Bill Clinton plays saxophone for musical birthday tribute to Václav Havel

More than three decades after picking up a saxophone for a famous musical moment in the Czech Republic, former President Clinton is dusting off the instrument once again as part of a tuneful tribute.

“I’m really honored to join with people all across the Czech Republic and all around the world in observing the 90 th birthday of my friend, Václav Havel,” Clinton said in a video released Monday on social media.

“I will never forget that night more than 32 years ago now, when Havel took me to the jazz club in Prague,” Clinton said of Havel, the late Czech playwright and political dissident who in 1993 became the country’s first president.

In 1994, Clinton visited Prague, and Havel surprised the then-commander in chief with a trip to a jazz club before giving him a saxophone engraved with his signature and a heart. Clinton had famously shown off his sax skills two years earlier, while sporting a pair of “Blues Brothers”-esque shades in an appearance on “The Arsenio Hall Show” during his 1992 White House bid.

The pair of presidents then took part in an impromptu performance onstage in Prague. While Havel played the tambourine, Clinton jammed with the band on the sax on the jazz standards “My Funny Valentine” and “Summertime.”

“I think about him all the time — how kind he was, all the things we did together,” the 42 nd president said of Havel, who died in 2011.

Calling Havel “one of the most inspiring leaders that I ever worked with,” Clinton played a few notes of the song, “Happy Birthday.”

“I will always be grateful that I had a chance to support the Czech Republic in its blooming democracy and then in its leadership role in the expansion of NATO,” Clinton said.

“He was a special man for a special time and I’m glad to do what I can do observe his birthday.”