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Tony Levin (drummer)
Encyclopedia
- Not to be confused with bass player Tony LevinTony LevinTony Levin is an American progressive rock musician, specializing in bass guitar, Chapman stick and upright bass ....
Tony Levin (30 January 19403 February 2011) was an English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
drummer.
Levin played at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club
Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club
Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club is a jazz club which has operated in London since 1959.The club opened on 30 October 1959 in a basement at 39 Gerrard Street in London's Soho district. It was managed by musicians Ronnie Scott and Pete King. In 1965 it moved to a larger venue nearby at 47 Frith Street...
in the 1960s with artists including Joe Harriott
Joe Harriott
Joseph Arthurlin 'Joe' Harriott was a Jamaican jazz musician and composer, whose principal instrument was the alto saxophone....
, Al Cohn
Al Cohn
Al Cohn was an American jazz saxophonist and arranger and composer.-Biography:Alvin Gilbert Cohn was born in Brooklyn, New York. He was initially known in the 1940s for playing in Woody Herman's Second Herd as one of the Four Brothers, along with Zoot Sims, Stan Getz, and Serge Chaloff...
, Harry "Sweets" Edison, Zoot Sims
Zoot Sims
John Haley "Zoot" Sims was an American jazz saxophonist, playing mainly tenor and soprano.-Biography:He was born in Inglewood, California, the son of vaudeville performers Kate Haley and John Sims. Growing up in a performing family, Sims learned to play both drums and clarinet at an early age...
, and Toots Thielemanns.
Levin was born in Much Wenlock
Much Wenlock
Much Wenlock, earlier known as Wenlock, is a small town in central Shropshire, England. It is situated on the A458 road between Shrewsbury and Bridgnorth. Nearby, to the northeast, is the Ironbridge Gorge, and the new town of Telford...
, Shropshire
Shropshire
Shropshire is a county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. It borders Wales to the west...
. His first major position came when he joined Tubby Hayes
Tubby Hayes
Edward Brian "Tubby" Hayes was an English jazz multi-instrumentalist, best known for his tenor saxophone playing in groups with fellow sax player Ronnie Scott and with trumpeter Jimmy Deuchar. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest British jazz instrumentalists.- Early life :Hayes was born...
' Quartet (1965-9). He worked with numerous groups and artists, including the Alan Skidmore
Alan Skidmore
Alan Skidmore is a tenor saxophonist of jazz and blues music, son of the saxophonist Jimmy Skidmore.-As a sideman:...
quintet (1969), Humphrey Lyttelton
Humphrey Lyttelton
Humphrey Richard Adeane Lyttelton , also known as Humph, was an English jazz musician and broadcaster, and chairman of the BBC radio comedy programme I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue...
band (1969), John Taylor
John Taylor (jazz)
John Taylor is a British jazz pianist; he has occasionally performed on the organ and the synthesiser. He is one of Europe's most celebrated jazz pianists and composers.-Performing career:...
(1970s), Ian Carr
Ian Carr
Ian Carr was a Scottish jazz musician, composer, writer, and educator.-Early years:Carr was born in Dumfries, Scotland, the elder brother of Mike Carr...
's Nucleus
Nucleus (band)
Nucleus were a pioneering jazz-rock band from Britain who continued in different forms from 1969 to 1989. In their first year they won first prize at the Montreux Jazz Festival, released the album Elastic Rock, and performed both at the Newport Jazz Festival and the Village Gate jazz club.They were...
(1970s), Stan Sulzmann
Stan Sulzmann
Stanley Ernest Sulzmann is an English jazz saxophonist.Sulzmann began on saxophone at age 13 and played in Bill Ashton's London Youth Jazz Orchestra, later the National Youth Jazz Orchestra. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music from 1969-1972...
quartet, Gordon Beck
Gordon Beck
Gordon James Beck was an English jazz pianist.Beck was born in Brixton, London, and attended Pinner County Grammar School . He studied piano in his youth, but decided to go into a career as an engineering technical draughtsman...
's Gyroscope, duo with John Surman
John Surman
John Douglas Surman is an English jazz saxophone, bass clarinet and synthesizer player, and composer of free jazz and modal jazz, often using themes from folk music as a basis...
(1976), European Jazz Ensemble
European Jazz Ensemble
-History:Formed in 1976. The original members comprised the quintet, Alan Skidmore, Leszek Zadlo, Gerd Dudek, Ali Haurand and Pierre Courbois. After 1982 three of the members quit and Haurand and Dudek were joined by E. L...
, Third Eye (1979), Rob van den Broeck (1982), Philip Catherine
Philip Catherine
Philip Catherine is a Belgian jazz guitarist.-Biography:He was born in London from an English mother and Belgian father....
's trio and quartet (1990s), Sophia Domancich Trio (with Paul Rogers, double bass; 1991–2000), Philippe Aerts
Philippe Aerts
Philippe Aerts is a Belgian jazz double bassist. He is a member of Philip Catherine trio and Ivan Paduart trio. He also has his own trio with John Ruocco and Tony Levin and quartet with on top Bert Joris...
trio and quartet (2000s).
From 1980, Levin worked extensively with saxophonist Paul Dunmall
Paul Dunmall
Paul Dunmall is a British jazz saxophonist who plays tenor and soprano saxophone as well as the baritone and the more exotic Saxello and the Northumbrian pipes.He has a long discography on the Duns Limited Edition label....
, including as a member of the free jazz
Free jazz
Free jazz is an approach to jazz music that was first developed in the 1950s and 1960s. Though the music produced by free jazz pioneers varied widely, the common feature was a dissatisfaction with the limitations of bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, which had developed in the 1940s and 1950s...
quartet Mujician
Mujician
Mujician is an improvisational jazz quartet founded in 1988.The group's pianist, Keith Tippett, played briefly with King Crimson and also works with his group Centipede; the group's drummer is named Tony Levin, though he is not the same Tony Levin who played in King Crimson...
, also with Paul Rogers (double bass) and Keith Tippett
Keith Tippett
Keith Tippett is a British jazz pianist and composer.Tippett, the son of a local police officer, went to Greenway Boys Secondary Modern school in Southmead, Bristol. He formed his first jazz band called The KT7 whilst still at school and they performed numbers popular at the time by The Temperance...
(piano). In 1994, Levin released his solo album Spiritual Empathy, again with Dunmall on saxophones. In 2006 he played a trio gig with Dunmall and Rogers featuring Ellery Eskelin
Ellery Eskelin
Ellery Eskelin American tenor saxophonist. Born in Wichita, Kansas, raised in Baltimore, Maryland from the age of two. His parents, Rodd Keith and Bobbie Lee, were also musicians. Rodd Keith died in 1974 in Los Angeles, California and became a cult figure after his death in the little known...
, Ray Anderson
Ray Anderson (musician)
Ray Anderson is an independent jazz trombone and trumpet player. Anderson is a boisterous trombonist who is masterful at multiphonics. Trained by the Chicago Symphony trombonists, he is regarded as pushing the limits of the instrument. He is a contemporary and colleague of trombonist/composer...
, Tony Malaby
Tony Malaby
Tony Malaby is a post-bop jazz tenor saxophonist. Malaby moved to New York City in 1995 and has played with several notable jazz groups, including Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra, Paul Motian’s Electric Bebop Band, Mark Helias’s Open Loose, Fred Hersch’s Trio + 2 and Walt Whitman...
as guests at John Zorn's The Stone in NYC. He later recorded with Dunmall with his son Miles Levin on drums.
Levin ran his own monthly club in Birmingham, and often performed duets with Paul Dunmall and guest musicians.