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Tony Levin

Tony Levin was born in Boston on June 6, 1946. He grew up in the suburb of Brookline and began playing upright bass at 10 years old. In high school, he picked up tuba, soloing with the concert band. He also started a barbershop quartet. But he primarily played classical music on the upright, most notably performing at the White House with Marvin Rabin's Greater Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra for John and Jackie Kennedy. He then attended the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY, and played in the Rochester Philharmonic. Also at the school was Steve Gadd, now a renowned drummer, who introduced Tony to playing a higher level of jazz and rock. He traded in his Ampeg baby bass for an old (at that time) Fender Precision bass, which was his only instrument for many years.

In 1970, Tony moved to New York City, joined a band called Aha, the Attack of the Green Slime Beast, with Don Preston of The Mothers of Invention. Soon after, he began working as a session musician, and through the 1970s, he played bass on many albums.

In the late '70s, wanting to do more live playing, Tony joined Peter Gabriel's band. He had met Peter through producer Bob Ezrin (with whom Tony had recorded Alice Cooper's Welcome to My Nightmare, and Lou Reed's Berlin). Tony has played with Gabriel, both on the road and in the studio, since then. On that first Peter Gabriel album, Tony played some tuba as well as bass, and directed a short barbershop quartet version of a song.

It was in these early years with Gabriel that Tony switched to playing Music Man basses and also developed his playing of the Chapman Stick. More recently, the song Big Time from Gabriel's So album inspired the development of Funk Fingers, which are chopped-off drumsticks used to hammer on the bass strings. Levin credits Gabriel with the idea, and Andy Moore, his tech at the time, with actually making them workable.

In 1978, Tony moved to Woodstock, NY, to join the band L'Image, which included his old friend Steve Gadd, as well as Mike Mainieri and Warren Bernhardt. The band, which did some very special music, broke up after a year, and Tony stayed in Woodstock, where he still lives.

On Peter Gabriel's first album, Tony met Robert Fripp, and in 1980, after having played on Fripp's solo album Exposure, he became a member of the '80s incarnation of King Crimson. The band has changed form a few times in the years since then, but Levin continues to be a member—having last toured with the band in 2008.

Mark Wingfield: The Gathering

Read "The Gathering" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
February 17, 2025

Mark Wingfield's The Gathering is not for the faint of heart or those who prefer their music neatly categorized. This is not background music--it is a sonic assault course demanding your full attention. Wingfield, a British guitar hero who clearly enjoys pushing boundaries, has assembled a supergroup of instrumentalists who seem to be having as much fun defying expectations as creating them. Gary Husband, a musical chameleon who switches from delicate piano to thunderous drums in the blink of an ...

Liner Notes

Quartet Diminished: Deerand

by Mark Sullivan
December 15, 2024

Deerand is a Persian term which means “duration" of instrument's tones. Quartet Diminished was established in Iran in 2013 by guitarist Ehsan Sadigh. This is their fourth album, following Station Three (Hermes Records, 2021). Their music is stylistically diverse, drawing freely from contemporary jazz, art rock, and avant-garde music. The membership has been relatively stable. Sadigh (electric guitar) has had bandmates Soheil Peyghambar (woodwinds), Mazyar Younesi (piano, voice), and Rouzbeh Fadavi (drums) on most of the group's albums. ...

Radio & Podcasts

Usein Bekirov, Andrew Renfro, Jizue, The Aristocrats and David Preston

by Len Davis
September 13, 2024

New music from Ukranian pianist Usein Bekirov, New York drummer Andrew Renfro, Japanese band Jizue, and pianist Bill Laurence. Bassist Tony Levin, percussionist Gary Musznski, The Aristocrats, Polish band EABS, and London guitarist David Preston. Playlist Usein Bekirov “Breeze" from Freeway (TLSG Digital) 00:00 Andrew Renfro “Calls" from Primordial (Self Produced) 05:27 Jizue “Republic" from Lotus (Victor) 10:54 Bill Laurence “Ju Ju" from Rhodes MK 8 Sessions (Flint) 16:21 Tony Levin “Bringing It Down To The Bass" from ...

Album Review

Elton Dean: Elton Dean's Unlimited Saxophone Company

Read "Elton Dean's Unlimited Saxophone Company" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
June 2, 2024

A vitally important platform for apartheid-era expatriate South African musicians, Ogun Records was founded in London in 1973 by the bassist Harry Miller, then in self-exile from South Africa, and his wife, Hazel Miller. Chris McGregor, Dudu Pukwana, Mongezi Feza, Johnny Dyani and Louis Moholo were among those recording with Ogun in the 1970s under their own names or as members of bands such as Isipingo and McGregor's Brotherhood Of Breath. Alongside the South Africans, and often performing with them, ...

Album Review

Rachel Z: Sensual

Read "Sensual" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic

by Mike Jurkovic
March 28, 2024

Whatever her impetus--be it the loss of her parents or peans to a shared sense of hearth, home and heaven--pianist/composer Rachel Z's thirteenth full length album, Sensual, bares a sincere, hopeful humanity. Buoyed by a sense of survival, Sensual opens as if it were a letter, closing with the Foo Fighters' crotch-kick raise-the-roof-'n-rile-'em-up “These Days." Sensual pulls one in fast and fully with the keenly seductive opener, “Save My Soul." It dances. It stirs. Z, whose ...

Extended Analysis

A Supreme Love

by Duncan Heining
July 10, 2023

Alan Skidmore is one of the finest saxophonists to come out of the United Kingdom, Europe or indeed anywhere. In fact, it was hearing Skidmore's tenor solo on “Have You Heard?" from John Mayall's Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton (Decca, 1966) that encouraged a young Michael Brecker to take up the instrument. Skidmore had also served his apprenticeship with blues singer Alexis Kornerin the sixties and by the end of the decade was equally well-versed in the blues and in the ...

Album Review

John Taylor Sextet: Fragment

by Chris May
July 12, 2022

The not-for-profit Jazz In Britain label is one of the unsung heroes of British jazz. And if it is being sung, apologies, it deserves to be sung louder. While it is fitting that the musicians who make up London's new alternative jazz scene receive a massive shout out, the players who came before them, who paved the way for British jazz's current explosion, tend to get overlooked. Slowly, this is changing, and Jazz In Britain is in ...

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Recording

Willie Oteri's Jazz Gunn CD project w/ Tony Levin, Pat Mastelotto, Mike Keneally and more.

Source: All About Jazz
April 14, 2012

Willie Oteri?s Jazz Gunn CD project with Tony Levin, Pat Mastelotto, Mike Keneally and Ephriam Owen

2/15/02 . Contact Ronan Chris Murhphy 310-200-9010

Tracking for upcoming CD Willie Oteri's JAZZ GUNN, January 3 and 4, 2002

We just finished two wonderful days of tracking at Wire Recording in Austin with Producer Ronan Chris Murphy at the helm assisted by Todd Dillon. The great Tony Levin was on Bass and Pat Mastelotto on Drums plus a little help from Mr. Ephraim ...
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Recording

Tony Levin, David Torn and Alan White - Levin Torn White (2011)

Source: Something Else!
September 23, 2011

By Tom Johnson Something keeps pulling guitarist David Torn and bassist Tony Levin together. It's a partnership that blossomed with 1987's Cloud About Mercury, with drummer Bill Bruford and trumpeter Mark Isham, and, for what seemed like an eternity to fans, felt as if it might be a one-off project. In a way, it was. The two would return together in the late 1990s, along with Bruford, with Chris Botti taking Isham's place, this time as Bruford Levin Upper Extremities. ...
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Interview

Something Else! Interview: Rock Bassist Tony Levin

Source: Something Else!
September 22, 2011

The latest incarnation for bassist Tony Levin, best known for his work with King Crimson and Peter Gabriel, is as part of a fearless new trio album with guitarist David Torn and Yes drummer Alan White. Part prog, part free-form improvisational music, part noise rock, Levin Torn White brings in each of their familiar textures and sounds, yet sounds somehow completely new. Both White and Levin have ties back to John Lennon, with the drummer performing on Live Peace in ...
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118

Recording

Debut Album from Tony Levin, David Torn and Alan White

Source: JamBase
September 14, 2011

SENSATIONAL DEBUT FROM NEW TRIO OF VETERANS Some combinations are truly unique, a breed apart that stretches even known factors into interesting new spaces. This is absolutely the case with Levin Torn White, the debut collaboration of powerhouse, ultra-high-end players Tony Levin (bass, Chapman stick), David Torn (guitars, textural events) and Alan White (drums, percussion). The album, which arrives today on Lazy Bones Recordings, is a fearless rush that's a bit metallic, a bit avant-garde, a bit groovy, hell, a ...
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Music Industry