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John Handy is one of the few surviving saxophone heroes from the 1950s and 60s golden age of hardbop. A featherweight boxing champion as a teenager, Handy tested and honed his jazz skills throughout the 1950s on the San Francisco jazz scene, where he was a regular at the city’s famed Bop City club. At the end of the decade he went to New York City and became a key member of Charles Mingus’ group, appearing on some of the bassist’s most notable records (including a legendary solo, on tenor sax, on Mingus’ elegy for Lester Young, “Goodbye Porkpie Hat,” which can be heard on the Night Lights program Turn Out the Stars). Drawing on a wide array of influences such as Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins, Benny Carter and early Eric Dolphy, he forged his own style as an alto saxophonist, particularly through a flair for playing in the upper register and an unique form of tonguing that created what Metronome described as “a fast, fluttering sound.” In 1965 his unusual quintet, featuring Michael White on violin and Jerry Hahn on guitar, was a huge hit at the Monterey Jazz Festival, landing Handy a recording contract with Columbia Records and vaulting his group into second place behind Miles Davis in a 1966 Downbeat poll. Handy was an early advocate for jazz education and taught for many years at San Francisco State. His musical interests are broad; he has composed works for orchestras and early in his career performed Bartok’s Night Music with classical pianist Leonid Hambro. His interest in world music has led him to collaborate with Indian musicians Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan as well. Handy’s also tasted commercial success–his 1976 R & B-flavored “Hard Work” was a chart-smash single. As a tribute to Handy for his 75th birthday (Feb. 3), Handy With The Horn includes music from the saxophonist’s little-known 1960s Roulette leader dates and his mid-1960s Columbia sides, in addition to a recording made with Mingus in 1959. The program will air this evening at 11:05 p.m. EST on WFIU, at 9 p.m. Central Time on WNIN-Evansville, and at 10 p.m. Sunday evening EST on Michigan's Blue Lake Public Radio. It will be posted Monday morning for online listening in the Night Lights archives. You can read the transcription of a telephone interview that I did with Handy on the blog page of the website; Part 1 and Part 2 are already up, and I'll be posting the remainder of the interview later today and tomorrow. Special thanks to Organissimo posters Clunky and Felser for their assistance with this program. Photo of John Handy by Mark Sheldon Next week: "Suite History." Extended musical depictions of African-American history by Duke Ellington, Oliver Nelson, and John Carter.

Hey all, as a supplement to this week's Night Lights show Handy With The Horn, I did a telephone interview last week with alto saxophonist John Handy. Part 1, in which he talks about early encounters with Dexter Gordon and Art Tatum, why he went with the alto over the tenor, and working with bassist Albert Stinson in the late 1960s, is now posted. I'll be posting the rest of the interview on the Night Lights site throughout the rest of this week.