George Handy
Piano
About
George Handy was an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger whose concentrated creative period in the mid-1940s left a lasting mark on progressive big band music. Born George Joseph Hendleman, he served as pianist and musical director of the Boyd Raeburn Orchestra from 1944 to 1946, composing celebrated works including "Dalvatore Sally" and "The Bloos." His arrangements synthesized modernist classical techniques drawn from Stravinsky, Bartok, and Ravel with jazz sensibilities in ways that were groundbreaking for the era. He won best arranger awards from Down Beat and Metronome in 1946, and Esquire's Silver Award in 1947. Norman Granz commissioned him for the landmark album "The Jazz Scene." He later recorded two albums as a leader, "Handyland U.S.A." and "By George! (Handy Of Course)," and composed chamber works for the New York Saxophone Quartet. He died of heart disease at age seventy-six.
Trivia
Handy studied composition privately with Aaron Copland but later described the experience with characteristic bluntness: "Studied privately with Aaron Copland for a while, which did neither of us any good." He grew up in Brooklyn's Brownsville neighborhood alongside a remarkable cohort of future jazz luminaries known informally as the "Brooklyn Jazz Mafia," including Al Cohn, Terry Gibbs, and Johnny Mandel. After leaving the Raeburn orchestra, he briefly worked at Paramount Studios writing film scores but dismissed the work as "writing dumb music for dumb movies" before returning to jazz.
Early Life
George Joseph Hendleman was born on January 17, 1920, in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. His father was a physician, and his mother was an accomplished pianist who provided his earliest musical instruction. Her harsh teaching methods, including striking his fingers with a ruler, made learning piano what he called "pure hell" and drove him away from music entirely during adolescence. At fifteen he returned to the keyboard on his own initiative, discovering Stravinsky, Ravel, and Bartok. He attended the Juilliard School but was asked to leave after one year, then studied at New York University with Marion Bauer and privately with Aaron Copland. Equally formative was his involvement with an informal circle of young Brownsville jazz musicians who gathered at saxophonist Frank Socolow's home, a group that included Al Cohn and Terry Gibbs. He began performing professionally around age fifteen at a Long Island resort hotel.
George Handy Solos
1946
Piano solo - Diggin' Diz - 1946
4/4 swing in C major at 210 BPM
Piano solo - Diggin' Diz - 1946
4/4 swing in C major at 201 BPM