Jazzanova is a new recording I’m very pleased to have been a part of. Written and produced by Lonie Levister, Jazzanova is, in the composer’s words,
a warm, mellow, creatively excellent combination of Jazz, Bossa Nova, and Blues created and engineered to soothe the ear and calm the soul, with a new Birth Of The Cool.”
Click here to hear a track from Jazzanova: Lower 9th Ward Lowdown Blues (A Song for Katrina)
Background on Lonie
For years now I’ve been involved in an off-and-on way with various projects put together by composer Lonie Levister. I first met Lonie in around 1992 or ‘93, when I was recommended to him for his Jazz/Opera fusion piece called Blues in the Subway. Lonie was looking for a new tenor player to replace Clifford Jordan, who had been the last saxophonist involved with the production. Stepping into a giant like Clifford’s shoes was intimidating to say the least, and the job wasn’t made any easier by Lonie’s tongue-in-cheek-but-no-I’m-serious admonition to “play it perfectly the first time.” We had the usual next-to-no rehearsal and the budget was thin, so he was pushing for the best he could get. We completed a demo recording and staged several performances with the goal of drumming up some backing for a full run. The longer run never materialized, but I spent some more time with Lonie. As I got to know him a little better I learned that he’d been around the music scene for decades, and had been on hand for some of New York City’s golden years back in the 1950’s. He’d known Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, and other household name jazz musicians. He’d rubbed elbows with Leonard Bernstein, and been praised by the likes of Gil Evans. Here’s a photo of Lonie back in those halcyon days:
As you can see, the man had his thing together. His press kit includes the following endorsements:
“Lonie Levister is unmistakably gifted.” — Leonard Bernstein
“Alonzo Levister is one of the most passionate and most important composers this country has ever produced. The celebrated – and essentially artificial – war between music known as classical and the music known as jazz does not occur in his work…” — James Baldwin
“Lonie Levister is a bitch!” –Miles Davis
Lonie ’s background and training are from the ‘classical’ side of things. He told me a story about Miles that shows how precise he is in his conception. He once brought Miles some music, and after looking over the charts, which were written out so that the finest detail was notated, Miles said in his trademark gravelly voice, “you sure are thorough with your shit, ain’t ya?” Over the years Lonie has regaled me with stories about his experiences with various well-known musicians, such as the time Mingus threw one of his famous tantrums in Lonie’s direction at the Café Bohemia, or how it came to be that John Coltrane recorded one of his original songs for his classic album Traneing In. Lonie had already met Coltrane previously; it seems Trane was on his way to the studio when Lonie ran into him on the street. Wanting to lay down original music rather than standards, Trane asked Lonie if he had anything ready to record. Lonie wrote out the lead sheet to “Slow Dance” for him, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Fast Forward
A couple of years ago Lonie approached me with the idea for a recording session. After years of hustling to get funding for his theater projects, he’d decided the time was nigh to put together a CD with an eye towards accessibility. He wanted to make a record that would reach people, ála Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On, and he’d written a series of songs meant to be recorded together as a kind of concept album. He wanted me to be involved as an instrumentalist and as a possible copyist. This was to be a self-produced project, so the money was light, to say the least. But let me back up a moment. Over the years I’d been part of various performances on stage with Lonie, as well as various studio recordings. He at times had been very difficult to work with, so I wasn’t sure about doing another project with him. He is extremely demanding and when he hears something he doesn’t want he’s very clear about it; the problem is that he is not always clear about what he does want, or he wants you to play through various options until he finds what he’s looking for. This can be very frustrating for the instrumentalist, as what’s on the page, though clearly notated, does not always turn out to be what he wants in the end, and he at times expresses his opinions in a, shall we say, brusque manner. Add to that a shoestring budget and you’ve got a situation it’s easy to say no to. So when he asked me to be involved in Jazzanova, I had some qualms. See, I’ve known Lonie long enough to know that he has survived into his 80’s on his own terms by being uncompromising, both artistically and in his views of the world. I said he’s in his 80’s, but to look at him you wouldn’t know it; he could be 60. He still has an iron handshake and the mind of a 20-year old. He’s as pure as they come; he is truly convinced that to be a better human being, to be a person of integrity, is the most important thing in life. Here’s a personal manifesto, originally from the late 60’s, that can be found on his web site:
After twenty years of writing every kind of music, including symphonic, opera, musical, jazz, and commerical jingles, I came to believe that becoming a person I could like and respect was more important than achieving fame and fortune. Now I feel in a position to seek some degree of artistic success. Hopefully now, I’m wise enough to not have success kill me like it did so many people I’ve known or known of.”
Lonie is extremely motivated; he’s still out there hustling, trying to make it happen for himself. Trumpeter/Arranger/Publisher Don Sickler, who administers the rights to “Slow Dance” as well as other Levister compositions, once told me that one of the things that impressed him about Lonie was that he was an old school hustler, something Don felt he didn’t see much in younger musicians.
So due to past experiences I was feeling a little tense about working closely with Lonie again. I wanted to help him and I knew that his stuff was high-level and needed to be heard but I dreaded watching him shoot himself in the foot yet again by alienating the people he’d be working with through overly-demanding perfectionism. So I told him I’d be involved, but that he had to let me hire the musicians, had to let me interact with the musicians, had to let me run the session in the studio. Basically I took on the role of designated straw boss. I felt it was the only way the project could be successfully realized. He agreed and to my surprise was as anxious as I was to avoid any tension between us. And that’s another quality that I like about Lonie; he continues to evolve as a human being and is not the kind of person who says, “take me or leave me, I’m not going to change.”
He’s irascible and cantankerous at times:
but his heart’s really in the right place.
I have to say Lonie really surprised me throughout the Jazzanova sessions. He was just as determined and demanding when it came to getting the sounds he wanted on tape (or hard disk, in this case), but he was also invariably warm and funny with the musicians and the studio engineer, and repeatedly expressed his appreciation of what we were doing for him. As the sessions went on and he got to know the musicians my role as straw boss became unnecessary; he knew what he was doing and trusted that he was going to get the best performances out of all of us. And the results speak for themselves. Here’s what Lonie has to say about Jazzanova:
I’ve written a lot of music – Jazz, Classical, and Musicals, but I don’t know if I will ever do anything as perfect as this again. The writing, arranging, the performances of the players, the engineering and mixing, and a lot of luck, all came together. It really is perfect. Let me know if you agree, or not.”
My intention going into this recording was to help Lonie to see this through, to take a vision and help make the best possible reality out of it. And the fact that Lonie is so satisfied with the results tells me that I reached that goal. I’m proud to have been a part of Jazzanova.
