Scholarship/Academic
The Music of George Handy
In conjunction with Justin DiCioccio, director of the Jazz Arts Program at the Manhattan School of Music, I organized a concert featuring the music of George Handy. The concert took place at MSM on October 17, 2006. The Concert Jazz Band, under DiCioccio’s baton, performed a cross section of Handy’s work. I narrated the concert, outlining Handy’s biography, discussing important musical elements of the works being performed, and telling a few stories about Handy (I even got some laughs!). Having completed my Ph.D. dissertation, “The Music of George Handy,” in April 2006, and having spent so much time researching his life and analyzing his works, the concert was an extremely gratifying and rewarding experience. For a variety of reasons, Handy’s music has long been ignored, and getting it out to the public was richly satisfying.
The first piece performed was a world premier of The Bloos, one of Handy’s most important compositions. It was recorded in 1946 for Norman Granz’s album set, The Jazz Scene, but had never been performed publicly. It is written for a twenty-seven piece orchestra that combines a jazz big band with a chamber orchestra, to create a unique hybrid ensemble. The Concert Jazz Band did an amazing job on the composition. It is hard to imagine another environment where the work could have been played, much less played so well. They were able to include harp, celeste, timpani, and even a razzer, (the latter two were not even used on the original recording).
The Concert Jazz Band also played Dalvatore Sally, one of Handy’s most well known works. It was written for extended jazz big band, and was originally the theme song for the Boyd Raeburn Orchestra, the band that was Handy’s primary compositional vehicle from 1944-1946.
Finally, an eleven piece unit of the orchestra played eight compositions from Handy’s album, By George! Handy of Course. This was one of two albums produced under his name. The compositions are through-composed gems that highlight Handy’s originality of approach.
The students did a remarkable job on everything (funny, they don’t sound like students), both in the ensembles and solos. Thanks to Justin, Mark Micklethwaite, Jacob Rodriquez, Bill Kirchner (who put Justin and I together), The Institute of Jazz Studies, and especially all the wonderful musicians who played so beautifully!
Working with Justin, his terrific Jazz Arts Program, and his great band was a pleasure and an honor. A few weeks later, on November 20, 2006, they had a gig at Dizzy’s Coca-Cola, one of the Jazz at Lincoln Center venues, and were kind enough to ask me to speak there as well as an introduction to their set of ten compositions from the By George! album. Again, they sounded terrific. These young musicians have a very bright future ahead of them.
If anyone is interested, my dissertation is available (contact me if you are), and I am always looking to share my information, as well as learn something new. If you are family, friend, or devotee of this great musician, please get in touch with me. Also, see my link to the left for my recent article on Handy and The Bloos in the ISAM Newsletter (I love this publication). I hope to be publishing more on Handy soon. I also am finding new music, as well as increased awareness and interest in him.
Links
Publications:
“George Handy Composes The Bloos,” Jazz Perspectives, Volume 3, No. 2, 2009.
Arrangement (pdf) and introductory note: Confessions of Devorgilla (concertina and mezzo-soprano).
Papers of the International Concertina Association, 2005
Cover Article, Institute for Studies in American Music Newsletter, Fall 2006
John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY, Department of Art and Music.
The Ph.D.-D.M.A. Program in Music, The Graduate Center, CUNY
Conservatory of Music at Brooklyn College, CUNY
I am very excited that my article, “George Handy Composes The Bloos,” has been published in the wonderful peer-review journal, Jazz Perspectives. A link for ordering a copy is in the links column. The abstract is below.
Abstract: “George Handy and The Bloos”
The life of the jazz composer-arranger-pianist George Handy (1920-1997) is similar to that of countless freelance musicians in that his rather itinerant career involved the somewhat predictable ebb and flow of work, unemployment, success, and frustration. Handy’s highs and lows, however, were particularly dramatic, as Handy rose to the top of his profession, disappeared precipitously, and eventually found a home as a bandleader in the Catskill Mountains resort hotels.
George Handy burst onto the music scene in a stunning manner, surprising the big band world with an individualistic brand of experimentalism. Handy’s approach during this period makes him an important member of a small group of composers and arrangers—including Eddie Sauter (1914-1981), Pete Rugolo (1915- ), Ralph Burns (1922-2001), Bob Graettinger (1923-1957), Gil Evans (1912-1988), and Gerry Mulligan (1927-1996)—working in what is generally referred to as a “modernist” or “progressive jazz” style in the late 1930s through the early 1950s.
In this article, after a biographical sketch, I examine one of Handy’s most important compositions, The Bloos (1946). After contextualizing the work historically, I focus on Handy’s incorporation of advanced compositional resources in this imaginative and inventive work. The piece is an idiosyncratic and deconstructed blues with a wonderfully personal orchestrational sensibility, and the composition is free of many of the typical restrictions of jazz and blues forms.
I am also looking forward to delivering a paper at the “Mediating Jazz” conference at University of Salford, Manchester, UK in November, 2009. I will be reading a paper titled “The Practicalities of Jazz,”
discussing the way several important improvisors manage, both in their playing and teaching, to simplify their approach to improvisation.
