Stan Levey - The Alun Morgan Interview
Chapter 27. Stan Levey - The Alun Morgan Interview
Introduction © Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
“Like Max Roach, Levey was an essential figure in the progression and development of bebop. Unlike the swing music of the 1930s and ’40s, bebop was designed for listeners instead of dancers. The tempos were often extremely fast, the harmonic progressions were more sophisticated, and the rhythmic feel was more “broken up” and less predictable. Listening to Levey on recordings, you hear a drummer who played for the musicians he accompanied. His approach to timekeeping was straight-ahead and uncluttered. His strengths were his articulate sound, his purposeful ideas, and the unique pulse that he provided in small and large ensemble settings.” - Steve Fidyk, Modern Drummer
The 52nd Street Bebop Years context that drummer Steve Fidyk references in the opening quotation was largely unknown to most Jazz fans on the West Coast, especially after Stan Levey joined the California-based Stan Kenton Orchestra and then left it to become the resident drummer in Howard Rumsey’s Lighthouse All-Stars in Hermosa Beach, CA from circa 1954-1959.
But if you listen closely to Stan’s style of drumming, you can hear that it was different from the more laid back approach favored by Shelly Manne, Mel Lewis and Frankie Capp.
Stan played on-top-of-the-beat and pushed it very aggressively in a manner favored by the early Bebop drummers. He was especially adept at playing the lightning fast tempos favored by some of the beboppers - especially Dizzy Gillespie - with whom Stan had a very close relationship.
This lack of awareness by West Coast Jazz fans of his involvement in the rich heritage of the early years of modern Jazz was always something of a disappointment to Stan.
I’ve been looking for this interview for some time and thanks to a friend in England, I now have a copy to share with you.
Alun Morgan conducted it with Stan Levey during the drummer’s 1961 stay in London as part of a quartet backing singer Peggy Lee appearance at The Pigalle Club, a supper club and music venue in Piccadilly, St. James’ in the West End.
It was first published in the September 1961 edition of Jazz Monthly.
Born in Wales in 1928, Alun Morgan became a Jazz fan as a teenager and was an early devotee of the bebop movement. In the 1950s he began contributing articles to Melody Maker, Jazz Journal, Jazz Monthly, and Gramophone and for twenty years, beginning in 1969, he wrote a regular column for a local newspaper in Kent. From 1954 onward he contributed to BBC programs on Jazz, authored and co-authored books on modern Jazz and Jazz in England and wrote over 2,500 liner notes for Jazz recordings.
His writing style is succinct, accurate and easy to read and understand. Based in the UK Alun uses English spelling.
© Copyright ® Alun Morgan, copyright protected; all rights reserved, the author claims no right of copyright usage.
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