Born in Dallas in 1933, saxophonist John Handy – best known as an alto saxophonist, but proficient on the entire woodwind family – moved to the Bay Area at 15 and has lived there ever since, with the exception of a 1958-1962 stay in New York City. Handy’s New York sojourn included a five-month run with Charles Mingus that generated three well-known recordings – Mingus Portraits, Blues and Roots, and Mingus Ah Um – on which his Charlie Parker-inflected alto voice was prominent, most notably on Mingus’ iconic “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat.” The only surviving Mingus alumnus from that period, Handy has spent the last 60 years as a popular bandleader, recording artist and educator.
I met Charles in 1957 when he did two weeks out here in San Francisco. I’m pretty sure it was at the Black Hawk. I believe Freddie Redd played piano, Bunky Green was playing alto, and the older Willie Jones, who was left-handed, was playing drums. There was no trumpet player. I spoke quite a bit with Bunky. Willie Jones, the left-handed drummer, was in the band, too. I went to the last set on the last night of their engagement. Mingus asked me to sit in and then asked me to join his group, I borrowed a baritone saxophone from a college classmate, Virgil Gonsalves, as I’d played baritone but not for a while. Mingus asked me to join his group, but I didn’t want to leave – I was married, and we had a new son. By the next year, my wife and I had saved money for the trip to New York. We stayed at the Flanders Hotel, where a lot of people stayed – it extended between 6th and 7th Avenues between 47th and 48th Streets. [135 W. 47th through to 136 W. 48th Street]. Did you know where Manny’s Music was? It was on 48th, and when you came out of the hotel, you made a right and they were only a door or so away. So that’s that’s the time element. Blue Mitchell was in the hotel. That trio with Gene Harris, the Three Sounds – Bill Dowdy, Gene Harris and Gene Simpkins. Jack McDuff.
I started going to jam sessions, especially in Brooklyn (I don’t remember where), and started exchanging phone numbers with people. I ran into Idrees Sulieman, the trumpet player, who started telling people about me, and got me a few gigs. He introduced me to Randy Weston. I did at least two casuals with him; I’m sure no more than two.
Then somehow, we got broke sooner than we had planned to in New York, and I decided I’d better go gig-hunting. I dressed up, which we always did in those days, put on a tie and all, and went to the Five Spot, where I knew there was a jam session. Frank Foster and Thad Jones were featured. They were doing a record with Basie that went over late, so I played two or three tunes with the rhythm section – Phineas Newborn (whom I’d met in San Francisco), George Joyner (who later became Jamil Nasser), and Roy Haynes. I sat down when Thad and Frank showed up. I met Frank when he was stationed out here in the military, the year I got out of McClymonds High School, which I attended with Bill Russell and Frank Robinson and all those folks. Bill Russell never played first-string at McClymonds. I met him about two weeks after I’d arrived in Oakland from Dallas. I was playing ball by myself in the gym, and after a while I heard another basketball. I saw this tall, thin kid. We decided to play each other one-on-one, and I beat him the first game. We played 15 games, and I never touched the ball again.
Later, I was standing at the bar, which faced the bandstand. After they’d played a couple of pieces, Mingus – who’d walked in – said from the bar, “Hey, why don’t you all let this guy play?” Frankly, they were a little embarrassed, Frank said. “Well, he can play if he wants.” They let me name the tune, “There Will Never Be Another You.” I did something on the saxophone that most people still don’t know how to do. Mingus started singing “Bird’s back! Bird’s back!” He was a big man and he put on such a show. He ran to the those saloon doors, and almost hit the door – I thought he was going to break it. Then he went outside. It was like it was too much for him to take. So he came back in and he was still singing – we were still on the stand. Sonny Rollins was in the phone booth which on the right when you came in. He said, “Sonny – Bird’s back!” Sonny said, “Yeah, yeah, Charlie.” I was embarrassed, still on the bandstand. Between tunes, he said, “Hey, baby, are you working anywhere?” I shook my head, no. He said, “Well, you open with me next week.” He had a four-week engagement, within that week, opposite Sonny’s trio. We brought in the new year.
During that month with Mingus and this quintet, opposite Sonny, Charles would play too long. He wouldn’t get off the bandstand. It embarrassed me and most of us. A couple of times, Sonny wouldn’t show up. One time, John Coltrane, who I’d met when he came out here with Johnny Hodges, before I got out of high school, came into the Five Spot. They pushed him to go get his horn out of the car – it was snowing, bad weather. John came back in and played “Back Home In Indiana,” which was ok. Then he played one of Monk’s tunes, “Well, You Needn’t.” The planet stopped moving. It was Christmas time and lots of people were drinking and having a good time. They stopped. They couldn’t believe what he was doing. Then at one point, Mingus pushed me to play my tenor, which I’d played tenor for three years after starting as an alto player. I played “Body and Soul.” Charles and Dannie Richmond and Booker Ervin talked about that solo.
After we left the bandstand one night in January, Mingus said, “Get your instruments; we’re going around the corner.” We put on our coats, walked a few blocks, went up some stairs that you could break your neck, and entered the Nonegon Art Gallery, which was packed. That’s where we recorded the United Artists album, which included stuff we’d been playing at the Five Spot that he’d written for John Cassavetes movie, Shadows. He featured me, especially on the ballads. Most everything he hummed or played on the piano. I remember saying, “Mingus, why don’t you just give us…” I was right out of college and my reading was fine, and I had a good ear. I could remember stuff. But I asked him for something to take home and work on, and it bugged him. The place was packed. We were about to leave the bandstand, and Charlie had both hands on top of the bass. He looked threatening. I knew he had sucker-punched Jackie McLean in the mouth and bent his front teeth, like a gopher. Jackie told me that at a rehearsal at Mingus’ house. I couldn’t believe he was playing with him. Jackie was from Harlem, and he was not a coward. He told me that three people wrestled him down to keep him from going after Charles with a knife. I was the featherweight champion of Dallas at 14. I knew how to fight. I got real close to him and said, “Charles, I think I know what you’re thinking, but I want you to know I can hit much faster with this saxophone than you can with that bass. If you ever touch me…” In essence, I was saying: “Whenever I see you, whether it’s In a concert, if you’re playing, if you’re working, hotel, no matter where the thing Is on. If you come out of your house, I’ll be there waiting,” He said, “Heh-heh, you’re crazy” and he walked off the bandstand. We never got into anything after that.
Eventually we did the Blues and Roots album. We started as supposedly a big band date, and each time we rehearsed, we had different personnel and less people. The music changed every time we had a rehearsal. I didn’t like it at all. The more I played with him, the more frustrating it was. He wanted his melodies. He never gave anyone but the piano player any chords. It was embarrassing at times when musicians came in, guys that we knew who could play, and many times you could see the looks on their faces. They thought we didn’t know what we were doing. And many times we didn’t know. We were playing what we could hear. He would write things on piano for trombone or saxophone which are next to impossible to play. Some people thought it was funny because they didn’t have to do it.
A few months before the Mingus Ah Um album we were at the Half Note. The bar was situated where, when you were on the bandstand, near the piano, you could talk to the people at the bar. In between some things that we were playing, one of the Canterino brothers told Charles that Lester Young had just died. He started playing a minor blues, slow like a ballad. When we were doing the date, he called that blues, but he didn’t give us the changes. That became “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat,” one of his most famous, most recorded pieces. I thought was nice, but it could have been embarrassing if people had really listened closely to the chords, because at times I had no idea where they were going. I didn’t see the chords until Sue Mingus started organizing Mingus’ music.
I can’t remember where the last gig I played with him was, but I do remember that Mingus had written a piece that I thought sounded like something from Gershwin. When he introduced it, he said, really deadpan: “the name of this piece, ladies and gentlemen, is ‘Gershwin.’ If Gershwin can steal from us, we can steal from him.” It really broke me up. I could hardly play it. He could be funny.
Eric Dolphy pretty much took my place with Mingus. Before him was Leo Wright, the alto player from out here. I met Eric I want to say a year before I went to New York. I was in New York when Eric came to New York with Chico Hamilton. Mingus could get Eric to do anything, stuff that I would never do.
Sometimes he wrote beautiful music. Some of his composing was important because he extended the repertoire of jazz. He helped to extend the technique of the bass. Because of Charles – and before him, Jimmy Blanton, whom he knew – bass players started playing like virtuosos. However, I do think that personality is important. He got away with things that he would not have gotten away with had he played in other communities. People let him get away with it because he was big, he was strong, and he knew how to hurt you. The worst thing a musician could do Is hit another one. The last thing you should ever should ever do is to impair somebody’s ability to play, to perform. You wouldn’t choke a singer. To hit Jimmy Knepper and Jackie McLean in the mouth! There were times he was sweet – like a little kid sweet. Most of the time he was like a bear that had been awakened – and he didn’t want to be awakened.
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