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John Handy Quintet - Live At Yoshi's Nitespot

After a 28-year sabbatical, the most celebrated of John Handy 's quintets -- an unorthodox outfit with violin and electric guitar leads and no piano -- held a reunion at Yoshi's in Oakland, CA, and the German Boulevard label got it down on two absorbing CDs. With Handy holding the fort on alto sax, Jerry Hahn on guitar, Michael White on violin, Donald W. Thompson on bass, and Terry Clarke on drums, the quintet often seems to straddle three eras at once -- with its feet in post-bop , its heart in '60s modal fire, and subliminal visions of jazz-rock in its eyes.