Jazz Articles about Stan Levey

Stan Levey: Jazz Heavyweight

by Chuck Koton
December 4, 2016

Stan Levey: Jazz Heavyweight Frank R. Hayde 224Pages ISBN: #13978-1-59580-086-2 Santa Monica Press 2016 When one thinks of Bebop, the names Bird and Dizzy along with Monk, Max and Bud immediately pop up. In the mind's eye, one can see those classic Herman Leonard jazz photos of these Cats playin' in smoke-filled clubs like Minton's in Harlem and the 3 Deuces on 52nd Street. But someone else, virtually unknown, by comparison, deserves to ...

Stan Levey: Jazz Heavyweight

by David A. Orthmann
April 24, 2016

Stan Levey: Jazz Heavyweight Frank R. Hayde 224 Pages ISBN: #13-978-1-59580-086-2 Santa Monica Press 2016 During the course of Stan Levey: Jazz Heavyweight, Frank R. Hayde integrates Levey's personal perspective by frequently including excerpts of interviews released with the cooperation of the drummer's family. In a little over two hundred pages, Hayde's third person narrative and Levey's commentary illuminate a large complicated life filled with musical and personal transformations. Not unlike a ...

Drummer Stan Levey Improvised His Life with a Steady Beat

by Victor L. Schermer
April 16, 2016

Stan Levey: Jazz Heavyweight Frank R. Hayde 224 Pages ISBN: # 13-978-1595800862 Santa Monica Press 2016 The word “Heavyweight" in the title of this fast-paced biography of the late great jazz drummer Stan Levey is not just a metaphor for his reputation as a musician. Levey, in addition to having been a revered drummer who helped jump-start the bebop movement, was also a fair to middlin' prize fighter! Growing up in Prohibition ...

Stan Levey: The Original Original

by Jack Bowers
February 14, 2005

Stan Levey The Original Original StanArt Productions 2004

One of the real pleasures for me during the 32nd annual conference of the International Association for Jazz Education (IAJE) last January in Long Beach, CA, was shaking hands with one of the great drummers of the bop era and beyond, Stan Levey, who was there to promote a new autobiographical DVD, Stan Levey: “The Original Original."? Stan hasn't played drums in a number of years, ...

Stan Levey: This Time The Drum's On Me

by David A. Orthmann
August 1, 2001

Although seldom recognized in jazz history texts, Stan Levey was in the thick of the bebop revolution of the 1940s, working and recording with Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker, as well as gigging with Thelonious Monk in a group led by Coleman Hawkins. On the recently reissuedThis Time The Drum’s On Me, one of three recordings Levey made as a leader for Bethlehem in the mid-fifties, he displays sticking and footwork equal to Kenny Clarke and Max Roach, the two ...