Media — Francesca Han

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Sisyphus (2026, HANJI)

While living in Tokyo, Francesca Han had the pleasure of crossing paths with many musicians at the forefront of the Japanese jazz scene. She found her ideal musical partners in a highly talented and sought-after rhythm section - bassist Takashi Sugawa and drummer Shun Ishiwaka—with whom she shares a commitment to improvisation that serves music that is as intense as it is sensitive.

The musical language Francesca developed during her long stint in New York found the perfect resonance with Takashi and Shun, allowing for the emergence of an original repertoire that is sophisticated yet always accessible.

The trio experienced this firsthand time and again during performances at Tokyo’s many jazz clubs.

To capture the rare symbiosis between the three musicians, this shared energy was recorded one fine day in March 2017 at Tokyo’s Studio Dedé, a studio renowned for its warm analog setup. Titled after one of Francesca’s compositions, and nodding to Albert Camus’s essay, ‘Sisyphus’ features seven tracks that bear her distinctive signature style.

Like a fine wine, this music has benefited from the passage of time. Nearly a decade later, and featuring the signature mixing and mastering of Studio Dedé, it is now presented for your enjoyment.

Listen without moderation!

LINER NOTES

Francesca Han’s tenure in Tokyo was all too short. She quickly became popular and gathered a strong fan base. But perhaps she’s too much of a global citizen to stay in one place, or one musical approach for too long. Just like jazz, she and her music are ready to travel the globe.

Fortunately, we have this album as a testament to Han’s time in Japan.

While she was here, she gathered two of the finest Japan-based musicians, Takashi Sugawa and Shun Ishiwaka, to work and record with her. Collaborating with these two fine, far- reaching, and demanding players, she could home in on the sound she wanted and express it powerfully.

These recordings capture their vibrant collaboration, one honed in Japan’s many jazz clubs.

The selection shows her idea of the jazz piano trio as both the engine of creative improvisation, and as a source of an evenings’ uncompromising entertainment. Her playing has a lightness of touch melded to an intensity of expression. Her keyboard becomes an expansive musical palette that creates exploratory richness and a freshness of approach. All of that comes through on these recordings. Each piece is carefully crafted and dexterously delivered, a unique creation in itself.

“Petit Soleil,” French for “small sun,” is a lullaby dedicated to her first son, written while she was pregnant. The masterful, perhaps child-calming, approach grows through the tune, gathering strength and joy. The brushwork on the cymbals and resonant bass lines match the melody. One hears their careful interplay, listening to each other intently for the right opening to convert silence to beauty.

“Chrysanthemum” is dedicated to the late Masabumi Kikuchi, a great inspiration to many pianists, especially in Japan, Han in particular. It’s open and frank, with a nod to the past, and a feeling for the future.

“Sisyphus” has an ascending line that crashes into an energetic redirection that perfectly captures the myth of Sisyphus and its existential implications for music and life. The searching for new directions, for strength, and for the right attitude comes through strongly. Sugawa and Ishiwaka, both so intense in their fretwork and rhythmic feel, push Han to further explorations up and down the keyboard.

“Circle” is a sustained meditation on the circles that underpin jazz improvisation. In this tune, the trio creates many circles within a single circle. Han’s touch on the piano here makes each dot of a note part of something larger and infinitely fluid. Starting delicately and ending powerfully, the song circles, but also progresses, to a strong and rousing finish. It’s perhaps the most “live” of all the cuts, as if you’re in the room.

“Cowelessi” cleverly combines pianist Stanley Cowell’s hard-driving post-bop playing with Ralph Alessi’s avant-garde trumpeting and composing. Han delivers a beautiful fusion of the two. One can sense a blend of both sensibilities in Han’s work overall, but here, she gives both influences their due, and in equal, pleasing measure.

“Count Yourself” was written with John Coltrane’s “Countdown” in mind. Coltrane’s notoriously tricky tune runs complex chord progressions at an extremely fast tempo. Han takes her tune at a gentler pace, giving more time to contemplate not just the “count,” but the harmonies and improvised lines.

“Detour” is the perfect closing tune. It’s calm, reflective, and elegant. It’s the kind of contemplative song that leaves you mulling over the world at the end of a live show.

Han’s time in Japan was a creatively exploratory period with a tremendous rhythm section who kept her compositions moving in fascinating directions. Tokyo’s loss is another place’s gain, but fortunately we have this recording to show what jazz was made where. Listen and enjoy.

Michael Pronko
Jazz in Japan www.jazzinjapan.com

CREDITS

CD (HJCD004) / DIGITAL
1. Petit Soleil - 7’13’’
2. Chrysanthemum (for Kikuchi) - 6’40’’
3. Sisyphus - 6’52’’
4. Circle - 6’02’’
5. Cowelessi - 6’09’
6. Count Yourself - 4’48’’
7. Detour - 4’49’’

Francesca Han piano & compositions
Takashi Sugawa double bass
Shun Ishiwaka drums

Recording - Studio Dedé (21st March 2017)
Sound Engineer - Akihito Yoshikawa
Assistant - Shinya Matsushita
Mixing / Mastering - Studio Dedé (June 2025)
Sound Engineer - Akihito Yoshikawa
Liner notes - Michael Pronko www.jazzinjapan.com
Photo / Video - Yasuharu Hashino
Design - Cyril Jean www.woomstudio.com
Artwork - ‘Fujyphus’ by Francesca Han & Pierre Biancarelli 50x50cm, Korean hanji paper on canvas
Distribution - Inouïe Distribution www.cdetvinyle.fr
Released in Japan by Free Flying Productions www.freeflying.jp
Production HANJI - Pierre Biancarelli
© & ℗ HANJI - 2026

Being Dantès (2025, HANJI)

Francesca Han, French double bassist Pierre Fenichel, and drummer Fred Pasqua combine their unique talents and worlds in WAKAN. 'Being Dantès' is the first fruit of this collaboration: a repertoire of compositions where obvious, familiar melodic lines navigate complex and unique structures.

« I listen carefully: the sounds around me describe variable and frayed shapes and spaces.» Italo Calvino « Le comte de Monte-Cristo » in ’Ti con zero’ Et° du Seuil 1967.

‘BEING DANTÈS’

Inspired by the first part of Alexandre Dumas's novel, while imprisoned in the Château d'If, Edmond Dantès slowly transforms before being reborn as the Count of Monte Cristo. The trio invites us to a musical experience, a journey through this initiatory process that unfolds in sound. The pieces in the repertoire, which includes a four-movement suite, are conceived as pictures that revisit the decisive moments in the intimate adventure of the walled-up Edmond Dantès. They evoke the tension created when an interiority and an imaginary world are in motion in a motionless, complex, and elusive environment. During his Kafkaesque imprisonment, time expands, each person tells their own story, and reason vacillates: "We must put the mad with the mad."
Silence, even the smallest sounds, take on their full significance: the eddies of the waves, the footsteps of the jailers—a sonic topography takes hold, replacing the alternation of days and nights, a new existential dimension takes hold.
All the pictures constitute a formal musical exploration (metric, harmonic, architectural, etc.) as well as a variation on the sensory palette of Edmond Dantès.
The idea of revisiting this modern and universal myth emerged during the multiple lockdowns of the Covid-19 health crisis.

Digital is available on Bandcamp and all the platforms.
CD and Vinyl are available through Inouïe Distribution.

LINER NOTES

When music becomes a story, how does it sound? Melodies sketch characters; harmonies colour emotions and define atmospheres; rhythms trace the tension and pace of unfolding scenes. On their latest project, “Being Dantès”, the WAKAN trio draws inspiration from Alexandre Dumas’ “The Count of Monte Cristo” and its iconic hero Edmond Dantès. But even without this literary reference, listeners will find themselves absorbed—carried away by the strength of the musicians and the evocative power of the music itself. This album doesn’t require any knowledge of its narrative origin to resonate. While the novel offers themes and textures that transmute from page to score, it is the trio’s compositional voice, their mastery of tempo, and their feel for intrigue that infuse each track with character, depth, and dramatic tension.
WAKAN is a true dynamic trio: egalitarian, inventive, and fully collaborative. There is no hierarchy—no lead, no support. The double bass, drums, and piano share equal footing, with instrumental roles that frequently shift and intersect. All three musicians contribute original compositions, shaping a repertoire that defines WAKAN’s sound: unmistakably rooted in jazz, yet unbound by comparison.
Each member brings a distinct musical identity to this shared canvas. Double bassist Pierre Fenichel, known for his long-standing collaborations with Raphaël Imbert, brings a lyrical sense of adventure and an innate feel for storytelling. His interplay with drummer Fred Pasqua is fluid and intuitive—the result of years of shared experience on projects like Les Quatre Vents. Pasqua, a master of both force and finesse, animates the trio’s pulse with colour, nuance, and energy. On the piano, Francesca Han is a revelation. A Korean-born artist shaped by time in New York and Japan and now based in Southern France, Han brings an expansive and searching voice to WAKAN. Influenced by Jason Moran’s anti-academic approach and her deep musical connection with Ralph Alessi (with whom she’s released a duo album), she weaves long, complex, expressive lines that range from cerebral abstraction to lyrical intimacy.
Together, the trio transforms literature into sound, crafting music that doesn’t merely accompany a story—it becomes one. “Being Dantès” is an audio novel in its own right, rich with characters, suspense, and emotion. May WAKAN continue to tell stories as bold and as timeless as this.
Vincent Bessières
Artistic Director, Producer, Curator
(Translated by James Overstall)

CREDITS

CD (HJCD002) / DIGITAL
1. L’Aile d’un rêve (Pierre Fenichel) - 4’10’’
2. Spinning Top (Francesca Han) - 3’38’’
3. Major (Francesca Han) - 4’11’’
4. La Marée (Francesca Han) - 5’04’’
5. Acacias (Fred Pasqua) - 4’23’
6. Dantès I (Pierre Fenichel) - 4’10’’
7. Dantès II (Pierre Fenichel) - 4’11’’
8. Wakan (Pierre Fenichel) - 6’11’’
9. The Void Ahead (Pierre Fenichel) - 7’11’’
10. Enfant Automne (Francesca Han) - 4’16’’
11. Aldous’ Journey (Pierre Fenichel) 6’09’’

LP VINYL (HJLP002)
A
1. Spinning Top (Francesca Han) - 3’38’'
2. Aldous’ Journey (Pierre Fenichel) - 6’09’’
3. Major (Francesca Han) - 4’11’'
4. L’Aile d’un rêve (Pierre Fenichel) - 4’10’’
B
1. La Marée (Francesca Han) - 5’04’’
2. Wakan (Pierre Fenichel) - 6’11’’
3. The Void Ahead (Pierre Fenichel) - 7’11’’

Francesca Han piano
Pierre Fenichel double bass
Fred Pasqua drums

Recording - Studio Recall (18 & 19 December 2024)
Mixing - Studio Recall (27 & 28 February 2025)
Mastering - Studio Recall (March 2025)
Sound Engineer - Philippe Gaillot
Assistant - Marc Lalu
Liner notes - Vincent Bessières
Photo / Video - Yohann Charrin www.yohanncharrin.com
Artwork & Design - Cyril Jean www.woomstudio.com
Production HANJI - Pierre Biancarelli
Distribution Inouïe Distribution www.cdetvinyle.fr
© & ℗ HANJI - 2025

This album received support from the Région Sud as part of the “Carte Blanche aux Artistes
2024 Musiques” program, which provides assistance for phonographic production/publishing.

In the culture of the Achuars of the Amazon, but also shared by other Amerindian cultures, WAKAN is a spiritual principle attributed to humans as well as to plants and objects, representing, mysteriously, both their soul and their energy.

Exude (2022, Hanji)

After many postponements, it is in the fall of 2021 that Francesca was finally able to invite trumpeter Ralph Alessi to bring to life an original repertoire during a beautiful session at La Buissonne studios, South of France.

Precise and refined gestures on delicate matter, a shared trust and a very free dialogue : the duo exudes a sensitivity that serves an original music for all sorts of journeys.

CD & Digital are available on Bandcamp.

LINER NOTES

“Admittedly, this is not the first time a piano and a trumpet have met for a dialogue.
Pell-mell in my memory are Earl Hines and Louis Armstrong, a supreme meeting, but many more such as Ruby Braff with Ellis Larkins or Dick Hyman, Doc Cheatham with Jimmy Andrews, Oscar Peterson with Dizzy Gillespie, Roy Eldridge, Harry Edison, Clark Terry and Jon Faddis. More recently Uri Caine with Dave Douglas or Fred Hersch with Ralph Alessi.
Added now to these creative and memorable encounters is the equally accomplished duo of Francesca Han and Ralph Alessi. And it's a pure delight!

From the very first notes, the intense reciprocity of listening that binds the two instrumentalists is palpable. And if we feel such complicity at work, it's because the pianist and the trumpeter are not meeting here for the first time as while living in New York, Francesca had several opportunities to play and record with Ralph. Their superb understanding generates a serene exchange on each of their compositions. A shared investment in a perfectly structured musical universe with a rich melodic sensitivity. The music here is at the same time intense, fragile and poetic, of a great and constant beauty, and it is magnified by an exceptional recording sound. Very focused, never overwhelmed by their technical mastery, the pianist and the trumpeter strive to serve their music. Demanding but never excessive, terribly haunting. The emotion aroused by this rich dialogue is deeply touching and fascinates with its irresistible power of seduction.

The art of the duo finds here one of those moments of grace and plenitude that one must savor with delight and a great deal of pleasure.
When all the way down... a kind of blue.”

Jean-Paul Ricard
(founder of AJMI, jazz scholar, author, dedicated collector)

CREDITS

CD (HJCD001) / DIGITAL

1. Apollo - Tokyo (Francesca Han)
2. Sage Advice (Ralph Alessi)
3. Arirang (Korean Trad., Arr. Francesca Han)
4. Camargue (Francesca Han)
5. Humdrum (Ralph Alessi)
6. They Agree (Francesca Han)
7. Throwing Like A Girl (Ralph Alessi)
8. Diagonal Lady (Ralph Alessi)
9. Présent [improvisation] (Francesca Han)
10. Chrysanthemum [for Kikuchi] (Francesca Han)
11. Pannonica (Thelonious Monk)

Francesca Han - piano, compositions
Ralph Alessi - trumpet, compositions

Artwork
‘Lucio Fontana believed that matter should be transformed into energy in order to invade space in a dynamic form’.
Lucio Fontana 61 T 105 : Concetto Spaziale, Attese, 1961, (water-based paint on canvas, 65cm x 50cm)
© Fondation Lucio Fontana, Milano / by SIAE / Adagp, Paris, 2022

Recording 29th Oct 2021 (Nicolas Baillard / Matteo Fontaine)
Mixing 30th Nov 2021 (Gérard de Haro)
Mastering 2nd Jun 2021 (Nicolas Baillard)
Studios La Buissonne, Pernes-les-Fontaines, France
Design - Cyril Jean www.woomstudio.com
Photo - Yohann Charrin www.yohanncharrin.com
Production - Pierre Biancarelli
CD - Cat. number HJCD001
© & ℗ HANJI - 2022

Blues Suns (2016, Pleasantville Records - 18 rue Pville)

Collectively improvised music by Avant Trio which is Francesca Han - piano, Sungbae Kim - bass, Oki Kim - saxophones.

Abdul-him
Gleanings
Solar Buddha
Cohesive Force
Controversy
Tembo Steps
Little White Stone
The Loudest Silence
Shaman Dance
Bush Winds
East Suns
Dadam

The vinyl double LP edition of ‘Blue Suns’ album by Avant Trio described further down.

Released by Beatball, Seoul, South Korea.
Record Company – Beatball
Phonographic Copyright (p) – ILIL Sound
Copyright (c) – Beatball Music Group, Inc.
Mastered At – Total Sonic Media
Lacquer Cut At – Gearbox Records
Design, Artwork, Graphic Design, Art Direction – Lee Jae Min
Executive Producer – Lee Bong Soo
Lacquer Cut By – Caspar Sutton-Jones, Darrel Sheinman
Liner Notes, Executive Producer – Pierre Biancarelli
Piano – Francesca Han
Double Bass – Kim Sungbae
Tenor Saxophone – Kim Oki

Available on Apple Music, Spotify..

Body & Soul (2016, Audioguy Records)

Duo album with South Korean jazz vocal legend, Ms Park.

The Man I Love 5:12
I'll Be Seeing You 3:48
Body And Soul 5:48
Easy Living 4:54
For All We Know 5:26
Don't Explain 5:16
Quiet Nights Of Quiet Stars (Corcovado) 4:46
Good Morning Heartache 5:12
I'm A Fool To Want You 5:45

Icarus (2015, Audioguy Records)

Francesca Han original compositions with her Seoul based trio (Sunyong Lee - bass, Dongjin Shin - drums).

Study 37
Beneficial
Count Yourself
Rotten Peanuts
Detour
Far East
Lost Moon
Moranism
Notoriety
One Whole

Available on Apple Music, Spotify..

Dream Episodes (2016, Audioguy Records)

Francesca Han duo with Alex Sipiagin

Orbit (Unless It’s You)
Stepping Zone
Luiza
Videlles
I Can’t Get Started
Tenor Madness
My Funny Valentine (Live)

Available on Apple Music, Spotify..

Blues Suns (2015, iLiL Records)

Collectively improvised music by Avant Trio which is Francesca Han - piano, Sungbae Kim - bass, Oki Kim - saxophones.

Abdul-him
Cohesive Force
Solar Buddha
Controversy
Tembo Steps
Gleanings
Little White Stone
Bush Winds
East Suns
The Loudest Silence
Shaman Dance
Dadam

All music spontaneously composed through collective improvisations, except Francesca Han (7, 12) Kim Sung Bae (1, 10, 11) Pierre Biancarelli (5)

Executive Producer: Pierre Biancarelli
Recorded at Yul House (24th May 2014) and Yireh Studio (24th September 2014), Seoul
Mixed by K at Slow Room, Seoul, Korea
Mastered by Steven Berson, Total Sonic Media (Austin-Texas, USA)
Design by : Jinho Bae
Art Work : 371a-19 (2013, oil on wood panel) by D Hwang http://dhwang.org

Available on Apple Music, Spotify..

Ascetic (2012, Audioguy Records)

Francesca Han piano solo album.

Ambidextrous 3:09
Ascetic 5:54
Dismantled 4:30
Winter Bush 5:12
Promonade 3:56
Why Is This Thing Called Love 3:11
Green In Blue 4:17
Lament For The Fallen 8:06
Ceili 4:39
Spontaneous Essay On Nothing 6:17

Available on Apple Music, Spotify..