Howard Levy (born July 31, 1951) is an American musician. A keyboardist and

virtuoso A virtuoso (from Italian ''virtuoso'', or ; Late Latin ''virtuosus''; Latin ''virtus''; 'virtue', 'excellence' or 'skill') is an individual who possesses outstanding talent and technical ability in a particular art or field such as fine arts, ...

harmonica The harmonica, also known as a French harp or mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used worldwide in many musical genres, notably in blues, American folk music, classical music, jazz, country, and rock. The many types of harmonica incl ...

player, he "has been realistically presented as one of the most important and radical harmonica innovators of the twentieth century." In 1988, Levy was a founding member of

Béla Fleck and the Flecktones Béla Fleck and the Flecktones is an American jazz fusion band that is known for its eclectic style and instrumentation, combining jazz Musical improvisation, improvisation with progressive bluegrass, Rock music, rock, Classical music, classical ...

, with whom he won a 1997 Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance for the song "The Sinister Minister". He also won a Grammy for Best Instrumental Composition in 2012 for "Life in Eleven", a song written with Béla Fleck for the Flecktones' album ''Rocket Science'' (2011). He has worked with Arab-fusion musician Rabih Abou-Khalil, Latin jazz saxophonist Paquito D'Rivera,

Donald Fagen Donald Jay Fagen (born January 10, 1948) is an American singer-songwriter and musician who is the co-founder, lead singer, co-songwriter, and keyboardist of the rock band Steely Dan, formed in the early 1970s with musical partner Walter Becker ...

, and

Paul Simon Paul Frederic Simon (born October 13, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter known for his solo work and his collaborations with Art Garfunkel. He and Garfunkel, whom he met in elementary school in 1953, came to prominence in the 1960s as Sim ...

Career

Levy was born in

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

, New York, and attended the

Manhattan School of Music The Manhattan School of Music (MSM) is a private music conservatory A music school is an educational institution specialized in the study, training, and research of music. Such an institution can also be known as a school of music, music a ...

, where he studied piano and

pipe organ The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurised air (called ''wind'') through the organ pipes selected from a Musical keyboard, keyboard. Because each pipe produces a single tone and pitch, the pipes are provide ...

. For two years, he went to Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and participated in the jazz band. He is the Harmonica Lessons instructor for ArtistWorks.

Harmonica innovator

Levy plays in many genres: jazz, classical, rock, folk, Latin, blues, country, and world music. He drew attention for his

chromatic Diatonic and chromatic are terms in music theory that are used to characterize scales. The terms are also applied to musical instruments, intervals, chords, notes, musical styles, and kinds of harmony. They are very often used as a pair, es ...

playing style on a regular diatonic

. He discovered the overblow and overdraw techniques for chromatic playing in 1970. These allow a harmonica player to obtain all the missing chromatic notes in the Richter-tuned diatonic harmonica. In 1995, he performed the "Harmonia Mundi Suite for Harmonica and Chamber Ensemble" in Chicago. He composed a concerto for harmonica in 2001 and performed it with orchestras in the U.S. and Europe.

Forming groups

In 1988, Levy co-founded

. He won a Grammy for Pop Instrumental for the song "The Sinister Minister". He left the band in 1992. Levy toured with

Kenny Loggins Kenneth Clark "Kenny" Loggins (born January 7, 1948) is an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist. His early songs were recorded with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band in 1970, which led to seven albums recorded with Jim Messina (musician), Jim Mess ...

and appeared on his album ''Outside from the Redwoods''. Levy returned to the Flecktones in 2011, touring and recording the album '' Rocket Science'' (2011). In the 1990s Levy founded Trio Globo with Eugene Friesen and Glen Velez. He leads another band, Acoustic Express and is music director of the Latin jazz group Chévere de Chicago. He is the founder of Balkan Samba Records. The roster includes Chévere de Chicago, Alberto Mizrahi and Trio Globo, Fox Fehling, and Norman Savitt.

Touring and recording with others

Levy has toured or recorded with

, John Prine, Ben Sidran,

Bob Gibson Robert Gibson (November 9, 1935October 2, 2020), nicknamed "Gibby" and "Hoot", was an American baseball pitcher in Major League Baseball who played his entire career for the St. Louis Cardinals from 1959 to 1975. Known for his fiercely competi ...

, Bobby McFerrin, Bryan Bowers, Chris Siebold,

Chuck Mangione Charles Frank Mangione ( ; born November 29, 1940) is an American flugelhorn player, trumpeter and composer. He came to prominence as a member of Art Blakey's band in the 1960s, and later co-led the Jazz Brothers with his brother, Gap Mangione, ...

, Claudio Roditi, David Bromberg, Styx,

Dennis DeYoung Dennis DeYoung (born February 18, 1947) is an American singer, songwriter and keyboardist. He was a founding member of the rock band Styx and served as its primary lead vocalist and keyboardist from 1972 until 1999. DeYoung was the band's most ...

Dolly Parton Dolly Rebecca Parton (born January 19, 1946) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, actress, and philanthropist, known primarily as a country music, country musician. After achieving success as a songwriter for others, Parton's debut album ...

, Holly Cole,

Jerry Butler Jerry Butler Jr. (December 8, 1939 – February 20, 2025) was an American soul singer-songwriter, producer, musician, and politician. He was the original lead singer of the R&B vocal group the Impressions, who were inducted into the Rock and ...

, Mark Nauseef, Miroslav Tadic, Paquito D'Rivera,

Pete Seeger Peter Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014) was an American singer, songwriter, musician, and social activist. He was a fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s and had a string of hit records in the early 1950s as a member of The Weav ...

Steve Goodman Steven Benjamin Goodman (July 25, 1948 – September 20, 1984) was an American folk and country singer-songwriter from Chicago. He wrote the song " City of New Orleans", which was recorded by artists including Arlo Guthrie, John Denver, The ...

Terry Callier Terrence Orlando "Terry" Callier (May 24, 1945 – October 27, 2012) was an American soul music, soul, Folk music, folk and jazz guitarist and singer-songwriter. Life and career Callier was born in the North Side of Chicago, Illinois, and was ...

, and

Tom Paxton Thomas Richard Paxton (born October 31, 1937) is an American folk singer-songwriter whose career spans more than sixty years. In 2009, Paxton received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Gear

Levy favors an equal temperament tuning and plays harmonicas customized by Joe Filisko.

Discography

As leader or co-leader * ''Carnival of Souls'' (Silver Wave, 1995) * ''The Old Country'' (M.A., 1996) * '' The Stranger's Hand'' ( Tone Center, 1999) with Jerry Goodman, Oteil Burbridge, and Steve Smith * ''Cappuccino'' with Fox Fehling ( Balkan Samba, 2004) * ''Secret Dream'' (Balkan Samba, 2005) * ''Howard Levy & Paul Sprawl'' (Balkan Samba, 2005) * ''Time Capsules'' (Balkan Samba, 2009) * ''Tonight and Tomorrow'' (

CD Baby CD Baby, Inc. is a Portland, Oregon based online distributor of independent music. The company was described as an "anti-label" by its parent company's Chief Operating Officer Tracy Maddux. It was established in 1998 and offered distribution fo ...

/Chicago Sessions, 2009) * ''Silver & Black'' ( Enja, 2009) * ''Concerto for Diatonic Harmonica & Orchestra'' (Balkan Samba, 2010) * ''Alone and Together'' (Balkan Samba, 2010) * ''Steering by the Stars'' (Stonecutter, 2010) * ''Out of the Box'' (Balkan Samba, 2012) * ''Matzah to Menorah'' (Balkan Samba, 2012) * ''First Takes'' (Balkan Samba, 2014) * ''Tango and Jazz'' (Balkan Samba, 2016) * ''Art + Adrenaline'' with Chris Siebold (Balkan Samba, 2018) With

* ''

'' (1990) * '' Flight of the Cosmic Hippo'' (1991) * '' UFO Tofu'' (1992) * ''

Live Art Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...

'' (1996) * '' Rocket Science'' (2011) With Rabih Abou-Khalil *'' The Sultan's Picnic'' (Enja, 1994) *'' Odd Times'' (Enja, 1997) With Samo Salamon *''Peaks of Light'' (Samo Records, 2018)

Awards and honors

* Joseph Jefferson Award, Best Original Music for a Play (1986) * Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental, "The Sinister Minister", Béla Fleck and the Flecktones (1997) * Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Composition, "Life in Eleven" (2012)

References

External links

Official website

{{DEFAULTSORT:Levy, Howard 1951 births American harmonica players Béla Fleck and the Flecktones members Grammy Award winners Jazz harmonica players Jewish American rock musicians Living people Musicians from Brooklyn 20th-century American keyboardists