Stan Levey has died

[J.A.W.]

I just heard on the radio that drummer/photographer Stan Levey has died. I couldn't find a confirmation yet, but if it's true, it's very sad news.

Edit: I heard the news on KKJZ jazz radio.

Edited April 20, 2005 by J.A.W.

[sidewinder]

Man, this is turning out to be a day of sad news. Very sorry to hear this - I heard Stan reminisce once about his bebop days in NYC and it was truly fascinating. He came across as a most formidable guy. RIP Stan..

[tonym]

Oh dear. Not a good day.

Regards to all that knew him.

[Dan Gould]

Too late for him to see the proceeds, but I've got to order that DVD of his.

[garthsj]

Indeed a sad day for jazz .. another of my boyhood jazz heroes has gone .... I still listen often to all of those great "west coast" jazz albums that were fueled by Stan Levey's drums ...

[Stereojack]

Oh man, what a terrible day. NHOP and now Stan Levey. Just last week I was listening to "This Time the Drum's On Me" in the car and marvelling at Stan's beautiful playing!

[Free For All]

A favorite Stan Levey date......

This Time The Drum's On Me

W/Dexter Gordon, Frank Rosolino, Conte Candoli, Lou Levy and Leroy Vinnegar.

Excellent hard bop.

[Brad]

A great gentleman of jazz has died. RIP.

[TheMusicalMarine]

Damn, RIP Stan the Man.

[sidewinder]

The vinyl of 'Gerry Mulligan Meets the Sax Giants Vol 2' on Verve is just going on the deck. That one has some of my favourite Stan Levey.

[Jazz Kat]

Oh my god. I couldn't even read the other posts. This is horrible! Stan Levey was brilliant. Rest in peace.

[gslade]

[J.A.W.]

A favorite Stan Levey date......

This Time The Drum's On Me

W/Dexter Gordon, Frank Rosolino, Conte Candoli, Lou Levy and Leroy Vinnegar.

Excellent hard bop.

This one isn't bad either:

and Grand Stan on Bethlehem is a nice album as well (couldn't find a picture of that one)

Edited April 20, 2005 by J.A.W.

[sheldonm]

Man, what a day RIP

[Big Al]

No kidding!

I don't own much Levey, but what I do have--the Stan Getz West Coast Sessions and The Arrival of Victor Feldman--I enjoy the heck out of 'em! Man, did he SWING!

RIP

[couw]

drats!

[White Lightning]

RIP

This is my favorite album by him:

[catesta]

More sad news.

RIP, Stan.

[brownie]

Another sad news!

He did not record much these past years unfortunately. When he did record he was among the very best.

Check the Victor Feldman trio date 'The Arrival' on Contemporary with Scott LaFaro. Levey was a master!

And an excellent photographer too:

[king ubu]

oh no! this is sad!

ubu

[Jazz Kat]

Don't own hardly any Levey, so I can't play him, but he was a great lefty drummer.

[Fran]

I guess next to Kenny Clarke Stan was the original Bop drummer. On some of the earliest Parker sides,

[White Lightning]

From Chris Levey, Stan's son:

For those of you who haven`t heard, Stan quietly passed away on Tuesday April 19, 2005. There will be a memorial service for him at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Burbank, Calif at 2:30 PM on Saturday April 23.

Everyone will then be invited back to the Levey house afterward. A deli buffet will be provided. The address is:

14585 Valley Vista Blvd.

Sherman Oaks, CA 91403

Maps will be provided at Forest Lawn giving directions to the Levey house.

For out of town visitors, the most practical hotel is the Marriott, about 1.5 miles from the house. The information is as below.

Don`t hesitate to contact me for any questions.

Thank you all for your support.

Chris Levey

(410) 770-9296

clevey4@juno.com

[garthsj]

This piece appears in today's The Independent.

Steve Voce

STAN LEVEY

Dizzy Gillespie was berated by his fellow black musicians in Philadelphia for having Stan Levey a white drummer, in his band. It was 1942 and Levey was only 16. “Show me a better black drummer and I’ll hire him,” said Gillespie.

Bebop was beginning and working for Gillespie meant that Levey was at the heart of it. He, Max Roach and Kenny Clarke were the first drummers to drive bands using the eccentric Bebop accents. Levey was entirely self-taught.

“That’s why I play left-handed, although I’m right-handed. It just felt easier that way.”

But it wasn’t just a question of being in the right place at the right time. Levey was one of the greatest of all drummers, who could grace a Charlie Parker Quintet as well as he could drive the massive Stan Kenton Orchestra.

He was possibly the most tasteful drummer ever and a prince amongst musicians. By the time he walked away from the music business he had played on countless albums, had been a key instrumentalist on the soundtracks of more than 300 films and had appeared on over 3,000 television shows.

Aside from his work in jazz groups, Levey was, from 1943, a successful heavyweight boxer who had boxed at Madison Square Gardens and had appeared on the same bill as Joe Louis.

“I carried on fighting until 1949 and I boxed a lot of very good fighters, who beat the crap out of me!”

He had worked regularly as an accompanist with Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday Barbra Streisand, Bobby Darin and many more. He also played in George Shearing’s Quintet.

“In the early Sixties I worked with Victor Feldman, one of my favourite musicians, backing Peggy Lee. She was a very nice lady, a great musician and a terrific singer. I also toured the world with Ella Fitzgerald. I toured Japan with Pat Boone, but I’d like to forget that.

Whilst working with Norman Granz’s Jazz at the Philharmonic group in the late Forties Levey was called back to New York to settle a legal matter. Granz refused to let him go and wouldn’t give him the back pay owed so that Levey could pay his rail fare. Levey knocked Granz out with a standard lamp, took the money and returned to New York. Never one to hold a grudge, Granz forgave him and Levey worked regularly for the promoter in later years.

Levey had driven the big bands of Kenton, Benny Goodman (“he never spoke to me”), Woody Herman, Billy May, Henry Mancini, Quincy Jones and others.

With Gillespie’s encouragement, Levey moved to New York when he was 17 in 1944. He met for the first time and was influenced by another drummer, Max Roach. Levey joined a small band led by Coleman Hawkins that included the young Thelonious Monk and made his first record, although he had tried to leave the studio from fright, with the formidable pianist Art Tatum. He also played for Ben Webster and on and off during 1945 with Woody Herman’s First Herd, where he was called in to replace the frequently indisposed Dave Tough. During that year he was also a member of Charlie Parker’s Quintet.

When Dizzy Gillespie was invited to take the first Bebop group from New York to play a season at Billy Berg’s club in Los Angeles, he chose Levey and Parker to go with him. Parker was already mentally ill from excessive drug and alcohol abuse.

They went by rail and on the coast to coast trip the steam train needed to stop in the desert for a couple of hours to refill its tanks with water. Idly looking out of the window Levey suddenly saw a naked Parker running off into the desert. He rushed to tell Gillespie.

“You go and get him,” said Gillespie.

“No, it’s your band,” retorted Levey.

“But you’re his friend,” said the ever crafty Gillespie.

Levey hared off into the desert and corralled the unfortunate Parker.

When the job was over Levey had to search Los Angeles to find Parker and give him his ticket for the flight back to New York. He was unable to find him and, whilst the rest of the band left, Parker subsequently set fire to his hotel and was incarcerated in the Camarillo mental hospital.

“It was a year before we saw him again in New York,” said Levey.

Levey returned to Philadelphia in 1951 where he led a quartet of future stars made up from tenorist Richie Kamuca, pianist Red Garland and bassist Nelson Boyd. They played on their own and accompanied any of the star singers that visited the city. Stan Kenton was impressed by the quartet when his band played there in 1952 and when he left he took Levey and Kamuca with him.

In many ways the drummer is the most important member of a big band. He must learn the band’s music and method and be able to move the whole band in the direction he wants. Stan Kenton used Levey to replace a weaker drummer and, with Zoot Sims, Lee Konitz and other stars in his ranks brought together what was arguably the finest band he ever had. It toured Europe in 1953 and boatloads of its British fans sailed to Dublin (the band was not allowed to play in Britain) for two inspired and historic concerts. One of the band’s appearances in Paris survived and Levey can be heard at his finest, driving the band to perfection.

Kenton subsequently broke the band up in 1954 after an appearance at the Shrine in Los Angeles. About to leave the city, Levey was called over the airport address system. The call was from Max Roach who was playing at the Lighthouse, a long-established Los Angeles jazz club. Roach was under contract but wanted to leave to form what became the classic quintet with trumpeter Clifford Brown. But the management wouldn’t let him break his contract unless he could find a drummer of similar calibre to replace him. Levey fitted the bill and joined the Lighthouse All Stars for the next five years.

He played at the club all night and worked in the studios during the day.

“Norman Granz used to book a studio for a week,” Levey told me during a broadcast, “and he’d sit me, Oscar Peterson, Herb Ellis and Ray Brown in there as the rhythm section. The he’d parade his soloists through – Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, Sonny Stitt, Stan Getz – and we’d record albums with them. By the end of the week you lost track of who you were accompanying.”

Levey’s last jobs in music were working on the film “Rosemary’s Baby”, which he hated, and composing and conducting the music for five one hour Disney documentaries.

He had been working part time as a photographer since the end of the Fifties, his work published in Harper’s Bazaar and other magazines. He now exploited his hobby and became a successful commercial and industrial photographer, taking many pictures that became the covers for albums by the musicians he had formerly played with.

“I cut out the drumming and I don’t miss it at all. I never played again. The music business changed and I went on to other things.”

Steve Voce

Stan Levey, drummer, photographer: born Philadelphia 5 April 1926; married Angel Neylan 1951, three sons; died Los Angeles 19 April 2005

[clinthopson]

Back in the 50's, I hung out at the Lighthouse and saw Stan Levey with the All-Stars many times. That band, with Stan, Pete Jolly or Stu Williamson, boss Howard Rumsey, Shorty Rogers, or Frank Rosolino, Bob Cooper,. Bud Shank, occasionally Bill Perkins and other West Coast stalwarts could ceate as much fun and excitement as any band I ever saw. I still time travel back to shose days at "the World's Oldest Jazz Club and Waterfront Dive."

Stan is a dynamo on "Mexican Passport."

Also check out "West Coast Jazz" led by Richie Kamuca and Bill Holman.