Handy’s Blast From the Past Proves Timeless

John Handy’s opening set at the Ash Grove on Saturday night had the loose, unplanned feeling of a jam session. It was an appropriate setting for a performance by a band with a history reaching back to the let-it-all-hang-out days of the jazz ‘60s.

The appearance was the first in more than 30 years in the Los Angeles area for the group that alto saxophonist Handy brought to the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1965 for one of the memorable live jazz events of the decade. But the ensemble--Handy on alto saxophone, Jerry Hahn on guitar, Mike White on violin, Don Thompson on bass and Terry Clarke on drums--played with an amiable musical camaraderie that belied the spontaneous nature of the performance (most of the band members had flown in from various parts of North America).

Handy opened the set with a few jocular remarks about the passage of years--remarks greeted warmly by the moderate-sized crowd of listeners, many of whom indicated that their interest reached back to the ‘60s. Despite the frequent allusions to the past, however, the music that emerged was, for the most part, both timeless and contemporary.

Handy, at 64, is still a fiery performer, his rapid-fire bursts of notes, his high-note harmonics and edgy musical attitude as challenging as ever. He surged through a driving, bop-drenched series of choruses in an untitled original, then shifted gears into a thoughtful rendering of “My Funny Valentine,” and some envelope-stretching avant-gardeisms on “The Night Has a Thousand Eyes.” Although he was occasionally out of sync with the rhythm section (understandable, perhaps, given the gig’s unrehearsed nature), Handy confirmed that he is one of the most underrated veteran players in today’s jazz world.

Among the other players, Hahn--another underappreciated jazzman--sounded both solid and inspiring. Clarke, a Canadian, performed with the propulsive drive that seems endemic to East Coast drummers. And Thompson, also Canadian, added a rhapsodic piano chorus on “My Funny Valentine” to his fluent work on bass. White, seeming a bit detached from the others, contributed some colorful ensemble textures and an occasional solo.

But the heart of the Handy group--at the Ash Grove as well as at Monterey--was Handy’s adventurous improvisations. With plenty of musical thoughts to express, he seems ripe for a breakthrough of the sort that his contemporary, tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson, has received in recent years.