in 1985 in Albany, Ill., Doug Allen, who was looking for a drummer.
“Within a week or two, we're playing four nights a week around here,” he said. “He goes, in three months, we're going to Germany. You want to go? I'm going, duh. So the Doug Allen Band was the band that got called for the USO tour.”
In four tours over three years, Hanson got to play at U.S. military bases in the Azores Islands, Greenland, Iceland, Newfoundland, Germany, Israel, and Egypt, among many other nations. Hanson was thrilled to play at a base just 100 yards from the Red Sea.
“It was a great experience. It wasn't a total big money-making thing, but it was great,” he said. “These are places I would never be able to see otherwise.”
In the Country Blue band, they were the house band at the former Fleetwood (now Crabby’s) in Coal Valley, and opened for some big touring artists, like Merle Haggard and Charlie Daniels at Mississippi Valley Fair.
Terry played with his brother Chuck (who played bass), in a bluegrass band in the ‘70s, and then a country band in the late’80s through 1994, called Country Blue.
In 1997, Terry started his jazz Terry Hanson Ensemble, which still continues today.
Hanson started teaching drumming private lessons in 1988, and played with the late great QC bluesman Ellis Kell (a founder of Common Chord in 2004) in his band, and the Whoozdads, and opened a number of times for blues legend B.B. King.
“The thing I lucked out with because I played with Ellis for 20 years with his blues band, but then the Whoozdads,” noting Kell died at 61 nine years ago this month. “I played with them since basically the start. Many years. That was awesome. But it worked out enough to where when they weren't playing, I was filling in…At one time I was playing in six bands -- I mean steady gigs here, steady gigs there.”
While he wasn’t a magician like his dad, Terry got to experience a different definite kind of magic with Ellis Kell Band.
“When they got into a zone, his blues band was great,” Hanson said. “I had the best gigs in town with him. We played this farmer's market every year in Kewanee or somewhere. You know, we drove like 45 minutes, and it was just a farmer's market and they had a little band shell there. But every time we played there, there must have been magic in the air with that band because it just sounded great.”
Hanson (a father of four, including a stepdaughter, and grandfather of eight) has taught percussion at the old Simon’s in downtown Moline, at McKay Music and West Music.
Back to Black Hawk to teach
In 1997, he was asked to return to Black Hawk College. But this time, he was the instructor. “What an honor!” Terry said of teaching BHC music students. “It was very rewarding!”
He taught part-time until 2020 and has kept in touch with BHC music faculty members since then.
On a visit after his father’s passing, Terry realized that the drum kit in the music department was the same one he had used as an instructor from 1997-2020 and as a student in the 1970s.
Following his father’s example, Terry decided to donate his nearly pristine Premier drum set. And several cymbals – including one that had traveled with him into the sands of the Middle East on a USO tour.
“And it comes down to, yes, I went here. Yes, I got to teach here. Very honored both ways,” Hanson said. “And I've seen how the college has grown and added to.”
He’s impressed by the young Kendrick, who he called a great player.
“He's a good guy. The college is probably very grateful to have him. But if I can put this stuff here, knowing that he will watch over it, he will play it,” Hanson said.
A current steady gig he has is with veteran comic singer-songwriter and keyboardist Steve Couch.
“We try to go to the studio once a week, and we go in and I have my drum set up, mics, everything. So we just go in and we work on tunes,” Hanson said, noting he’s done a lot of studio work, playing for many varied recordings, including Couch’s new “Useful Songs for Everyday Life.”
Hanson’s lasting legacy includes having taught many of the QC’s top drummers, and he said it was an honor to be asked to teach at BHC.
“I didn't have to have a degree,” Hanson said. “It ended up being almost 25 years. And the people that I got to teach here, just like teaching at McKay’s or West, I have like eight-plus students that are actually doing all the teaching in town now that are doing what I did that, they're teaching tons of kids.”
They include Greg Hipskind of Wicked Liz and the Bellyswirls, who runs QC Rock Academy, and Wes Weeber.
“I never took any of this for granted,” Hanson said. “It is nice. Out of the blue, people say, ‘You probably don't remember me. I took from you 20 years ago. And thank you for that one year, two years, whatever.’ And it's great and it's neat that I can still be in my age still talking to my students that have become friends, professional people and friends.”
That’s music Terry never tires of hearing.
Two upcoming holiday concerts
You can join the Department of Art, Design and Performing Arts for “Songs for the Season” on Saturday, Dec. 6 at 7 p.m., a holiday concert featuring the BHC Chamber Singers, Concert Choir and Community Chorale, including:
- Dr. Irene Leites, director
- Marcia Renaud, pianist and organist
- Andrew Endress, guest pianist
- Paul Mizzi, flutist
- Charlotte Oltman, percussionist
The free concert will be at First Congregational Church, 2201 7th Ave., Moline.
Another free concert will be Monday, Dec. 8, at 7 p.m., a “Holiday Grab Bag,” with a BHC Jazz Band holiday concert. Enjoy a variety of Christmas, video game-themed, Latin and jazz music at the Quad-Cities Campus, Building 1, Room 308 (theatre).
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