Jazz Articles about Alex Levin

The Alex Levin Trio: A Sunday Kind of Love

by Don Phipps
January 27, 2020

There is a dinner jazz quality to A Sunday Kind of Love by the Alex Levin Trio. And even though there is no pretense of art here, the infectious happiness of the album would certainly destress anyone who has had a rough day. Pianist Levin composed five of the ten numbers on the album, and he is accompanied by the spry playing of bassist Phil Rowan and drummer Ben Cliness. In addition to originals, the album covers standards. ...

Alex Levin: New York Portraits

by Edward Blanco
October 14, 2010

New York-based pianist Alex Levin borrows standards from the jazz-rich era of the 1940s,' 50s and '60s, and includes a couple of originals for New York Portraits, his third album as leader. Along with bassist Michael Bates, (leader of the Outside Sources ensemble) and drummer Brian Floody, the trio lays down a relaxed shuffle of rhythm-based music, lending superb interpretations to some time-honored classics. Influenced by the music of Ahmad Jamal,, who the pianist met while pursuing studies at The ...

Alex Levin Trio: New York Portraits

by C. Michael Bailey
September 25, 2010

Artists do not evolve in a vacuum. Collectively, they assimilate all they have learned and heard into a new creative paradigm that they call their own. A durable respect for the past characterizes the trio art of pianist Alex Levin. Listening to his collection New York Portraits, the spirits of pianists long gone are present in that fecund humus existing between the notes of Levin's treatments of original and standard compositions alike. Levin's treatment of Johnny Mercer's ...

Alex Levin: A Reason for Being Alone

by Donald Elfman
March 15, 2007

Pianist/composer Alex Levin has penned a fine set of tunes for his sterling players--bassist Diallo House and drummer Taylor Davis; and the complementary playing (on selected tunes) of guests Max Hacker and Stacy Dillard on tenor saxophones, Chad Coe on guitar and William Martina on cello--to bring to fruition. This music is very much in the straight-ahead tradition but Levin understands how to put his own signature on what sounds like familiar material. Cellist Martina, for example, states the theme ...

The Alex Levin Trio: A Reason for Being Alone

by Dan McClenaghan
December 14, 2006

The title of this disc might suggest an inward-looking or melancholic listening experience; but the Alex Levin Trio, plus a couple of tenor saxophonists sitting in--Max Hacker and Stacy Dillard--blows the roof off on the opener, “Blues on Thursday." It's a bright, gregarious, Art Blakey-esque sound, the horns sparring like a couple of free-swinging welterweights, snapping off jabs and flurries in front of a zingy rhythm. Put another quarter in the jukebox!This is a “with guests" disc--the trio ...

The Alex Levin Trio: A Reason For Being Alone

by Victor Verney
December 13, 2006

Pianist Alex Levin, a Philadelphia native, has demonstrated a two-track mindset scholastically, geographically, professionally and artistically. After moving to New York City to study piano at the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music, Levin transferred to Brown University, where he earned a degree in English literature. He then moved to Berlin, where his quartet The Living Room achieved popular and critical success, gaining notoriety for unique interpretations of pop songs by the likes of Björk and Tom Waits.

After ...