John Handy - 1965 - Recorded Live at the Monterey Jazz Festival

John Handy

1965

Recorded Live at the Monterey Jazz Festival

01. Spanish Lady 19:36

02. If Only We Knew 26:58

Recorded At – Monterey Jazz Festival

Bass – Don Thompson

Drums – Terry Clarke

Guitar – Jerry Hahn

Saxophone – John Handy

Violin – Michael White

Recording date: Sept. 18, 1965

Former Mingus altoist Handy's 1965 appearance at the Monterey Jazz Festival briefly made him as big a jazz star as Coltrane, as more commercial variants of Trane's quest became the rage among the long-hairs (one thinks of Charles Lloyd and Pharaoh Sanders hitting the Billboard charts). This was by no means a bad thing. Handy's band, which featured violinist Michael White and guitarist Jerry Hahn (both briefly big things, as well), plays a sympathetic and searching pre-hippie modal jazz with touches of free playing. Handy deserved his fame and its mystifying why Columbia ignores his LPs and allows Koch to reissue them. 

This legendary, show-stopping performance, recorded in 1965, was out of print for a long time - it's wonderful to have it back. The concert isn't just the highlight of Handy's career; it's one of the most spellbinding live jazz recordings ever. Indeed, there are moments, especially during some of Handy's sweeter alto solos, that you can almost hear the audience holding its breath.

The set consisted of only two songs, 27:29 of If Only We Knew, and 19:31 of Spanish Lady. [The producers generously added a bonus track, Tears Of Ole Miss, 31:09, rounding out the CD to a beefy 78:09.] The line-up is absolutely stellar: John Handy - alto sax, Mike White - violin, Jerry Hahn - guitar, Don Thompson - bass, and Terry Clarke - drums. These players are so in synch with each other it's like they're quintuplets, and at times the music from the bandstand sounds like it's coming from an orchestra.

Handy and White swap turns in the limelight as virtuoso star attractions, while Hahn is impeccable laying down the chords which, in a standard group, would have come from the piano - and offers some blazing solos as well. The rhythm section, Thompson and Clarke, is simply off the hook, there is not a moment without energy and purpose. These long compositions are minor odysseys, taking you from still, poignant, lyrical moments to frenzied heights of off-the-cuff, collaborative improvisation at a fever pitch. It's not hard to understand why this performance was the talk of the festival, and gained iconic status.

The bonus track is also live, recorded at the Village Gate two years later. Tears Of Old Miss [Anatomy Of A Riot] is episodic and fascinating; it feels very much grounded in the culture clashes of the day - marches, protests, and political conflict of every stripe. Handy is backed by a different cast here, an exemplary one. The great Bobby Hutcherson is featured prominently on vibes, as is the astounding Pat Martino on guitar. Albert Stinton anchors the effort on bass while drummer Doug Sides is dazzling throughout. Terry Clarke's work in Monterey is exceptional; but what Sides does on Riot is not to be missed - wow.

When the John Handy Quintet hit the stage at the 1965 Monterey Jazz Festival around tea-time on Saturday 18 September, directly before his previous employer Charles Mingus closed out the afternoon programme, few were prepared for the tsunami of sound they would unleash, and the shockwaves that would be felt over those pivotal years that followed. Handy ripped Monterey apart with his adventurous quintet’s startlingly hypnotic performance, pushing advanced hard-bop to the New Thing and beyond. The set became his debut album for Columbia and slammed down a marker for the future directions of Charles Lloyd, Miles Davis, John McLaughlin and other enlightened souls. Rooted in the spiritual free flow of Coltrane’s quintet and Eric Dolphy’s At The Five Spot performances, the two side-long pieces commenced with Handy’s mesmerising unaccompanied alto opening statement on ‘If Only We Knew’, which five decades later still sends shivers down the spine, before Hahn and White erupt into fiery flamenco, Middle-Eastern and rock-tinged routes unheard of at the time in a jazz setting. Little wonder that in December 1965 they were the first jazz act ever to play San Francisco’s iconic psychedelic ballroom, the Fillmore Auditorium, opening for the Jefferson Airplane. When reissued as part of the Mosaic Select triple CD boxset John Handy, reissue producer Richard Seidel’s liner notes notes referred to Handy as “one of the unsung heroes of modern jazz”. Are you seriously going to disagree?