Jazz Articles about Tony Levin

About Tony Levin

Album Review

Fiona Joy Hawkins: Moving Through Worlds

Read "Moving Through Worlds" reviewed by Robin B James

by Robin B James
August 12, 2020

This is a great time for something brighter and lighter, something that brings some ease to the weary listener, who is seeking feelings of harmony and simple respite from a troubled world. The gifted composer, singer, and pianist Fiona Joy Hawkins has just the thing, an album titled Moving Through Worlds, an enchanting exploration of themes such as land, water, fire, climate change and the vanishing of souls into the wind. The 14 tracks feature mostly solo piano. Some are ...

Extended Analysis

Heaven & Earth: Live and in the Studio 1997-2008

by John Kelman
June 8, 2019

Yet another year, yet another characteristically detailed and chronologically contextualized King Crimson mega-box set. Except that 2019 is no typical year. And Heaven & Earth is no typical King Crimson box set. While Heaven & Earth: Live and in the Studio 1997-2008 completes (well, almost) the series of box sets documenting King Crimson's original commercial recordings (and so much more), it's far from the group's first (or only) release to go along with the current three-drummer ...

Extended Analysis

Levin Minnemann Rudess: From the Law Offices of Levin Minnemann Rudess

by John Kelman
August 21, 2016

It may look good on paper, but you can never really know how “super group" collaborations are going to work out until they actually get together and do something. In the case of the power trio named after its members--bassist/stick player Tony Levin (Peter Gabriel, King Crimson, Stick Men), drummer/guitarist Marco Minnemann (Steven Wilson, The Aristocrats, Joe Satriani) and keyboardist Jordan Rudess (Dream Theater, Liquid Tension Experiment), all names familiar to progressive rock fans--it would seem a low-risk proposition, given ...

Album Review

Levin Brothers: Levin Brothers

Read "Levin Brothers" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
December 11, 2014

He may have ultimately become best-known in the progressive rock world for his ongoing work with King Crimson, Peter Gabriel, Stick Men and the Crimson ProjeKct, but 68 year-old bassist and stick player Tony Levin has no shortage of jazz credentials, playing with everyone from Gary Burton and Mike Mainieri to Chuck Mangione and Buddy Rich from the late '60s through the early '70s. Classically trained like his younger sibling, brother Pete has stayed more decidedly in the jazz world ...

Album Review

Levin Minnemann Rudess: Levin Minnemann Rudess

Read "Levin Minnemann Rudess" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
October 26, 2013

For a first crack at a fresh idea for Lazy Bones Records--three well-known musicians brought together to create improv-based music with a minimum of planning--Levin Torn White (2011) was a set that, beyond finding common ground amongst bassist/stick master Tony Levin, guitar sound sculptor David Torn and drummer Alan White, also proved, unequivocally, that White is capable of far more than he's demonstrated recently with his longstanding membership in the overly inflated dinosaur of Yes. But Levin Minnemann Rudess is ...

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Album Review

U-Z: Ultimate Zero - Live

Read "Ultimate Zero - Live" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
December 31, 2010

Since returning to the progressive rock scene with a new group/EP--UKZ's Radiation (Globe Music, 2009), U.K. co-founder and Frank Zappa/Jethro Tull alum Eddie Jobson has been dealing with the same problems that every indie musician does: keeping a band together for less than regular touring. With UKZ in suspension, the keyboardist/violinist began touring U-Z--devoted to performing classic progressive rock and fusion music from back in the day--with a revolving-door including fellow legends, bassists Tony Levin and John Wetton, alongside younger ...

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Extended Analysis

Park West, Chicago, Illinois August 7, 2008

by John Kelman
September 4, 2008

When it was announced, in late 2003, that touch guitarist Trey Gunn was leaving perennial art rockers King Crimson, to be replaced by returning bassist/stickman Tony Levin—a member of the group during its 1980s and 1990s runs—anticipation was high. Gunn's strength was as a virtuosic melodic foil for guitarists Robert Fripp and Adrian Belew as well as holding down the bottom end, but Levin has always been considered Crimson's ultimate groove-meister. When Porcupine Tree drummer Gavin Harrison was recruited in ...