Joe Negri died Saturday, just days short of his 100th birthday, closing a life that helped shape Pittsburgh music and brought him to generations of children on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. Lisa Negri said her father died of natural causes.

People were preparing to mark June 10, when he would have turned 100. Instead, the Pittsburgh native died before that celebration could happen, leaving behind a legacy built over decades of teaching, performing and appearing on television.

Negri started playing guitar at age 8 and was touring nationally with swing bands by 16, a path that carried him through most of his life in Pittsburgh aside from a brief stint in New York City. He worked as a musician, educator and TV performer, and on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood he became Handyman Negri in the Land of Make-Believe and the proprietor of Negri's Music Shop.

He appeared on the program for its entire three-decade run, which made him one of the most familiar faces in the world Fred Rogers built. Away from television, Negri taught jazz guitar for decades at the University of Pittsburgh and Duquesne University, founded the jazz guitar program at Duquesne and kept teaching there until 2022. He retired from the University of Pittsburgh in 2019 after nearly 50 years on the faculty.

That long arc is part of what made the timing of his death so stark. Negri was being prepared for a 100th birthday celebration when he died just days before reaching the milestone, a finish that cut off the public tribute his family and Pittsburgh's music world had been planning. In 2019, Pennsylvania gave him a Lifetime Achievement in the Arts award, and he continued to play widely at venues including the Manchester Craftsmen's Guild, the Pittsburgh Symphony and jazz clubs large and small.

Even in later life, Negri described music as the center of his day, saying in 2016 that his love and passion for music continued to dominate his daily life. Deane Root, who knew his work, said Negri radiated life as an art form and crossed generations while bringing out the best in the musicians he played with. What remains now is the unfinished celebration of a musician who lived almost 100 years and kept playing nearly to the end.