JOE NEGRI PASSES AT 99

One of the cast members of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” and a legendary jazz guitar player died Saturday.  The Trib reports that Joe Negri passed at the age of 99.  Negri played music since he was a child and was an adjunct professor at Pitt and Duquesne for decades.  He retired from Pitt in 2019 after nearly 50 years of teaching.  On TV, he played the owner of the music shop in the real-world sequences and was “Handyman Negri” in the Neighborhood of Make Believe.  In 2019, Negri received a Lifetime Achievement in the Arts award from the state of Pennsylvania.