Joe Negri retired this week from teaching jazz guitar at the University of Pittsburgh, but he’s not ready to put away his custom-made Benedetto.
“I’m gonna hang on a little bit,” he said Friday. “I don’t want to have absolutely nothing to do!”
Negri, 92, of Scott still teaches one day a week at Duquesne University, meeting with three students on Wednesdays on the Uptown campus. He also had three guitar students at Pitt, which threw a party Thursday to celebrate his 49-year teaching career in Oakland.
Negri, who is best known for playing Handyman Negri on “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” tried to major in jazz guitar in the 1950s when he enrolled at Carnegie Mellon University, but the music school rejected the instrument. He switched to composition, minoring in bass.
In 1970, Don Franklin, the head of the music department at Pitt, asked Negri to teach jazz guitar there. “There was no guitar in higher education at the time,” he said.
Four years later, Robert Egan asked Negri to teach at Duquesne and he celebrates his 46th year there in July.
Negri said he doesn’t perform in clubs anymore, but still does special events. On Tuesday, he received the second JazzLive Legacy Award from the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust. He said he was especially touched by pianist Max Leake’s remarks. “Max is not used to speaking but he did a beautiful introduction.”
Negri has published several volumes of guitar solos and arrangements, including Bach violin sonatas adapted for jazz guitar. Now he’s focused on his own compositions. A half-century ago, at CMU, composer Nikolai Lopatnikoff complimented his student’s musical voice.
“He told me to write something for piano and violin. I did and he said, ‘You have a wonderful way with melody,’” Negri recalled.
Kevin Kirkland: kkirkland@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1978.
First Published: April 26, 2019, 7:15 p.m.
